The Cicatrix

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarred_tree#/media/File:Aboriginal_carved_trees,_photographed_by_Henry_King_(ca.1889_and_1894).jpg

For the last year I have watched in horror as humanity has inflicted one wound after another on the body of the earth and on certain segments of humanity.  The maps of Gaza are a hellscape. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/g-s1-27175/israel-hamas-war-gaza-map

I have reflected upon these wounds and prayed often about what can be done to heal them.  If healing is even possible.  As Quakers we believe in restorative justice and maybe that is the problem ... in the areas where war crimes are being committed there has never been a true reckoning of the parties; only force delivering oppression.  The wounds never heal.  

One thought I've had is about wounds that are bound up too early; they fester and open up again often worse than the original injury. 

Our political bodies have failed us.  By taking sides in conflicts they have caused extreme polarization.  In doing so they subvert the natural healing process of conflict and perpetuate it. Like the recent phrase by Robert Work, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, "de-escalation through escalation."  It is as if he tore a page out of 1984.  War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength.  The wound stays open.  Each wound inflicted is another insult that leads to another wound in a perpetual process of hurt, pain, and scarring.  

In the human body a scar closes a wound and then gradually disappears over time.  I cut my hand as a child when a horse I was leading spooked and slammed a barn door on my hand.  For many years that scar was a visible reminder of the pain, but also of what I did wrong.  Never lead a horse with a lead line wrapped around your hand.  It was a lesson.  And yet that cicatrix faded over time.  I can't even see it today.  My point is I had the injury, I felt the pain, I suffered and learned the lesson and now the scar has served its purpose and is gone.  

But is humanity learning?  Or do we just keep believing in the dark fairy tale that might makes right?  That somehow we can kill our problems out of existence.  That maybe genocide is the answer.  The question then arises "where does the genocide stop?"  Can any voice become a target of genocide? We could remember the words of Martin Niemöller

     "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
     Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
     Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
     Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
     —Martin Niemöller

If this is the case, we must come to understand that some wounds will never heal and that is a tragedy of untold proportions.  I fear that the emotional wounds of war may never heal because the post traumatic stress of those events are burned deeply into the psyche of those who experienced those disasters. The healing that might be available to the next generation is a life without fear of man made disasters. For that we must demand an end to war and remain steadfast in our faith.  Christ has given us an assignment to love.  We must be as fierce in the completion of that assignment as the warmongers are in adopting an ethos of destruction.  

It is the only way.  

In the end all wars end across a conference table.  How about we skip the carnage and just get to an agreement?  The sooner the better.  

~ Joseph Olejak