All Saints Day in Poland - 1 November 2024 - A Triumph of Humanity to be considered in the face of the murderous present - A Memory Recalled in a Time of Great Danger
This is a particularly significant, symbolic and resonant All Saints Day and All Souls Day, recumbent in the shadow of wars. I have found it so difficult to sleep in recent weeks and particularly last night. In Ukraine accurate reports are difficult to unearth, concealed for 'security reasons' but in the conflict sources indicate some 628,000 Russian soldiers have been killed so far and some 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers. In the Middle East there are even more terrible statistics concerning Palestinian civilians and now horrors in Lebanon. The knowledge of terrible statistics, the details of the depraved way of death (some 43,000 Palestinians have been killed, possibly 62,000 dead from starvation, mainly children). The flawed human consciousness of the sacred nature of life throws me into despair. Death and injury is barbarously forced upon thousands of blameless children. ( Conservative figures show that more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children have been killed in Gaza by the