War

Being the younger of three male siblings full of energy, I would always be at a disadvantage when in our childhood we would quarrel and fight over the foolish children’s issues. Knowing my limitations, I would always provoke my brothers and afterwards dissimulate my actions seeking refuge in my mother for them to be seen as the instigators.

My strategy rarely worked for most of the time my mom would know the true origin of our conflicts. She knew that those were natural childish disagreements and that we would learn to love each other. So to end the fights, my mom would make us hug each other for about 15 minutes which appeared to us as an eternity. But it worked.

In our days, with so much anger between countries, It would be very simplistic and naive to expect that their leaders would embrace each other for any period of time. Yes it is true that there are many differences between nations, but at the end we are all children of the same heavenly father and, different from the animals, we belong to the human family.

It is said that history teaches us that we don’t learn anything from it. And it is true, despite the wars only aggravating the issues that originate them, the world leaders continue to drive us to battle. We no longer live in the medieval times when things were only resolved by force. Humanity has evolved and in the 21st century it would be desirable for conflicts to be resolved through dialogue. 

It is difficult not to take sides as the warfare unfolds, but as Christians we must continue to disseminate Christ’s challenging idea to love our brothers and even our enemies as ourselves. May we show the world that our arms are not for punching but for embracing.

• How could the nation’s conflicts be solved?
• How do you face your own enemies?

(Jesus about the enemies, Matthew 5:43-45  /  Paul about the enemies, Romans 12:20-21)