Psalm 139

“I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.”
—Psalm 139:22

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We love the country. The quiet. The three cars that pass the house on the busy days. The Abrahamic wash of stars most nights: go count them, if you can. The afternoons, when our boys tumble into the kitchen looking for lunch, the scent of spring grass in their hair, their cheeks pink with the early warmth of the season. But what I love most is the frequent and powerful illusion that we have left the world and its wars behind.

Lunch is serious business. Washed and seated, the boys bow their heads and plow through: Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts. The younger boy dutifully tacks on his petitions: For those left behind, for the soldiers, for Zelensky, fora pause, blue eyes measuring the room— Which is a prayer for himself. In these weeks not quite far enough from the ruin that Russia brings, he clutches my leg as NATO jets roar over this village a couple of times each week. Flying low, suggesting that despite the relative lull, this war is only gaining steam. Something yet unseen claws at the bars of its cage.