I’ve been looking for powerful words about war, specifically regarding the Israel-Hamas war, and I ran across a line from a prayer by John O’Donohue for “a new vision to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.” War has been around since the beginning. President Carter stated in 2019 that even the United States had only seen sixteen years of peace in its 242-year history.

The world hasn’t gotten the memo about a new vision.

Or has it? The last two chapters of the Bible talk about a New Jerusalem. It doesn’t say it’s limited to whoever wins this ongoing battle. It’s something totally Other. New heaven. New earth.

I’ve not been personally devastated by war. No one close to me died in Vietnam or the Gulf War. My dad served in Korea, close enough to hear the sounds of war, but he wasn’t in active combat. Yet we’re all haunted by war. And we all have our own wars to fight.

The only glimmer of hope I have is that Love will win in the end. I’m holding on to that with everything I’ve got.