2023
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The Rubble of War… Broken and Seen Buildings and Even More Broken and Unseen Souls
Walking the streets of war-torn cities during my trips to the north and east of Ukraine, and to the south, I could not stop noticing the contrast between the buildings reduced to rubble and those left standing untouched. What struck me hardest is how alike the rubble looks. A residential home, a place of worship,… Continue reading
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Unbroken Mission to Broken People: Extending Healing and Hope in the Face of War
#BeingHuman. The war in Ukraine has forced an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 people to undergo amputations, and more than 30,000 of them need a prosthetic device now, each having lost at least one limb. Those figures leave out everyone who has lost sight or hearing. Meanwhile russia has been attacking our healthcare system methodically, and… Continue reading
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We are not cynical; we have different sets of questions
#BeingHuman. We carry a different set of questions now, because a full-scale war has rewritten our frame of reference by force. Suffering and trauma do that to people, and everything this war keeps producing has done it to us, so that the way we see the world and our own place in it no longer… Continue reading
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Behind the Headlines: 580 Days of Unimaginable Ordeal [part 4]
#BeingHuman. Brutal honesty, part 4. A long read, and you may safely skip it. Behind the headlines: 580 days of an ordeal that is hard to imagine from outside. The people of Ukraine, civilians and soldiers, church ministers and theological educators, go on meeting death and destruction as a daily fact. Today is the 580th… Continue reading
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About theology inlaid with political propaganda
#BeingHuman. Theology has traditionally kept its distance from politics, and these days the boundary between them grows harder to find. I have in mind here something other than political theology, namely a theology inlaid with the political propaganda of the dehumanising ideology of the “Russian world.” It puts faithful theologians before a hard choice, since… Continue reading
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Нарікання чи довіра? «База» Виходу для України…
Україна бореться за свободу від “червоного терору”. Попри страждання і спокуси нарікати, Господь кличе нас до довіри. Його присутність всюди. Молімося, наближаймо перемогу та відродження. Тримаймося Бога – побачимо Його славу над вільною Україною. Пустеля тимчасова, Ханаан вічний. Continue reading
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Personal non-theological and non-spiritual chaotic reflections of a civilian on self-confrontation in the time of war… [part 3]
#BeingHuman. Brutal Honesty (part 3): personal, unsystematic reflections on self-confrontation in a time of war, offered without much theology and without much spirituality. The consequences of the war in Ukraine reach a long way and will keep shaping this region and the wider world, whether we take that into account or prefer to ignore it.… Continue reading
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Засудити зло, а не лише його наслідки
Дуже багато німців, які були проти війни, водночас нічого не мали проти нацистської та фашистської ідеологій, бо не розуміли й не хотіли розуміти простої речі: війна і є тим, у що такі ідеології зрештою виростають. Те саме бачу зараз і у своєму колишньому колі спілкування, де майже всі росіяни, за поодинокими винятками, відмовляються визнати звʼязок… Continue reading
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Grieving is not…. in the shadows of war…
War lays waste to the landscape of a country and to the landscape of a human life at the same time, leaving ruin and suffering behind it, the broken windows and roofs of our souls and, often enough, the walls as well. Grieving belongs to our existence on this silent planet rather than to the… Continue reading
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Brutal Honesty about Spiritual Life [part 2]
#BeingHuman. Brutal Honesty (part 2), about spiritual life. As I go on thinking about what this full-scale war is doing to me and to us, and letting you look inside through the broken windows of our souls, here is part two of my diary on brutal honesty: three temptations that meet a grown and more… Continue reading
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