Of War, Disability, and Our Souls

We want to thank Elizabeth Aquino for her attention to the story of Tomas Young whose worsening paralysis has led him to announce that he has chosen to die. War goes on long after the smoke has cleared. It enters the cells of our bodies, even the bodies of those who stayed home. War takes up residence in our food and turns up in what we say and what we do not say. All life appears cheapened and coarse. We stop paying attention to human dignity, redefining it as utility, waterboarding isn’t torture; the national security state doesn’t impinge our freedoms. The language of heartless approximations is easy. The devaluation of life is not easy. It means we have given up on people who look like us and those who don’t. We are all now like the poet Cesar Vallejo who wrote about tearing out his heart and putting it under his shoe. It doesn’t matter whether we believe in Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious” or we’re worshipful–we are more jaded and morally impoverished because of the Bush wars. We don’t need data though there’s plenty of it, the thousand plus shootings in the US following the carnage in Sandy Hook, the evidence of rising intolerance that leads to rape culture.

When journalists trumpet the announced suicide of a wounded and depressed veteran because the story exemplifies the heinous and excruciating domestic effects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, then they too become morally devalued. Those who keep silent or who turn the page are also reduced.

The only way out of this enervation of the soul is perhaps best described by Jesus:

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?” (Matthew 5:43-47 )