!Excerpts from my priest's reply
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agk's diary
24 March 2022
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written on Pinebook Pro
at Kitchen table
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Dear Anna,
Grace to you and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord!
..thank you for writing to me on the subject of the
prayer for peace that begins each meeting of our
parish during the season of Lent. I am honored by
your thoughtfulness and the rich well of experience
that you draw from.... I join you in the spirit of
love and spaciousness with which you wrote to me....
[I misrepresented his sermon illustration. He corr-
ected me -Anna] My story was that I let her go to
the vigil because, as she cleverly pointed out to
me, she had *already been* to an Ash Wednesday ser-
vice at her Roman Catholic school.... I, like you,
feel strongly that our efforts for peace need to be
grounded in something other than simple, subjective
bias.... The Ash Wednesday service may well be the
perfect prelude to a peace rally in as much as it
might keep us grounded and humble---"remember that
you are dust and to dust you shall return."
[I wrote the parish "escalated" to a small group on
Ukraine and playing its national anthem] ...Our
theologian-in-residence regularly offers two week
reflections on current events.... He has a particular
perspective on this conflict as a religious war. I...
support him presenting his ideas for dialogue. I know
that he would be quite happy and interested to have
your voice in the conversation....
Our organist told me that she felt saddened by the
violence and asked if she could play the anthem. I
said, Let's look at the composer and the text....
The music as you may know was composed by a Christ-
ian priest who set the words of a patriotic poem to
song. The lyrics are pretty standard patriotic fare.
Images of freedom and the cost of it.... I can see
how playing the anthem can be seen as taking sides.
I accept that criticism....
I also feel moved to share with you what I have very
intentionally said in our prayer for peace each time
I have offered it. I call the Russians and Ukrainians
our *siblings* and Vladimir Putin our *brother*....
Those are two very important words to use and are an
expression of our belief that all people, no except-
ions, are beloved children of God....
I can understand fairly easily how brother Putin
feels provoked. I can easily accept that his world-
view is that this is a military operation to defend
the rights, well-being, and land of his country. As
a follower of Jesus my deep hope is for the violence
and killing to stop. Period. That is my prayer.
All the things that you wrote about our country
being a self-interested provocateur seem on point to
me. I don't much like it but self-interest is the
drive shaft of the modern stage of development out
of which our country and all modern nation states
were born. A piece of the gift side of the modern
epoch is democracy, and the disastrous shadow side
is violence and the degradation of the planet.
..I pray that brother Putin stops attacking Ukraine.
If Ukraine was attacking Russia I would pray that
they would stop too. I hear you saying that Ukraine
has waged violence on Russia in the past. Fair
enough. I join you in praying for "universal demilit-
arization." I also join you in the reality that
global balance of powers is incredibly complex and
nuanced.
It's a tricky thing (and quite an adventure too!) to
pray in public knee-deep in the context of current
events. Every moment of life carries such marvelous
complexity, subtlety, and nuance. One little turn of
the prism reveals a totally different perspective.
When George Floyd was murdered I got some pushback
on my sermons and prayers for him from folks who
pointed to his past as an excuse for his treatment
by police. I prayed for George and the police offic-
ers too. No matter who the aggressor is, my prayer
is that the aggressive, killing actions will stop.
In the moral framework of the Sermon on the Mount
provocation and past misdeeds are not acceptable
reasons to wage violence.
I try to always pray for peace. What you are point-
ing out helpfully is that sometimes it will look
like I/we am taking sides.... I get my words wrong
a lot. I can misunderstand and be misunderstood...
but at the end of the day I stand with you for peace
in the face of violence, compassion in the face of
suffering, and understanding and patience in the
face of complexity.
..if all life, every leaf and lizard, every moment
and molecule, every body is precious and a part of
the beloved creation of God, then no matter what the
provocation I am against killing.... We should say
that to brother Biden, brother Bush, sister Clinton,
sister Albright, brother Obama, and anyone else who
seeks to wage war. I do think a reasonable self-
defense is called for in many cases, but even that
must be wrestled with in my view.
Your letter helped me in two concrete ways. One, I
read it several times in order to try to digest and
learn from the geo-political and historical details
you presented. I learned from you, and...spent some
time seeking out diverse perspectives on the con-
flict/war.... My heart and mind have grown larger as
a result.
The second thing your letter helped remind me of is
very personal.... I recently had a very strong reac-
tion to something someone in my life said. When I
got your letter and found that you misheard my story
I was humbled to realize that it was very possible
that I had misheard the person to whom I was react-
ing....
I pray that we continue to engage in conversations
like these....
