Veteran’s prayer for our soul
I am boldly calling forth the “better angels within us” to come help us to find the path forward into peace rather than war. As a veteran of the war in South Vietnam, I am terrified of the unspeakable horrors that can ostensively be done in the name of humanity, but in reality are in service of human egos and cultural pride”. There are millions of veterans today that suffer from the specter of such horrors born out apt a patriotic duty to force one side or the other in culture wars to submit to the authority of the other. I have known some Vietnam veterans who would fight their fellow humans again and again in a hopeless attempt to redeem themselves from the shadow of blame cast upon them by their broken culture during the Vietnam war. Ironically, most of the American soldiers sent to Vietnam were draftees and were only there because their culture demanded that they do their duty. I call that insanity.
We have been
keep
perspectives, we will go blindly into war with ourselves and
a nation.
Therefore, our only path into greater understanding of our divided culture seems to be to step outside of our cultural perspectives on reality - to find faith, hope, and love again. In the Sermon on the mount, Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in spirit” - which makes no sense in our divided culture - unless Jesus means that humility can reveal truth in the midst of hostility. if we can truly step outside of our own cultural perspective, we can see reality in a new light. We intuitively know that our cultural insanity will lead to some kind of self-destruction, unless we set aside our personal and cultural grievances. in the words of our most cherished prayer, we ask God to forgive us our trespasses - as we forgive those who trespass against us. Please consider how our own sins have led to our cultural divide We can still ask forgiveness and be saved from our own stubborn pride. Father forgive us - for we know not what we do!