Feeling Their Pain in the Ukraine

Compassion is feeling the pain of others
and acting to end their distress.
Faithfulness is standing by those we love, those we serve,
and what we believe.
Mercy is showing compassion to the enemy, the wrongdoer,
​or those over whom one has power.

Our March virtues have special resonance in March 2022.  What do compassion, faithfulness, and mercy mean when a small, free nation suffers an unprovoked invasion by its aggressor neighbor? The world watches in horror as Ukrainian civilians flee Russian bombs, missiles, and tanks. Rockets level not only centuries-old municipal buildings but opera houses and concert halls. They strike a maternity clinic, the Holocaust Memorial, orphanages, and schools. Women and children separate from husbands and fathers who remain to defend their homeland.  More than a million refugees surge across Ukraine’s borders as their cities fall, and a forty-mile enemy military caravan snakes toward their capital. 

What do we teach our children as our hearts are breaking? First, we should not ignore this moment in history.  We should speak with our young students about dictators and thugs who use their power to enslave others. Assuring them that we ourselves are not in peril at this moment, we should reflect that there are those who regard compassion and mercy as weaknesses. Students in Core Knowledge schools or in classical schools, students who study history, realize that this theme (conquest, tyranny) is not new.  They have met Rameses II, Qin Shi Huang Di, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Adolph Hitler, and Josef Stalin. And there are many more.

Many adults in the post-World War II West have come to regard international peace as our right and the norm, but the last eighty years have been a fortunate historical anomaly.  History teaches that there are always dictators among us. When unchecked, they re-emerge to teach us that freedom isn’t free. Oppression characterizes history more often than liberty. So go ahead: get out a map and talk to students about this moment when liberty is in peril.  It’s a lesson worth teaching the young.

But how do we channel and allay children’s (and our own) fear and helplessness in the face of international affairs few of us control?  If you are a person or a school of faith, the indisputable first answer is prayer.  But for any person or school, part of the answer is in figuring out how – in their adult life and in the present—they can become helpers.

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That’s not easy or quick but here are some ideas.  Children should be encouraged to study history and especially the biographies of those who stood up to the bullies.  In May, our Heroes page spotlighted the biographies of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the trans-Atlantic team who orchestrated the defeat of Nazism and one of the world’s worst tyrannies.  Or study the work of Irena Sendler. Or the life of Nelson Mandela.  And what about David and Goliath? Send children the message that history can go either way; that by preparing themselves to lead lives of compassion, courage, and principle, they will be prepared to stand up to the bullies who inevitably come their way.

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To the extent that children themselves want to become helpers, encourage responsible ways to assist.  Children in one school in Maryland are writing letters to children in a sister school in the western Ukraine, electronic letters of support, assuring them of their friendship and sympathy, telling them about their days, sending their thoughts and prayers.  They are offering a branch of compassion and friendship and normalcy in a time of chaos.

Point out to kids that acts of great evil, cruelty, and harm, often elicit the best from others: new depths of compassion and mercy.  One thinks of the American experience of 9-11, and all those who raced to assist. (See our September 9-11 Heroes.) Right now, Poland has opened its borders to nearly 800,000 refugees, and not passively.  Tens of thousands of volunteers from around that country and the world – people who did not know each other before March 1-- have come to that border to assist. And they can use our assistance.

If a school wishes to raise funds to help the 400,000 endangered children, international relief efforts are mobilizing.  Doctors Without Borders already has medical teams on the ground.  The UN World Food Program has organized for Ukrainian Emergency relief.  Caritas Ukraine, which is supported by Catholic Relief Services, and Save the Children are also on site already with medical supplies, food, water, and refugee support.  The appropriately named “Mercy Chefs” are sending food relief to Romanian and Polish border camps.

All these efforts will be make-shift and provisional, as we hope and pray for a miracle that saves the weaker nation from the stronger.  The international community is ultimately on the hook.  “Faithfulness is standing by those we love, those we serve, and what we believe.”  Will we? 

Mary Beth Klee

Since this blog was posted two weeks ago, more than three million refugees have fled Ukraine during an unabated Russian attack.​