The Seeds that We Water

Over the past two days, I reflected on the question of war and our Christian response.

Personally, I am more and more aware that the seeds of anger, hate and violence are in every human heart… Those seeds have always been there… since the dawn of civilization… since Cain and Abel… And while you and I have very little influence over the geo-political situations like Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, we do have influence over whether or not we tend to those seeds in our own hearts.

There is no doubt those larger conflicts, the violence and brutality of those wars are born out the greed and grasping, hatred, and anger – long nurtured in the hearts of individuals. Those seeds when they are nurtured, have an insidious way of spreading to whole communities and even to nations… And the more it spreads, the more it builds, the harder it is to stop.

I’m also aware that we have come dangerously close in our own nation. Politically we are very divided. And the anger rhetoric and the hate have not much abated. And it raises the question for us, what seeds are we watering?

On the other side of this, I also think about the examples of people who did not nurture these seeds… people who instead nurtured the seeds of forgiveness, compassion, and love… I think about people like Nelson Mandela.

I think about Victor Frankel. He wrote about how those who survived the concentration camps without letting it tear out their souls, were those who managed to maintain a modicum of human compassion in the midst of the experience, those who managed to love and show concern even at times the prison guards themselves.

Closer to home, I think about a man I knew whose daughter was shot and killed by her own husband. And I remember how he refused to live with anger or bitterness in his heart. I think about the compassion you could see in his eyes, the generosity of his spirit, the faith and hope he held on to…

There is, no doubt, for much of the conflict in the larger world, there is not much we can do to make an impact. But we can pray – even for our enemies. And we can tend to our own souls. We can water the seeds of love, forgiveness, and compassion in our own lives.

Let us pray: Jesus, you are the Prince of Peace, and you have promised to one day bring peace on earth. May that peace begin right here, right now, in each of our hearts. Amen.