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Opening Salvo in a Just War Debate! [message #509]

Tue, 06 March 2007 23:34

william
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Registered: January 2006

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There was a ten year old girl who lived on a farm with her farming family... she wrote:

Quote:

It was a clear day without a speck in the sky. I was playing house with my sisters upstairs.

Mother had gone to the field to get some eggplants. As she was going out, she told us: "Make a fire in the clay charcoal stove at eleven." But we were so excited that, even when the clock struck eleven times, none of us stood up. We were totally absorbed in playing.

Casually I looked up at the window. Just at that moment, there was a lightning-like flash.

"Oh--" I said. My body staggered. The next moment, I was pinned under the house. I could not move at all. The harder I tried to escape, the more pain I felt. I had to keep still and watch for my chance. Then I saw my two elder sisters outside. I was so glad.

In my joy I cried: "Help me! Help me!"

They immediately came running and tried to pull me out. But the latticed bamboo which supported the mud wall separated us. Pulled or pushed, it could not be removed.

My eldest sister encouraged me in a faltering voice: "Be patient, will you? Mother and Father will be back soon. I'll bring someone to help us. Understand?" She ran away.

A small portion of the outside world could be seen through the latticed bamboo. I stared at it with my eyes wide open, waiting for Mother and Father.

Some time later, my eldest sister came running with several sailors. I was rescued by their help.

Standing outside, I was astonished. Although it had been such a beautiful day, it was now a terrible day, with black clouds winding and wriggling all over the sky.

I tottered and tried to walk towards the air-raid shelter. Then a low cry came from under the house.

"Help me! --Somebody!"

It was the voice of my younger brother.

My eldest sister seemed to be the first one to notice his cry. She immediately went running to the spot and pulled him out after removing a lot of roof tiles.

Then, a baby's cry came from the opposite direction. It was the voice of my two-year-old sister, trapped by falling walls. I hurried to the spot and found her crying fiercely, her legs pinned under a huge beam.

Together with the sailors, we tried to remove it, but the beam would not move an inch. With pain in her squeezed legs, my sister was crying and wriggling, her arms floundering. What in the world should we do--?

The sailors began to give up.

"We cannot make it." Some of the neighbors came to ask for their help, and they went running away to the nearby crushed house to rescue other buried men. Only we children were left behind.

What in the world was Mother doing in the field? Please, please come back soon. Why didn't Father come back? My litter sister's legs would be torn off--. I was completely at a loss, and the only thing I could do was to look around on my tiptoes.

I saw someone dashing towards us in the distance. Disheveled hair. A woman. Looked naked. A purple colored body. She called to us in a loud voice.

Oh my!--It was Mother.

"Mother--" we cried. We felt so reassured.

Here and there, the houses began to flame up.

One of our neighbors appeared from nowhere, pulled the beam up with all his might and main, trying to remove it from across my sister's legs. But it remained as firm as a rock. He drew a deep breath of disappointment and said in a sincerely sorry tone: "I'm sorry but we must give up." He bowed and went away.

A blaze came up quite nearby. Mother's face went ashy pale. Father had not come back yet. Mother was looking down at my little sister. Tiny eyes looked up from below. Mother's eyes looked around, investigating the way the beams were piled up.

Then Mother got into an opening left beneath the beam and, placing her right shoulder under a portion of it, bit her lower lip tightly.

"Uhhhhh--"

She strained herself. Rattling sounds came out, and the beam was lifted a little. My little sister's legs were freed. My eldest sister quickly pulled her out. Mother came out with a leap and hugged her tightly to her breast.

After a while, as if we suddenly realized what had happened, we children burst out crying. At that, Mother squatted on the ground with an air of abstraction.

Then I realized for the first time how my mother looked. She had been hit by the blast as she was picking eggplants to feed us at lunch. She was almost naked. Her coat and trousers were burnt and torn to pieces. Her hair had turned to reddish-brown, and was shrunken and torn as if she had had too strong a permanent. She got burnt all over the body. Her skin was red and greasy. The skin of her right shoulder, the portion which bore and lifted the beam, was gone, revealing bare flesh, and scarlet blood which was constantly oozing out.

Mother fell exhausted on the ground. At that moment, Father ran staggering up to us. He had been seriously burned, too.

Mother began to feel pain. After groaning and struggling, she passed away that night.*

* The ten year old girl was named Michiko Ogino. She lived 1.5 kilometers from the hypocenter in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

From: Give Me Water: Testimonies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

I bring up this story to offer a sometimes forgotten aspect in the 'just war" debate.

It has been much in vogue to ask the question "What would Jesus do?", well, I for one would like to know what just-warriors think Jesus would do if He were sitting in the plane and had been ordered to open the hatch that contained the bomb? (Base the answer on His own teachings, please. It might help if you start by explaining why He would be in the plane in the first place.)

I find it fascinating that it seems obligatory to ask the pacifist what he would do if his wife were being raped, or if his children were being threatened, but let a pacifist bring up an "emotional" true to-fact-real situation, and the teeth are barred. (Hopefully not here! <grin> But it usually happens when the subject is broached!).

I find it equally fascinating that Christians are willing to dismiss whole portions of Scripture when it goes against a fleshly nature, or a nationalistic spirit. God forbid that anyone think that they were "chicken"... or worst--a lamb. These same folk, who would never normally think about bringing up an OT Scripture, nevertheless stumble over themselves in their haste to bring up God's war-like qualities in the OT.

Well what would Jesus do if someone challenged Him on His teachings? Well, I'll tell you what He did. He permitted Himself to be led to the slaughter. He permitted His own flock (wife and bride) to be scattered, martyred, killed with the sword, reviled. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise...

That is what Jesus did.

--William

I want to believe!

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