War and Peace in Ukraine
Driving back from Mount Hood, I caught a glimpse of an eagle soaring over the firs, and I was back at my grandmother’s, my Mamaw’s, bedside. Recently, she’d hung a painting of a bald eagle emerging from the mist and trees. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. The image and words from Isaiah hung over the two of us as I held her hand and she slowly died. Back in Oregon, the unfamiliar seat of the rental car dug into my back. The steering wheel buzzed to warn me I was drifting out of my lane. The day before had been my Mamaw’s funeral and my wife, Amelia’s, Nana’s funeral.
I hope my heart will recover.
It’s been a time of conflicting feelings. The enormous firs were moss covered and gorgeous. At the same time, they weren’t the bone white sycamores that line the bottom of the hollows of Kentucky where my family was gathered. At the same time, I had a great time meeting Amelia’s cousins for the first time who had been stuck in Australia for the last two years. I tried to do justice to both joy and grief, but I’m not sure I ever made it to joy.
And while my life was consumed by two deaths, at the same time, I was watching thousands die as war consumed Ukraine. War has never been part of my family history. On Veterans Day and Memorial Day, I never had stories to tell of my family fighting in Europe or Asia. We’re Mennonites, and Mennonites take Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount at face value: But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. My heroes were my Mamaw and Papaw. When Papaw was drafted in the Korean War he performed alternative service in Mississippi, working as an orderly in a mental hospital. After the war, the two of them left their families in Lancaster Pennsylvania to plant a church deep in the hills of Kentucky. My heroes were pastors, not privates, martyrs instead of soldiers.
Yet watching the war in Ukraine, I feel nothing like what I imagine a Mennonite should feel. I want to fight. I want the United States to give away a sea of weapons, to deploy soldiers to the cities and fields of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky makes me want to follow him into battle, to feel the kick-back from a javelin missile leaving my shoulder and roaring with its payload towards a Russian tank. Their courage makes me want to be courageous. Their desire to be a part of the West makes me want to make America everything they hope it is. And I want my work to actually be used for defense. While this has been a time of especially sharp contradictions, my life is built around a single contradiction. My graduate research and my current work is all funded by the US Navy for the purposes of national defense. When I started my program, I didn’t expect to feel so torn between working for the Navy and being Mennonite. Yes, I am Mennonite by ethnicity and my grandparents spoke Pennsylvania Dutch and conscientiously objected from the wars of the 20th century, but I’d lived a basically normal white American life. I wear jeans and tee-shirts, get fast food, use electricity and smartphones. Moving out of Lancaster I realized I had more Mennonite traditions than I thought (apparently not every family sings acapella four-part harmonies for family get-togethers), but while I was growing up Mennonite wasn’t an identity I strongly claimed.
Working for the Navy and on a naval base forced me to engage with my heritage. Non-resistance wasn’t hypothetical any more. Building up the US capacity for resistance - violent resistance - was my job. And I hated it. I felt completely wrong sitting in on lectures about “completing the kill chain.” I was disgusted by the worldview that split the world into allies and adversaries. I could feel my forbearers turning in their graves as I stood and faced the flag for the daily performance of the National Anthem. Being a Navy contractor made me become Mennonite in belief as well as ethnicity. Over the last few years, I’ve made concrete steps to break away from the US Navy and its money. I resolved to live the Sermon on the Mount, to not resist the one who is evil.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine. It hasn’t caused a crisis of faith. I still completely trust in the Goodness and Love of God, despite all of the evil and hate. It’s been more of a crisis of ethics. I have faith, but I don’t know what to do with it. The Ukrainian people compel me to be courageous with a type of courage that calls me to sacrifice, take up arms, and defend a people who want to be free. I don’t think this urge for courage is wrong, but at the same time I can’t square it with Jesus. He didn’t join the Zealot freedom fighters during his lifetime. He didn’t use violence to resist the Roman occupation of Israel. He taught and lived for God and was killed, executed on a Roman cross.
Lent is the season of the church year leading to that execution. It is the season where we remember our own weaknesses, where we force ourselves to acknowledge that even when we’re trying our hardest we tend to screw up our lives, our relationships, our society, and our earth. Traditionally, this is observed by fasting, and the reading which begins Lent turns, like the Mennonites, to the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus teaches that when we fast it's not to impress others. Fasting is about us and our Father. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, … but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And while I want to give deference to Jesus, I often feel a tension between this teaching and the Lenten reading from Isaiah. Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? What do we do if ending oppression requires us to resist the one who is evil? Afterall, Ukraine doesn’t want my piety, they want my ammo. Am I trying to save my soul for heaven at the expense of others? Is my soul worth more than Ukrainian lives?
This year, I gave up fasting for Lent. The last three years, I fasted from dawn to dusk each of the forty days of Lent. When I fast, I get hungry, and when I get hungry, I get irritable in a way that I’m sure is unpleasant to be around. Maybe I should learn to overcome my hunger induced irritability, but why? Hunger is something that I’m imposing on myself. So out of love and for the sake of my wife and colleagues, I’ve stopped not eating. Why should they suffer so that I can feel like I’m achieving some spiritual success? My own spirituality shouldn’t be more important than the people around me.
And I worry that Mennonites, who often remove themselves completely from ordinary society, place their own purity before the needs of others. That’s why I find Mamaw and Papaw to be so heroic. They gave up home and comfort not for themselves (how many of us have left home for college or jobs?) or their own purification, but for the poor and hungry of eastern Kentucky. And Jesus never let storing up treasures in heaven get in the way of caring for people. In the Gospels, Jesus is often trying to get away to pray, but nevertheless, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion. And I’m not even sure if non-resistance to evil is prioritizing my spirituality over the needs of others or not. Violence has the tendency to spawn violence. The war in Ukraine is as small as it is because we all live in fear of nuclear escalation. A no-fly zone would lead to tactical nukes which would lead to nuking cities which would be our collective doom. Non-resistance breaks the escalation cycle. So maybe all we can give is solidarity. It may not end the oppression, but we can be with and care for and serve the oppressed, even die for them. It’s what God has done for me.
And I’m not sure what will happen in Ukraine, or what I should do, or what I can do, or some days even how to keep going, yet I am certain that Easter will come. Lent waits for Jesus’s death and it also waits for his resurrection. Even here, back in the North Country, the snow finally melts. The trail was filled with the din of returning Canada geese and redwing blackbirds. I saw a snake for the first time since the fall. The sun was glorious on my bare forearms, and nuthatches, who never forsook us even in the cold, sang their happy calls. I’m not sure how life will come to Ukraine, but for now I’ll happily pay more for gas. I’m not sure how my heart will recover from missing Mamaw’s funeral, but I know that Christ is with me and in me in solidarity with my pain, and in all the pain of each life and death on earth. And I know winter and death will not be the final word. It is almost spring; at last, it is almost spring. And I’ll pray for spring, for the Resurrection, to come into the world, and at the same time do what I can to be a part of it.
