Thoughts on War and Healing

It doesn’t take long to recognize the tragic cost of war on the lives of our nation’s soldiers, veterans and their families. High numbers of divorce, addiction, homelessness and sky rocketing suicide rates are strong indicators that those who serve our country continue to carry the burden long after leaving military service.

But how does war affect those of us who don’t serve, or don't have a loved one who's served. The cultural myth is that it doesn’t. Carefully calculated military regulations and censoring keeps it off our radar screens to the extent that it’s easy to imagine that many of us might go days or even weeks without a single conscious thought that our country is currently at war.

It’s easy for those of us who don’t serve to become oblivious to the agony of those who do. There’s no blame or shame in that statement, it’s just the natural way we protect ourselves from the intolerable truth.  The extreme horror and tragedy of war and what it does to people are unfathomable and literally heartbreaking, so we stay at a safe distance.

But does this self protection actually benefit us as a whole?

The growing divide between those who serve and those who don’t often leaves veterans feeling misunderstood, isolated and desperate. Evidence of this is that life becomes so intolerable that approximately 22 die by suicide each day, equating to about 1 every 65 minutes. Three times as many veterans who served during the Viet Nam war have died by suicide, than while in combat.

Many civilians, who truly want to understand and help don’t really know how or where to begin. No one teaches us and there’s no map for that anymore, so out of confusion and fear, we turn away and disconnect.

If one portion of our human family feels isolated and alone, and another part feels disconnected and helpless than we're divided and none of us are living whole and fulfilling lives. That’s a consequence of war, fragmentation and separation…. from ourselves, from our families and from our communities. Like a roadside bomb, war blows lives and relationships apart.

The myth buster here is that wars funded by our tax dollars and the sacrifice of our young people really belong to all of us, a collective karma. And what belongs to us, effects us, whether or not we realize or acknowledge it.  I imagine that if more of us allowed ourselves to know  the facts about what war does to people and to our planet, we'd see ourselves as a broken hearted nation and we'd do everything within our power to find peaceable solutions to conflict.

If we can allow ourselves to know and grieve the realites of war together, we can move toward becoming  a strong and united force for peace. But, that will require a commitment to personal introspection and to deep listening. It will mean a willingness to be vulnerable to the truth. It will mean sharing a burden which rightfully belongs to all of us. 

And it will mean healing.

With love and hope!
Paula