We were waiting at the bus stop in the Vieux Port when I turned around and the view caught my breath. It was already 8am but the sun hadn’t fully come up and the light from the sunrise made the white stone buildings and boat glow pink. A photo doesn’t really do justice to what the human eye takes in.
Even though the port was bustling with people setting out for school and work there was a calmness to the water, not even the clustered boats were bobbing much and the fishmongers hadn’t yet set up their stalls.
I was doing a mummy run for my young adult child, my softy who is building her confidence up slowly, incrementally. We were taking the bus to discover a whole new world of the journée de citoyenneté, the replacement for military service in France.
Looking at the gathering crowd of fellow bus travellers, I warned her saying It’s going to be a bun-fight to get on, don’t hang back. We made it on ok, counting the stops, averting faces from bags pushed too close and tiktok consumers obliviously watching and re-watching outloud their favourite clips.
We stopped by a lycée and a crowd spewed forth onto the pavement. Two stops later we saw the barbed wire rolling across the top of a high wall we knew we had arrived at the military barracks.
Hopping off I was struck by the surreality of the situation. Heavily armed, bullet-proof vested soldiers with big imposing guns guarded the barracks, high walls, high security, and at the end of the road, the view over the calm blue sea, the pink light on white buildings.
A picture of peace and beauty at the end of the road of war and violence.
My girl hung out with me at my bus stop while we waited for the call up. And then it came and she responded, following the crowd of young adults then lining up to have her bag searched and her crochet hook temporarily confiscated, labelled as a dangerous weapon amongst a pile of scissors.
My girl who has a heart for the environment, a pastoral heart that cries when her friends are in distress. My girl in amongst khaki camoflage and guns with bullets that rip into flesh.
I thought about the Bible College course I am doing this term on sin, the bent out of shapeness of every human being that has ever existed and of our desperate need for salvation and a perfect Saviour because we’re all just truly messed up right from the word go.
And I thought too about the course I did last term about how to make ethical decisions and what is our theology of war. Because whether or not they know it, everyone has a theology on just about any subject you can imagine and our theology or our beliefs about what God thinks of certain subjects, or if we even believe there is a God, determines our choices and our actions in life.
This week the theology of war touched my life in a personal way. It’s not some far of thing, it actually affects me and what I believe and what I do.
Am I pacifist, believing that non-violence is the only way to go? Or do I believe in protecting the innocent and the oppressed? And what does God think about these things? What would he have me do?
These are real decisions that are affecting leaders in governments today. In fact while we are living our cushioned sanitized lives, they have to deal with them constantly because this is not the first war they’ve had to make decisions on.
Where does the line between peace and justice exist? When do we help others and stand up for them and when do we stay out of it let them sort out their own problems? These are sticky issues for each of us in everyday life as well as in world politics.
As I ended the week, all these things are running through my head and increasingly we are touched by this war that is just three countries or so away.
Military planes are taking off from just down the road from our house, at my workplace in the regional government offices money is being donated and supplies being collected to send off in road convoys and this morning, a Ukranian student at my girl’s lycée has sent out an email asking for donation of supplies and people who can help temporarily house refugees.
On Friday night coming home from work I heard – or rather felt – God say – in all this rush to help, listen to me first before you act.
I think in this season there is so much news and half-information, there is so many things going on that now more than ever we need to have the discernment and the wisdom of God to be able to identify what he wants to do in a situation and then to pray that. I want to take action but I can see that it needs to be God’s action I take and not my own because I don’t have all the information.
I feel a holy caution in the atmosphere.
If we are to use the war analogy, I feel like we must be careful where we step because only God knows where the landmines are and ultimately he knows where to help us to place aid and help the quickest and the best.
Proverbs 2:6 says For the Lord grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding and then in James 1:5 it says If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will rebuke you for nothing.
About all this turmoil Jesus said there would be wars and rumours of wars but he also said I am leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift that the world cannot give. So do not be troubled or afraid.
Sending your lots of love from my couch to yours.
elevenpassports 
beautifully put Soph
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