Losing Faith
Let us return for a moment to the preparations for the funeral of the victims of the attack on the air raid shelter. I cannot recall the exact number, but there were more than thirty of them. Many of the parts that had belonged to them could not be identified and as there was a severe shortage of manpower available, it was decided they should be buried in a mass grave. My father was one of the few able-bodied men in our street who had survived the war and he also had that rare privilege of being at home. Every man who was still capable of lifting a shovel toiled until they had dug a big enough hole. I imagine these men must also have had the gruesome task of retrieving the mortal remains of the victims. As far as we children were concerned, the adults must have been so busy with their own grief that no-one explained anything to us about the disappearance of those who had left this before us.
During the time it took digging the grave, my sister and I each day had to bring my father his lunch. The only thing I remember very keenly about those days is that they were bright and sunny with clear blue skies and the birds singing their little hearts out. Nature’s brilliance and beauty somehow made the whole scene even more painful and sad. Those of the adults who still believed in God and were capable of thinking and feeling anything except fear must surely have asked themselves: ‘If there is a God in Heaven, why does He allow most of our children’s playmates and their mothers to go to such an early grave and in such a cruel and meaningless way? If He really were a fair and loving God, as promised by the Scriptures, where is His justice and His love?’ Is it any wonder that so many – including my parents – lost their faith in God and the goodness of life in those days?
All of this was exacerbated by the fact that no-one – least of all we children – could begin to grasp the reasons behind the things that were happening all around us, even in our small town and street at the backend of nowhere. Events of this nature are too monstrous for the comprehension of human adult, never mind their children. That must have been the reason why no-one ever attempted to explain to us what was happening around us and why our world was falling to pieces. How can you put into words that which is unfathomable and you do not understand yourself? How do you explain to your offspring the lunacy of all warmongering, when ordinary folks – like you and me – throughout our world just want to get on with living in peace and providing their children with a better future in a world that is free from strife?
There must be many like me, who to this day are struggling to come to terms with and healing the memories of the events of those days. Yet, I imagine that when human beings get caught up in any kind of war, be it as children or adults, when the outcome of the conflict finally comes, their collective and individual souls are long past the threshold of understanding. In truth, all wars are the result of the common Karma of those who get involved in them. Suffering together is their predestined fate for their present lifetime, so that the events and the suffering that had to be endured can teach them and their world some vital lessons.
What a pity that for such a long time humankind was not allowed to know that even the wars of our world always serve a higher teaching purpose. In accordance with God’s great plan of life, these things we and our world were only meant to find out when the time for it was right. And so, the only comfort we had in the olden days was that all things and happenings in our world are of a constantly changing and passing nature. God was the only constant that forever had been and would be. But what kind of a God is it who allows the atrocities of our world to happen?
God is not, as many believe to this day, somewhere ‘out there’, it is the small still voice of conscience that knows the way of all things. God is the Divine spark that at least in seedform is contained in all human hearts and souls. For aeons it has been waiting to come alive and be born in the kindness and goodness we, each one of us, God’s children of the Earth show towards each other. It’s the love of God that sees to it that Karma is not something that is set in concrete and meant to last forever. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is why every new lifetime presents all of us with many opportunities for doing better and for resolving any outstanding issues we left behind in past lifetimes and have brought with us into this one.
Meanwhile, in the darkness of its ignorance of its own true nature, the human soul struggles on. Sadly, to this day far too many still have to deal with war situations in their every day lives, maybe the only way of doing so is by psychically closing off and stumbling through each day as best one knows how to. When one cannot change the events, one has to accept them as facts of life and turn towards counting one’s blessings. In spite of lacking all spiritual awareness, that is what I did in those days and still do. After all, we were alive when millions had perished. Our immediate family was still intact, although its wider circle had been cleared of all men capable of carrying a gun – except my father.
Also, we had a fair-sized garden and he was such a wonderful gardener that it saved us from the worst during the near-starvation years 1945/1948. The war created millions of homeless and displaced people, while we still had our house and it was undamaged. As the end approached, ever more refugees came flooding into the western part of Germany, trying to get away from the Russian troops, advancing from the East. The stories told by the survivors made your hair stand on end! To me, one of the worst possible fates that can befall human beings is homelessness, physically and spiritually. All my work aims to relieve both.
From the time World War Two was at its height until its official end, when we all had to drink the bitter cup of the lessons wars intend to teach our world, come some of the finest examples of White Eagle’s teachings – see the ‘Books/Further Reading’ section. Between January 1943 and July 1945, as the lights on the outside of life went out over large parts of our globe, much light in the form of spiritual wisdom entered on the inner level.
Regrettably, even when the war was finally over, for many the worst was yet to come in the form of the post-war years 1945/48. This undoubtedly increased the constantly rising numbers of souls who during these times lost all faith that a Saviour and Redeemer would ever come to their rescue. Yet, it is in keeping with spiritual law that some great new understanding comes to each soul and that of our world after having waded through the depths of suffering and pain.
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This article is a chapter from ‘War And Peace Between Nations.
If it has whetted your appetite to read more, please follow the link below:
‘War And Peace Between Nations’
