My dear Friends
Sorry for the delay in blogging, but its been a busy month. We are at the start of the Jewish Festivals. We have just finished the New year, and are in the Ten Days of Penitence, leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when the Jewish community fasts and prays for personal healing and the healing of the world.
The Sudan has just taken a samll step towards Peace and it is to be commended and encouraged. It wants to reduce its military personnel and take all the disabled and others out of the military and into other employment. This was featured as a news item in the middle of the night on BBC Radio Four's World Service. The Western interviewer asked if they wouldn't be reluctant to leave their military career, and who would fight in their place? The man from the Sudan said that they could always train up their young people, who would also feel that they had a job.
It struck me, sleepy and all that I was in the middle of the night, that the questions were arrogant and patronising.We in the West are behind military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and surely we must find a way to make peace. The question of whether a war is just is a difficult and complex one, but we must pursue it and questions of can we justify war for the greater good in all circles, religious and secular.
The laying down of weapons for universal peace is prophesied in the Bible in the Book of Isaiah Chap 2, verses 2-4 and also at the beginning of the Book of Micah. I have another reflection which I will share with you another day, but in the meantime I continue to sing, humbly in the tradition of Bob Dylan, Woodie Guthrie and many others for Peace.
'Yes, an how many times will the cannonballs fly, before they're forever banned?
The answer, my Friend, is blowin in the wind, the answer is blowin in the wind.'
Shalom and Happy new Year
Sister Gila
Saturday 1 October 2011
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