Hi God,
Today is Hiroshima Day
We commemorate one of life’s great massacres.
We would hope our commemoration
would mean: “Never Again”
But relentlessly,
over the past 63 years,
the sabers have continued to rattle.
The sabers are rattling today.
Right-wing hate radio
would tell us that
“American lives were saved,
so the bombing was justified.”
Is that true?
In the end,
do only American lives matter?
Isn’t there another, a better way?
If so, can’t we learn this better way?
Didn’t Jesus try to show us a better way?
Why didn’t/don’t we listen?
My book said that Navajo legend tells,
“if you want to find evil,
look for people
who have more than they need
and whose kinfolk do not.”
Who are my kinfolk?
Is this question similar
to the one asked of Jesus:
“Who, then, is my neighbor?”
Wasn’t it the guy from Samaria,
the weird, unclean foreigner,
who was the neighbor in that story?
Isn’t Samaria sort of near Iraq?
At least closer to Iraq
than we are?
So I’m wondering,
if neighbors might be kind of like kinfolk.
Aren’t we supposed to believe
that we’re all your children.
Isn’t that what we’re taught in Sunday School?
If so, they we’re all kinfolk,
each one to each other.
If we’re all kinfolk,
how come we’re more than comfortable
and our kinfolk in Darfur are starving?
How come we’re more than comfortable
and our kinfolk in Hiroshima
died from the black rain
that caused massive radiation poisoning?
So my prayer is that
we learn to be more generous
to our neighbors,
who might just also be our kinfolk.
Also, God,
please have mercy on our souls
sinners though we clearly are.
Amen