There were days when, as the mother of a young child, I knew I’d lost touch with my reality.  Kids can do that to you by arguing around the edges of well defined boundaries. As the toddler terrorist throws new versions of the truth into the mix, the boundary blurs beyond all definition until everyone is caught in a web of confusion which leads to tears all round. Pity the United Nation’s Ms Coomaraswamy trying to introduce her reality into discussions around 346 children killed by warring factions last year in Afghanistan.   131 by aerial strikes, 22 by Special Forces, 128 by anti-government elements and no-one’s too clear who’s responsible for the rest.

As the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy had access to the power brokers who all agreed they had to do better.  They thought a good start would be to follow directives designed to guard against civilian deaths, although no-one explained why they hadn’t followed them before.

This is the moment that we begin losing touch with reality.  When we entertain the idea that war can be managed so that the only people getting hurt are those who have signed up for it.   These kinds of mental gymnastics gave birth to the Just War theory and its many refinements.

Faced with children, and others, who become collateral damage in war we must surely acknowledge that they deserve a better reality than hollow promises to do better next time, no matter how well intentioned. Our Christian heritage, although littered with bloody conflict, has an earlier and more profound call to a pacifist perspective which has never been given much of a chance.  Seen as unworkable and unrealistic, the ideal of no war has been consistently undermined and its proponents exhausted by the struggle.

Doing something to help, as every parent knows, sometimes begins by sitting tight with a deeper truth until hostilities have at least died down and negotiations about the real issue can begin. Perhaps now is the time to sit tight with the deeper truth that will make us more vulnerable in the face of hostility but which has the power to change the nature of our reality.

Reflection
God beyond our knowing.  May we acknowledge our despair and inadequacy and start from there.

Related Reflections:

• We can do something
• Changing our reality
• News: Afghanistan: child deaths in conflict
• Scripture: His sun rises on all

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