peace

this weekend we went on a battlefields tour. there have been so many battles over the land i am living on now- the zulus' named it land of heaven when they first got here and everyone after them had a similar opinion and were willing to kill to get it. it was really great to get off campus and do something different for a weekend and we had a ton of riding in the van time which i love. there is space for thinking when driving that is hard to find anywhere else.
all the wars we learned about happened well over a hundred years ago but being there and seeing the monuments and standing where you know men have died is a much different experience then reading about it in a book. and for most of it my heart was breaking a little for the futility of the exercise. nothing was gained in any of the battles we talked about and read accounts of. people just died.
at the final site this morning, on top of a mountain where the british were massacred, we sat in silence and looked out over the valley. being sunday there was church in session below us and a wind picked up the voices of the congregation and whispered their songs to me. praise the Lord for the promise of redemption and peace. we need peace.