But just for tonight I want to pause with this reminder:
Each is a life, a human in a network of relationship - sons and daughters, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, lovers and friends.
Not numbers.
The same is true of every Afghan or Iraqi life lost.
It's not a game. War is hell. They are not statistics. Not a single person who perishes is a statistic.
I post the military death toll for Iraq as the number changes. When I get a chance I cut and paste a bit more. I do not want that ever to be for me an automatic excercise.
Time after time faithful persons take the time to honor the fallen in the recurring diary at Daily Kos titled "IGTNT" (I got the news today). That is where I found these photos tonight. With each photo there is some background, some hint of the impact of their loss. Where they are from, which unit they served in, how they died, whom they leave behind.
From tonight's diary:
After a hundred years
Nobody knows the place, --
Agony, that enacted there,
Motionless as peace.
Weeds triumphant ranged,
Strangers strolled and spelled
At the lone orthography
Of the elder dead.
Winds of summer fields
Recollect the way, --
Instinct picking up the key
Dropped by memory.
- Emily Dickinson
...
Please remember these heroes and their loved ones in your thoughts and prayers tonight, and always. May the winds of summer fields help us recollect the way --
Here is the series of IGTNT diaries.
May they all rest in peace and rise in glory.
--the BB
6 comments:
It's not a game. These are real people with real lives, each and every one of them. War is hell. I hate this war.
Paul, thanks for what you do on your blog to call our attention to things of importance. Sometimes after I read, I am left speechless, so I don't leave a comment. That does not mean that I don't appreciate what you do.
Thanks, Mimi. I imagine folks are also often so appalled at what I post (not at me - though perhaps sometimes at me - but at what it going on, that words fail. I am sure bearing witness matters.
You do it too, and there are many times you hold something up that needs to be held up and I am more likely to comment in the humorous threads. Words just fail. I do appreciate your speaking out to.
Looking forward to our meet-up, whenever we manage it. I will be staying in River Ridge and working downtown on Tulane.
Amen and thank you, and may Godde and the people of Godde console their families,and continue to remind us, as you have, that these were not numbers.
My daughter lives in River Ridge. I tried to call you yesterday, just to test whether I had the right number programmed into my phone, but I got your voice message.
Paul, I am often appalled at what I read here, but not at you, never at you. Often I am appalled at myself, that I am not more vocal and more assertive at speaking out against the things our government is doing in our name, my name. It often seems so monumental that I hardly know where to begin. My talents seem to lie more down the path of social services--community outreach, deacon's pantry, dealing with members of our community who need financial assistance, or habitat projects, but I feel that to be silent is to give tacit consent and that weights heavily on my heart and soul.
Boocat, you are doing the important work that touches people's lives directly. Bless you for that. My gift is more in seeking greater awareness and bearing witness. Not so good at the concrete. Each of us has a role to play to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Creator. I look forward to posting more uplifting things or getting back to more meditative material.
I will be posting far less when working again.
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