When a great storm arose on the sea and disciples of Jesus were afraid that the boat might sink, Jesus got up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: be quiet, be still. The sea calmed down.
Such a great power has faith in peace and a call to peace.
This story was told to us by the evangelist Mark.
Now, following the example of Jesus, I want to ask those who are preparing for eternal war, spending fortunes on weapons of murder:
“Do you still have no faith?”
Maybe you have lost your faith in indulging your superstitions?
What did the blind faith in the army give you?
The Kremlin tyrant thought that the army could conquer a country of free people in a matter of days, but his army cannot do so in years – and never will.
Many people hoped that the army would save them from foreign slavery, and now they are afraid to leave their homes, lest the army kidnap them into deadly slavery.
Being slaves to war is the worst kind of oppression, although, unfortunately, it is far from the only one.
Wherever you live on the common planet of all humans, arbitrary power constantly takes away a big part of your life and happiness, because sometimes you simply do not have the courage to say “No”.
It is not for nothing that the 1% of the richest are richer than 95% of all the people on the planet taken together.
Mostly, human family consists of poor people robbed of the riches of human nature, robbed of their freedom and happiness, robbed of fruits of their labor.
Such individuals like Putin, in order to live in golden palaces at the people’s expense, are ready to steal everything from people, including their lives, for the sake of their own comfort, and they restrain a little their predatory instincts only because they expect to benefit from enslaving people. They get not only into people’s pockets, but also into their heads, manipulating, making us agree to brutal robbery and bloodshed, so that people themselves come and sacrifice to these bloodthirsty idols everything that is most dear to them.
But there are always those few percent of people who are praying in silence, staying silent despite being brutally forced to say “yes” to lies, and then they stand courageously and say “No!” to injustice, loudly, so that everyone can hear and follow their example.
They say “No!” to all lies, to all wars.
And all the armies of the world are powerless before the power of faith.
Friends, we are attacked every day with fire, explosions, arbitrariness and lies. But Quakers never lose faith.
We ate a pound of salt together, but this is no reason to allow salt to eat us. Christ said: “Have salt in yourselves, and have peace among yourselves!”.
Today it may seem impossible for a lion and a calf to live in peace.
But there is a prophecy in the Book of Revelation that a lion and a calf will stand at the throne in the kingdom of Heaven.
Therefore, I think that with the heart of a lion and the humility of a calf, with steadfast faith, everything is possible.
Yurii Sheliazhenko