War is a time for courage

 “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”

    “War is a time for courage, isn’t it Dad?”     
    “Yes son, war is a time for courage.”
    “If a war comes Dad, don’t worry, I’ll go and fight” said the boy.
    “No son” replied his father. “I don’t want you to go and kill another man’s sons for my sake. A son means more to his father than you will ever know, until you have children yourself. I would rather you went to prison than became a killer. Why should you take the life of a man you don’t know, just because another man you don’t know, in London, says you should?”
    “But dad, if there's a draft, and I don’t go, people will call me a coward.”
    “Yes son, they will call you names to induce you to become a killer. They will try to persuade you to become a killer by saying ‘you’re fighting for our freedom’ and ‘you’re defending us from foreign aggression.’ The government and the country will tell you all sorts of deceptions to hide from you, and themselves, they’re actually telling you to kill another man’s sons - men made in the image of God, just like we are.”
    “I heard they send you to prison if you don’t go to war” said the boy.
    “Yes, that’s true.”
    “It doesn’t make sense” said the boy, “that they will take away your liberty, and make you a prisoner, because you won’t kill random strangers. In normal times the government would send people who gun down complete strangers to jail.”
    “Yes” said his father. “But war is not a normal time, and that is why war is a time for courage. Let us pray God that He gives it to us.”

    This story comes from conversations with a man I knew in Devon, whose father was imprisoned in Dartmoor in World War I, as a conscientious objector.