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Jess, that is an amazing piece of writing. Thank you. I could feel your search for meaning, balance and commonality (and even continuity) in your writing. These are “interesting times” and the outcome is not a forgone conclusion. My hope is that humanity’s heart can be changed at this fateful second. Your writing helps with that evolution.

-M

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Jess, thank you for this post and your unflinching willingness to look and see what's happening in Ukraine. I've been trying to look at it square on, but I end up taking little sips only, the way I would when trying to swallow a terribly bitter medicine. Thank you for wrestling so honestly about our inability to affect the outcome. Perhaps sending love and strength--as corny as that sounds--will really help.

One thing occurs to me: We can't know what the crew that dropped the bomb on the theatre believed they were doing. The Russian propaganda machine has churned out plenty of "evidence" that the Ukrainian government is being run by Nazis. And perhaps the crew members (it wasn't just the pilot, I imagine) had to choose between killing or being killed, or being tortured, or having their families imprisoned and perhaps killed. We can't know. All we can do is hold sacred space for everyone involved in and affected by this madness, and to pray that if there are ways for us to help, that we're given the vision to see it and a way to carry it out. Keep writing. Love, Jan

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