No One Wins a War

They USA proudly states that it won WWII. Korea, too, although it seems that the no-man's zone and current situation would indicate that perhaps no one won. Vietnam? Well, that was considered a conflict, not a war, so there was no way to lose that. Iraq and Afghanistan, dunno what we consider them at the moment -- stomping grounds for chasing terrorists or purported terrorists or suspected terrorists? I sometimes get closer to these wars than I would like (or than might be healthy), and I keep meeting friends, not enemies.

As a veteran of the Cold War, I benefitted from Russia allowing me to finish my doctorate in Moscow when work obligations kept me from fulfilling the residency requirement in the USA. At my dissertation defense, I thanked the university, saying that twenty years earlier I had come to the USSR to lohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifok upon the face on the enemy with my own eyes but in twenty years had found only friends. After the Cold War, when providing some assistance to the Belarus Academy of Sciences, I had dinner with the vice president of one of the universities. He turned out to be my counterpart: he had been a Red Army officer, specializing in American order of battle, at the same time I had been a US Army officer, specializing in Soviet order of battle. Small world! Humbling experience! We became great friends.

Whether enemies are national or personal, we lose by not knowing them as they are but as we oppose them to ourselves. Somehow, in doing that, they become large and we become small. Somehow, in doing that, we lose our humanity. It is not a win-lose situation. It is a lose-lose situation.

Please join me in praying daily for our enemies near and far:
- that God bless them twice as much as God blesses us
- that they feel God's love twice as strongly as we do
-that God teach us to love them twice as much as we love ourselves.

Maybe, then, there would be no more wars to fight, nationally or personally.

Wishing you all a stress-free, friendly day!