“How is it with your soul?”

This is always a helpful to ask of ourselves, to ask of each other, even – or maybe especially – when the answer is, “Honestly, my soul is troubled.” This question helps us to be honest about pain we’re carrying, and the delight, the grief, the gratitude, the guilt, the fulfillment … whatever it is, it is good honest to ourselves and to God.

“How is it with your soul?”

Now, we as human beings are social beings, as well as individuals. So I believe it’s important also to ask this question of our society, “How is it with our souls?” “How is our collective spiritual condition?”

For my part, this morning, I believe it’s important to raise the question – and fair warning, this may be intense for some, I’ll keep it more abstract, but take care of yourselves as you need to – I need to raise the question:

 How is it With Our Souls as a nation given the fact that we as a nation have been at war for 20 years? 20 years in Afghanistan, which now is getting a lot of attention again because of the chaotic and distressing end to U.S. operations there. Those are 20 years compounded by more than a decade in Iraq all told, with major operations in Libya and Syria, as well as other military actions in other places in North Africa, East Africa, and the Middle East.

So, how is it with our souls?

War has profound impacts on the soul, personally of course for all those who directly experience war, but also collectively for nations that are at war, whether or not most of us are buffered from the raw reality of it.

How is it with our souls? How is it with our relationship with God?

Some say that when we take up arms, we are doing God’s will. Some say that when we take up arms we are violating God’s will. Some say their experience of war has strengthened their faith in God. Some say their experience of war has caused them to lose all faith.

How is it with our souls?

For 20 years now, I have been actively wrestling with what my faith as a Jesus follower and my experience of God calls me to do and to be in a nation at war. In the course of that I’ve spent a lot of time – I hope in a helpful way – with military veterans, and with folks who have been civilians in the midst of war, and with folks who are the survivors of criminal violence. I’ve sought to listen deeply and to learn. I’ve also had the opportunity to study some of the psychology of war and violence and trauma, as well as study the Bible and theology, all with these questions of how God is at work in the midst of war, and what war means for the soul.

Now, I have not become an expert in any of this – or in anything at, really. But for what it’s worth, I want to share with you my current understanding. Whether this rings true for you or you disagree, I hope we can earnestly wrestle with these issues together.

When Moses received revelations from God on Sinai, he received among many things, the commandment “You shall not kill.” “You shall not kill.” This is a deep and abiding moral truth: every human soul holds within the image of God, and it’s not ours to smash or snuff that out.

So, it is wrong to kill another human being … and yet in this busted fallen old world sometimes that’s exactly what someone has to do. This is partly why know we know it’s a fallen world. There are times we have no good options and we have to take another’s life, or be prepared to. If someone is dead set on doing what is wrong and violating our right to live, it may be right for us to do what is wrong and take their life to save our own. It’s a fallen world.

There’s always a spiritual cost, though, whatever the reason, how justified or not, there’s always a spiritual cost, an injury to our relationship with God, with ourselves, with other people, an injury that requires the grace of God to mend.

Also, because there’s a violation, whatever the circumstances, whatever the justification, there easily are explosive consequences with violence, forces are unleashed that can take on a life of their own that can have their own seductiveness and their own vicious ways of reproducing themselves. Violence easily gets out of control, especially when it involves a lot of people.

Now, part of what all this means, is that when someone feels called to step up and serve in the armed forces to help protect and defend their people in this fallen world, they are taking on moral and spiritual risk, along with physical risk – and they are taking on these risks on behalf of the people they want to serve.

When we ask “How is it with our souls as a nation?”, we have to be honest that these moral and spiritual risks have indeed played out, in these 20 years of war, just like they always have.

So, looking at U.S. military action in Afghanistan, there are the noble purposes we see play out to protect and defend and to help reduce violence and poverty and inequality, but at the same time, we have to be honest that we’ve seen unleashed hate, cruelty, greed, corruption, deceit, negligence, recklessness, abuse.

The forces of war can never be fully tamed, and we have to reckon with our roles in that, as other nations and tribes need to reckon with theirs.

There’s an important idea called “moral injury.” This is from the theologian Rita Nakashima Brock who has done a lot of work with veterans. “Moral injury.” There can be a profound injury when someone finds they have done things that are against their own deeply held moral beliefs. Also, there can be moral injury when an authority you really respect and trust turns out to act against your shared moral principles, they betray those principles and that trust. That can cause a big spiritual crisis.

Moral injury happens a lot in war and through war. It’s important to name and work with moral injury in the healing journey of veterans. And I believe it’s important for us to name that this is what we as a nation are reckoning with, our collective moral injury.

So, how is it with our souls?

When she talks about moral injury, Dr. Brock talks about the process of soul repair. Soul repair involves honest expression of grief and genuine experiences of grace. Among other things, this is over simplifying, but this is the heart of it. Grief and grace, lamentation and love: all necessary for the journey of reuniting oneself with one’s soul and with God, when that relationship has been injured.

Grief and grace, lamentation and love, these just so happen to be central to God’s activity through this fallen world, according to the testimonies of our faith.

Jesus in the last week of his life, wept over Jerusalem, wept over his people – his friends and his enemies, “If only you recognized the things that make for peace.” We need to weep with Jesus. And we need to allow Jesus to weep over us.

And our grief needs to be paired with grace. Grace, the knowledge and experience that God never stops loving us. God’s love abides and abides and abides, despite anything we may do or leave undone. Our guilt is no match for God’s grace. Believe it or not, grace is true; grace is true whether you believe it or not, but it sure helps to allow ourselves to receive it and to allow ourselves to offer it, especially in the course of seeking to mend harm we have done.

So, how is it with your soul?

“heart in hand, sacred heart of jesus” by peregrine blue is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0