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Good morning.

One of the signs that the end is nigh, as set out in the Book of Revelations, the final book of the bible, is that there will be ‘wars and rumours of wars’. Today, the notion that wars could be waged at so remote a distance that we might have nothing more than rumour to go by, seems decidedly quaint. Instead, the horrors of war are beamed into our homes and downloaded onto our devices incessantly. We cannot pretend, as did so many in former eras, that war is noble and glorious. We see the bodies pulled from beneath wrecked buildings, we hear the cries of the wounded and bereaved. We can judge the justifications offered by military and political leaders, and find them wanting. And then, maybe years after a conflict has ended, we read the stories of rape and torture, of mass executions and individual abuses, often perpetrated on all sides.

We owe much to the journalists and war correspondents who bring us stories from the heart of the war zone. That they do so at great personal risk is borne out by the number who lose their lives on their assignments. Yet courage is not only found on the frontline, it can be even more risky and daunting to expose war crimes that governments and military leaders prefer to keep hidden.

So today, I ask God’s blessing and protection on all who venture into places of conflict, to bring back the stories and pictures that reveal to us the truth about war. May they be guarded from physical hurt, protected from mental trauma and kept safe from any who would wish them harm. Amen.