Cup of water

A hundred years ago to this very day, Britain declared war on Germany and so stepped into the fire rapidly spreading across Europe. All the other great powers were already engaged: 'join us in hell'.

Both my grandfathers were in the war in East Africa, one of them, the pacifist, an ambulance driver. They gave me the medals and pins they were given after the war.

We're a century on, but looking at footage of the crowds on the streets of the cities of the time, I see familiar kinds of faces and expressions. The clothes of the civilians are a bit different, especially the fabrics, but not really very much. There are more trolleys on the streets (think Green line through Brookline), but no cars. No one is getting their  information standing alone looking at a smartphone; instead, crowds of hundreds are learning what's going on from people speaking in front of them. Otherwise, they could be people I've met. Knowing what we know, and they don't, the jerky movies footage is unspeakably poignant.

Every army went to war with the blessings of its nation's clergy. Enough time has passed for us to see that deity had no favorites in the struggle. One wonders then what God-in-love was doing throughout. Grieving, I think, in advance of the great grief that, even now, has not ceased to wrack, if not our hearts, at least our minds. The hospitality into government, for instance, that Austria-Hungary could have offered its various nationalities; the explorations Franz Joseph could have made into progressive rather than reactionary politics; the friendship that could have characterized the relationships of the various leaders (three of the monarchs in the same extended family), all might have prevented the disaster. Instead we have films of soldiers standing around their 'taught them a lesson' achievements.

Those people who made the war happen were not more blind or venal than we are, nor were those who thronged and cheered the soldiers marching to war. I've seen more times than I'm happy to remember the way war arouses something like a patriotic unanimity. War is where 2nd person practices are treated as civilians so often are--carelessly and scornfully. The humankind within which God-in-love seeks the arising of the beloved Other turns its mind to self-destruction, instead.

Yet there are instances of friendship, exploration, hospitality, even in the midst of horrors--not redeeming the suffering but reaffirming the project of God-in-love: inspiring individuals and groups to dare 2nd person encounters requiring and eliciting generosity, inquiry, and constancy. In those situations, even the gift of a cup of water is to get its reward.