Thank you! So glad you are ok. Missed you on Twitter.

It seemed like a good idea - very Christian and (musically) very Austrian. Yet Russian “Christians” smugly refused. They didn’t want to hear anything Ukrainian.

I think of this story every time someone says “Russia got provoked”.

#StandWithUkraine

🇷🇺 delegation was headed by Bishop Ilarion Alfeyev, their chief diplomat, a known theologian, and a hobby composer. During the visit the Catholic Church had an idea: why not surprise the guest with rendition of one of his musical pieces performed by the choir of 🇺🇦 Greek Catholic Church in Vienna.
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Watching them, I wonder if each one charges into the assault thinking they’ll be the one to survive and get rich. But then our guys hit them, and the stats report: another five down, dead.”

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him!) gave an interesting take on human stupidity & greed: “The Day of Judgment won’t come until the Euphrates parts, revealing a mountain of gold. People will fight over it, & out of every hundred, 99 will die. Yet each will think: Maybe I’ll be the one to survive!

They come to take and devour our resources, to populate our land with themselves. While the swarm’s leaders try to explain why they attack & kill us, the lower ranks just want to enrich themselves by murdering & looting.

Their authorities gave them permission, so it’s fine. Without hesitation, they’d wear your dress and eat from your plate because their czar and church blessed it.

You came to kill our children to raise yours? Silence. Eyes down. But that’s the reality. They’d calmly kill us and our children, take our homes, sleep in our beds, even wear our clothes. They don’t see it as repulsive or wrong.

When I spoke to 🇷🇺 PoWs, they all said they wanted money from Putin’s regime to improve their financial situation. Not one mentioned ideological motives, belief in higher values, or a lofty goal. Just loans, debts, mortgages, poverty, the need to raise kids.

For what? What’s the motivation? What do they hope to gain?

My philosophical and theological training pushes my mind to make sense of why this conditional Homo erectus (because I can’t organically call them Homo sapiens, seeing no rationality in their actions) climbs over the corpses of their swarm to certain death, amid ruins resembling a Martian landscape.

My philosophical education stops me from seeing this routine through a mathematician’s eyes, simply noting: minus one, minus five, minus forty.

But with some insane persistence. The individual dissolves, becoming part of the swarm, where the death of a few doesn’t even register. I can’t explain why they keep coming, even knowing we’ll kill them.