Sins of the fathers
Mar 22 2022
Exodus 20:5
”Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”
The lonely funeral of a young soldier in Ukraine
A 21-year-old Ukrainian soldier died on the third day of the war near Kherson, and was buried in Lviv. His body could not be transported home to his village near Sumy, because it is cut off from the outside world, due to Russian shelling. His parents and younger brothers could not attend the funeral, they are stuck at home, and the phone lines are cut. The only mourner attending his funeral was his friend from another unit.
Ukrainian mother seriously wounded while shielding baby from missile strike
A young mother was feeding her six-week-old baby, when a missile hit and sent glass and shrapnel flying across her room. She was wounded in the head and when her blood covered the baby, she thought the baby was hurt. Her husband had to tell her that she was hit and that the blood was hers; the baby was unharmed.
In Mariupol, children bear the brunt of Vladimir Putin's war
A boy, not yet three years old, in a hospital bed with shrapnel wounds in his belly.
In the bed next to him a 15-year-old girl, with her right leg amputated. She couldn't mentally handle what had happened, would not eat or drink for days, and had to be fed intravenously.
A six year old boy, with shrapnel in his skull, watched his mother burn to death in their car. Two days later he said 'dad buy me a new mum, I need someone to walk me to school'.
*****
Physical wounds will heal in time, but the psychological trauma will live with survivors for the rest of their lives. Their children and grandchildren will hear these stories, and the stories will become part of their family history, part of their inherited memory. Being a child of someone who has experienced war like this will affect you one way or another. You will carry the legacy of loss, trauma, and injustice with you.
… upon the children unto the third and fourth generation…
*****
On the other side, if you were one of those responsible for inflicting these deaths, injuries and injustices to other people, you will also be affected, and carry a burden with you for the rest of your life. And that burden will affect your children as well.
Stories of the horrors of war are biased, it is easier for victims to tell them, than for those who committed them. Telling the stories creates collective memories, not being able to tell them, creates collective voids, and voids will be filled with doubt, guilt, sadness, or anger.
… visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
*****
“Only the dead have seen the end of war”, but wars do not end when someone dies, they linger on, for generations.
There are no winners in wars.
