We are all one people.

We are all members of the same tribe, connected to each other no less than tributaries that have branched off from the same river.

We are all born to a single family but raised in a world that believes in false divisions and the primacy of material wealth. Through lies passed from one generation to the next we believe in our own superiority and deny the innate worth and kinship of anyone we see as different.

We are all children of the same God. A God who, like any good parent, loves all Her children equally, denying none, blessing them all, embracing them equally as they return from their earthly battles to find eternal rest and solace.

We are all war’s victims. Though we stand as soldiers, or mothers and fathers of soldiers, we are as much diminished by the death of an unknown enemy as we are by one of our own. Remove the uniform of a dead soldier and there is no more enemy to be seen. Only a son who will never return to his family, a father who will never see his children grow up, a brother to all the others who have been slain in uniforms but buried in tears.

We are all traveling together. We have come to this lifetime, to this planet, to our separate places in the world to discover our oneness—and our uniqueness. And to live out our lives as best we can in fullness and peace. War plays no favorites. It kills those we love and those we’ll never have a chance to love with equal ferocity.

We are all casualties of war. There has never been a single bullet fired that hasn’t killed a part of ourselves as it takes a life. Or a death that hasn’t left a void in the spirit of humankind.

We are all longing for peace. We may be called to war for many reasons, good or bad, right or wrong, but we can never escape the fact we are all members of the same family, and we are killing each other.

We are all one people. And we are all victims of war.

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The above is from “How To Train A Rock,” a book of short insights and fiction flights by Paul Steven Stone. Offered this Memorial Day in honor of those who have fallen on the field of battle, and in the desperate hope the human race will soon learn to settle its disputes without the need to kill or maim one another.