I'm no soldier, but I'm back from war
I'm no soldier, but I'm back from war
I used to think I was made for the battlefield. Now, I'm not so sure.
I wonder if those older and wiser always knew.
The weariness I feel.
The long walk back from war.
Maybe they always knew I’d come return. Either empty-handed or empty-hearted. Perhaps they awaited my homecoming. Expectant. Or the very least, experienced, from the damage of war themselves.
Either way, I’m here now. I’m home. Making sense of what happened, and the world around me.
When I was young, people asked what I would do with my life. And I always had an answer, even if I didn’t, because who was I to waste the one life I had to live?
Growing up in the “Save the World” generation, the question wasn’t if you were going to war, but exactly what for. How were you going to use your life for battle? What would you do to change the tides?
Maybe you’d fight through science? Invention? Maybe the arts or design, finance or education? The battles didn’t always matter, but the war sure did. We were all hopeful. Heart-filled. Destined to make good of our talents as warfare waged on.
Unaware of my strengths or gifts yet, I arrived to college campus with a spring in my step and war cry on my heart. I knew I had to use this time strategically, so I maximized my schedule. To maximize my talents. To maximize a life my God (or some marching general) gave forth for me to conquer. I fought for good grades. And good time. And good standings. I wanted to use it up so I could get out of there and, you know, save the world.
Save it from what, exactly?
That changed week to week.
Save it from sin, for starters. That always emboldened me. If I wasn’t dying for my sins, it was surely my deity-like duty to get people to believe someone out there did. I busted my ass with guilt, guts, and gall to reveal to others my responsibility in their settlement of a heavenly home. I thought my future was in full-time missionary work. Selflessly, but sexily, working in the throes of some deeply needy country. No better way to save the world, I used to think.
But then my eyes opened to corruption. To more causes. I believed these were battles worth slaying, and I found myself wide awake to political, social, and socio-economic frustrations of the day. I noticed my faith-filled dreams now needed concrete resolutions, not only with spiritual battles to win, but now picket lines to inhabit and ideological wars to wage.
But my fight didn’t stop. It only shifted course. The war evolved as much as I did.
I warred with liars. With violents. With our systems, corporate, bodily, or otherwise. Some days it was culture. Some days it was climate. Some days, I awoke believing it was only my duty to fight for the sake of beauty, appalled at boring words and faceless art.
No matter what war I waged, I couldn’t let up. Because I was made on behalf of battle.
At least that’s what I was told.
That’s what I believed.
But now, I’m back home.
Body torn, lungs heavy. My legs weak as I saunter back up the foot paths to home. I’m confused. Tired. Tattered. And do I dare shared… ashamed?
Because I thought this was somehow the point. My one life to live, worth fighting for.
But perhaps I misheard: “This life was for fighting.”
Because could that really be true?
If that’s the case, I lie here twenty eight years into battle, worn from decay and destruction, without an ounce of victory or beautiful pride to behold. I wonder where my years went. Why I’m plagued with weight from causes I couldn’t conquer and conflict I could not climb.
I wonder if this war wasn’t mine to begin with. Or at the least, who I’d be if not caught in the crossfire.
What would I be doing? Be called to? Be capable of? Surely, there’s more to be made for, if not for war.
I wonder if those older and wiser always knew I’d come home, if they went to war, too. They knew youth and war cries only carried so far and they stomped the same foot paths as I did to find full lives again.
They learned to create. To craft. To lay down old weapons and pick up new and fresh (if forgotten) senses of self.
They returned home, like me.
They don’t ache for war. Or winning. Or deployment. They don’t spend time fighting, or training, or become insistent on action anymore.
They look to something different than fighting. Perhaps they’d call it flourishing.
They learned the war will surely stop one day, and when it does, will we know what to do? Will we know how to live without the importance of infantry? Do we know how to inhabit a home, without deploying or drilling? Do we know how to rest? To love? To create? And mend?
Or do we only know home on the battlefield? Apart from the trenches, have we really yet learned how to live?
I hope for my sake, and yours, there’s more to life than this. I hope for your sake and mine, weary warrior, the foot paths welcome you home.
Because those older and wiser always knew better.
Our hope was always back at home.