FAREWELL TO BEIRUT

My youngest son called me tonight and asked me to read this, by Robert Fisk.

He didn't realize it, but his dad, The Sage, and I have seen Beirut, the "Paris of the Middle East," destroyed and rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt several times throughout our lives.

And it will happen again and again in the future. The cycles of violence will continue throughout the region, and the world. There is only one hope for change: that enough individuals will say, "Enough!" and insist that the pursuit of peace be considered at least an equal priority as defense, or war.

That is not going to happen because of governmental dictat, or legislation. It will only happen as a result of men's hearts changing.

The "alien" movies of my youth often had a common theme. Peoples from other planets would come to Earth to take over our planet after being persuaded that the peoples of the earth were about to destroy one another and the world because they couldn't learn to live peaceably with one another. Nothing has changed since then. Weapons of mass destruction continue to be developed and built, not just by rogue states or terrorist movements, but by the greatest national powers, including the U.S. The most powerful men and women in the world continue to find it wiser or more expedient to threaten and counter-threaten their enemies than to co-opt them and convert them to allies.

So I fancy, and so told my thoughtful son, that I really have no hope for the world other than that which my religion provides me -- the belief that if we won't change our ways ourselves and seek the path of peace rather than war, at some point God himself will act as the aliens in old space movies did and intervene at last, taking the choice from us and imposing a new divine world order.

But I am repelled by the wingnut Christianists who rejoice in the horrors we witness as signs presaging the "second coming" of Christ. I find it repulsive that any would find cause for celebration in the deaths of innocents. I am filled with despair at our lack of vision, humanity and courage that would cause us to turn from the failed policies of thousands of years and attempt something new, the very thing ordained by our Lord but ignored by those who profess to follow him: the pursuit of peace.

Tags: Middle East crisis