Sometimes this country feels like a ship passing through a storm, tossed about by the waves of history.
This has been a stormier than usual past few weeks, especially with the mounting violence in the Middle East. What I’m afraid of is that our ship is going in circles.
Poll numbers are creeping up in favor of sending troops back into Iraq. That is a sentence I never thought I would see again in my lifetime. Not in the aftermath of the last Iraq campaign, while we are still dealing with the human wreckage and suffering.
We can’t even agree on what to call the enemy. This whole thing has tragedy written all over it.
So I think it is time for the country to take a deep collective breath and really think about how we respond to these bloody provocations. I don’t fear war but I fear ill-advised wars, and we have had, like great superpowers before us, a penchant for those. And the consequences are brutal. Ask any soldier.
While we are taking that deep collective national breath it might be a good opportunity to say a prayer for guidance. Maybe it’s something we can all do this first weekend of Lent: Ask God to direct our course through these storms, wherever that course may lead.
