Long Live Freedom For Ukraine

Although I am half a world away from Ukraine, the war is never far from my mind. I pray for this living nightmare to end every day. And yet every day there is suffering and civilian bloodshed.

I feel helpless as a civilian, not because the war has pushed the price of gasoline to incredibly high levels, but because peace is still not in the cards for this beautiful, historic city.

What has history taught us, if we haven't learned from man's inhumanity to man? So many wars, so much persecution, and mankind seem to have taken one step towards sending civilians to space, and yet we are so far behind our treatment of our own people.

My friend correctly points out that this is the first time in our history that we are seeing war for the first time in real- time, thanks to social media and television. She says she continues a nightly ritual of watching the war with her husband on news channels, but I have taken to doing the opposite.

Watching the chaotic events causes me depression and I can only imagine what the residents of Ukraine are feeling right now, huddled in shelters and living precariously from minute to minute.

Why can't we give peace a chance? sang John Lennon.

All I know is that Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, is acting crazy, destroying an amazing country, for the sake of taking over the area for his political and financial benefit.

Although he is the leader of the largest country in the world in square miles and covering one-eighth of earth's inhabitable landmass, he is a thief and a mass murderer in my book.

He deserves to be put in the same category as other homicidal world leaders, like the Roman emperors, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and so on.

For now, I pray for senses to come back to world leaders and help to put an end to this misery on our far-away neighbor.

During the school year, I am at the playground breaking up fights among schoolchildren, and I also attempt to defuse and mediate disputes. I am successful most of the time.

What do we tell our kids who are privy to what is going on in the world, as they grow up? Are we saying it is ok for adults to fight and kill each other?

There is so much we don't know about our own human natures. We don't seem to have changed much, since the times of Jesus. Yet, the stakes are much higher today. Killer world leaders have the power of the nuclear weapon to take out cities and countries.

We are living in dangerous times. First COVID-19, which we are just overcoming slowly. Now we are being faced with the possibility of a larger world war, with nuclear weapons on the table.

I applaud the bravery and the courage of the Ukrainians, and the freedom fighters still in this country, fighting for their country and their democratic right not to be oppressed.

I also feel bad for the Russians, too --there are soldiers who are reported to say that if they do not fight they are threatened with death if they don't fight.

Am I naive to believe everyone wants happiness on earth --even despots? Perhaps the reason why there is aggression is based on fear and the need to control people, places

and things.

Whatever the reason, I believe the world has to help contribute to solving this issue, either by praying fervently or coming up with a solution or strategy that would help put an end for good to this Ukrainian-Russian war or put it another way, The People Vs Russia.