Each news bulletin is full of the latest from Ukraine. In church we’ve prayed for Ukraine. The current situation and the anticipated future is discussed in homes, cafés, and work-places across the country, across the world…
Random brief musings…
Foreigners… It’s easy to think that this situation is in a far-away country with far-away people. I distance myself. I need not concern myself with their problems…
Musing on the oft-repeated Old Testament instruction… ‘Care for the widows, orphans – and foreigners’ – those who are most vulnerable…
Football… I’m impressed with football’s response. Sanctions against Russia, Premiership teams showing genuine solidarity with and support for Ukrainian players.
Football has a voice… repeatedly ‘taking the knee’ in support of ‘Black Lives Matters’… Musing on my voice… speaking our boldly… appropriately… against injustice…
Fears… Yesterday… talking with Alison about her imminent cancer surgery… and Annie whose son smokes cannabis… very real fears.
Musing… ordinary Ukrainians and Russians… in a situation that’s out of their control… expressing their desperation and fears…
Fight or flight… The difficult choices that Ukrainians have to make… to stay and fight for their country or flee to protect their lives and their families…
I can be opinionated and judgemental when folk have ‘fight or flight’ decisions to make… the marriage going through difficulties, the child facing the playground bully… I should be more respectful, empathetic… I may not fully understand…
Family… In this morning’s paper… David Shaw, a local college lecturer is driving 1600 miles hoping to meet his wife Dana and mother-in-law Anna on the Ukraine-Poland border… Dana’s Ukrainian parents contracted Covid earlier this month… Dana went to be with them… her Father died…
Ordinary families are caught up in the conflict… deep, personal anxiety… children, the elderly…
Forgiveness… Musing on world leaders… my inadequate responses… lack of compassion, misplaced outspokenness, selfishness, judgementalism…
Musing on Jesus prayer: ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’… and Ralph McTell’s conclusion: ‘Father forgive them, and please forgive us too.’
malcolmsmusings.org 