“Angry guns
preach a gospel full of hate
Blood of the innocent
on their hands”
“Prayer of the Children” – Kurt Bestor
In the early 1990s, Kurt Bestor watched in horror as a land where he had lived 15 years prior, Yugoslavia, was torn into civil war. The pictures flowing across his television included horrific images of children killed or permanently scarred by war.
As a way to cope, grieve, and speak out during feelings of hopelessness, Bestor penned this song and intended only to have it heard by his family and close friends, but when filling a private two-hour concert, Bestor performed the piece, and the response was overwhelming. Later, talented arranger Andrea Klause got hold of the song, and she worked with Bestor to create a three-part a capella arrangement.
I had the opportunity to sing this song with South Dakota Honors Choir, and that experience likely skewed my ear to preferring the song performed by a men’s group.
The piece is incredibly moving as you hear the lyrics about children crying out to Jesus for peace, for love, and simply for one more day of life:
Crying, Jesus, help me
To feel the sun again upon my face,
For when darkness clears, I know you’re near,
Bringing peace again
On Saturday, Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against Iran. As Saturday is considered the first day of the week in Iran, many were at work, school, or in government offices when the strikes took place.
The strike on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was “successful,” killing the leader who had been in place since 1989. Khamenei was the second supreme leader of Iran since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 overthrew an established imperial monarch and replaced it with a republic, though the Supreme Leader was selected to hold a position higher than the president in Iran, which is the highest office that the people of Iran are able to vote into place.
Khamenei was a brutal leader, and his loss is not going to be mourned by many around the world, but the “Assembly of Experts” who appoint the next Supreme Leader are, in large part, of the same beliefs as Khamenei, so expecting much to change is hoping on a lot.
What the strikes and the ensuing responsive strikes by Iran brought was what we should all expect war to include – the deaths of innocents and of American servicemen.
The latter came primarily from the upper Midwest, as the first six soldiers killed in the conflict included one from Nebraska, one from Minnesota, and two from Iowa.
It’s the innocent deaths that have troubled my heart over the last week. Because of outdated data, a health center, an office building, and, most tragically, an elementary school, were hit on Saturday. The reports are still coming in, but more than 160 have been confirmed dead as of midweek as I write this. Many of them are young children, but there’s more than just that.
Following the Iranian Revolution, schooling was completely outlawed for women. Schooling restrictions have slowly been pulled back, but beginning with the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, women’s roles in the workplace have been significantly reduced in Iran, so even those young women who do complete their secondary education and move on to post-secondary education have difficulty finding work. Recent studies have reported that just 20-25 percent of women have been able to find work after a college education, compared with nearly three-quarters of men.
This elementary school was attacked on Saturday and was specifically a girls’ school, as education is often kept separated by sex in the country. Numbers continue to come in, but more than 100 of the dead in that strike were young women who went to school that morning to receive an education, hoping to be one of the rare women in the country to receive an education and find work once the education was completed.
Instead, more than one hundred small, energetic, and innocent voices went silent.
When decisions are made to take military action, whether it’s foreign or domestic, the full effect needs to be considered. It’s hard to believe such a strike comes from well-researched and well-executed strikes that took those effects into consideration.
Crying, Jesus, help us…
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