Editorial April 15, 1991 Issue

The love that reconciles people and nations

Ann Kenrick

Something has happened that wouldn't have seemed possible at one time: Germans have raised generous funds to buy food for their Russian neighbors. Reports indicate that this was the largest assistance program carried out in Germany since the Berlin Airlift that began in 1948, when several nations saved the city from economic collapse caused by a Soviet blockade.

Today throughout Germany, businesses and individual citizens are working together to offset Russian food shortages. Such humanitarian responses suggest something of what can be done in other parts of the world facing shortages.

Barriers between nations are being dismantled, and this demonstrates that trust and goodwill are able to replace hostility and years of distrust even in what appears to be the most intransigent situations. People's instinct for justice and their God-given ability to love break down seemingly insuperable walls that separate neighbors and divide nations. Aren't these divisions fundamentally mental, not physical, even though they sometimes seem set in concrete?

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

The love that reconciles people and nations

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access