I awoke this morning with great sadness in my heart at the suffering of the Ukrainian people. Innocents, having their lives upended or destroyed by greedy hateful men. And thinking of all of the others across this earth who suffer because of war. War is a scourge on humanity.
The Ukrainian people have a right to fight back; to defend themselves, their families, their fellow citizens. And, I don’t buy the arguments that NATO expansionism caused this war. Putin chose to slaughter innocents to feed his ambitions, and he, and the ones who support him, bear the responsibility for this violence. But I do think that it is a moment to contemplate our role in creating a peaceful world and how our actions, and the actions of our own country do or do not support peace.
If I have a wish for this time, it is that those who have power in this world can see more clearly that war is a loosing proposition for everyone, and that it is no longer acceptable to have nuclear weapons that madmen can use to hold the world hostage to threats of unimaginable slaughter of innocent people. So I offer up a few songs of peace as expressions of hope that something good will come after the killing stops, sons and daughters are buried, and madmen are tamed.
A Song of Peace
This song is a poem by the American Poet Lloyd Stone set to the music of the symphonic poem Finlandia by Finish composer Jean Sibelius. Finlandia was written during the Russian Occupation of Finland.
This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song
One Tin Soldier
A classic 60’s anti-war song
About One Tin Soldier
And finally...
Last Night I had the Strangest Dream
By Ed McCurdy, sung by the great Pete Seeger
Do you have some favorite songs of peace? Add them to the comments.