Walking Away: Boston Globe columnist Joan Wickersham's editorial (War Stories in Real Time) was never more on point then when I viewed "Sixty Minutes" last evening. I attach the link below if you did not happen to catch the segment. It was entitled "Operation Proper Exit" and speaks to her editorial loud and clear as to the divide between those who stay at home during war and those who fight the fight in its theater. The "Sixty Minutes" segment was such a moving and disturbing piece that someone who watched it with me had to walk out of the room before it ended.

I never walk away from seeing the reality of war and its atrocities both physical and emotional whether it is the crucible of D-Day, the ovens of Auschwitz, the obscenity of Hiroshima or the hell of Iraq. If I did not dare to see the unseeable I could not have formulated a left-of-center political philosophy and belief that war -- nearly all war -- in modernity is man's insanity at its worst to be avoided at all costs. We refuse to watch at our peril only to be immersed in the cesspools of that insanity again and again and again.

Here is the link if you did not view "Sixty Minutes" yesterday and you think you should.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387332n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

As many of you may know my partner’s mother suffers from Alzheimer’s. Although it is tragic to all, including the families of those afflicted with this insufferable disease, I believe it is particularly tragic where her mother is concerned because she was the most intellectually astute and artistically creative person I knew. She composed her own puppet theater for children, she knew the arts, and she was a thinker of many things true to her Unitarian Universalist tradition.

I was shown a poem written thirty years ago by her the thoughts of which not only reflect the essence of who she was before this onslaught of tragedy but also is a poem to which most – even the Doubting Thomases among us – can relate, have contemplated and at one time or another shared . It is entitled:

Prayer

We seek Thee, Lord.

Through the darkness of doubt and confusion,
We reach out to Thee,
Longing to know that Thou art surely there.

We seek help in times of trouble,
Strength in our weakness
And a deeper sense of purpose for our lives.

O Mysterious Power at the heart and center
of this universe,
All around us and within,
Yet silent, invisible, inscrutable,
Teach us how to know Thee.

In the silence, speak to us through the voice
of the human spirit,
In our alone-ness, touch us through the communion
of shared lives,
In Our despair, bring hope with the promise
of new tomorrows,
In our doubt, reassure with the law and order of this, Thy world.

So may we feel anew the wonderful miracle
of life
Which recompenses struggle and makes all
successes joyful.
So may we glimpse through the darkness the
light of Thy true presence
And grow, day by day, in our knowledge of Thee.

We seek Thee, Lord,
And, in seeking, find.

To that I say Amen!