Episode #23: 2 Christopher - Chapter 2 - War

Jan,15 2026

<-#22: 2 Christopher - Chapter 1 - Wounded#24: 2 Christopher - Chapter 3 - Immitation ->

On war, the narrow world, and the work that heals

2:1

At the next meeting I did not wait at the edge of the field.

I asked to be brought closer, and they carried me in my chair

as one carries a heavy thing without complaint.

2:2

Christopher worked for a time without looking up,

as if he wished my questions to cool in the open air.

2:3

At last I said, "Christopher."

2:4

He lifted his head then, and his eyes were neither stern nor kind,

but simply present.

2:5

I said, "I have come from war.

Tell me what you think of it."

2:6

He returned his hands to the soil and answered,

"I do not think of it."

2:7

I said, "No man can avoid it.

The newspapers are full of it."

2:8

He replied, "That is the outer world.

I live in the world that touches my hands."

2:9

I pressed him: "Is that not a kind of selfishness?"

2:10

He said, "If my reach is small, it must be faithful.

A man who tries to hold the whole earth often drops what is near."

2:11

I asked, "Then you will not speak of nations and causes?"

2:12

He answered, "A field does not become holy

because a man names distant fires."

2:13

I said, "Then speak of veterans at least.

What are we to you?"

2:14

He looked at me longer this time.

2:15

He said, "You are not trophies.

You are not warnings.

You are not stories for men who stayed home."

2:16

He said, "You are wounded people who require healing."

2:17

I said, "My legs are the proof of that."

2:18

He answered, "Not only your legs."

2:19

I said, "You mean my mind."

2:20

He replied, "I mean the place in you

that knows it has hurt your brothers."

2:21

I stiffened and said, "I did what I was told."

2:22

Christopher answered, "Obedience may explain,

but it does not always heal."

2:23

I said, "Are you calling me guilty?"

2:24

He said, "No.

I am saying that pain can be a sign of life."

2:25

He added, "A soldier who feels no sorrow

has lost something more precious than strength."

2:26

Then he gestured to the wide plots beyond us and said,

"These are no longer only my fields.

They are the community's fields."

2:27

I said, "Why have you changed this?"

2:28

He answered, "Because hunger came, and pride became foolish.

And because the wounded arrived."

2:29

I said, "What would you have a veteran do here?"

2:30

He replied, "Whatever honest work his body allows.

And if his body allows little,

then let him do little without shame."

2:31

He said, "Let him feed people who are not his enemy,

until his soul remembers what brother means."

2:32

I asked, "And if he cannot forgive himself?"

2:33

Christopher answered, "Then let him borrow forgiveness

by being useful to those who do not demand payment."

2:34

He said, "A field does not ask where your hands have been.

It only asks whether they will tend it now."

2:35

And for the first time since the war,

I felt my breath come without armor.

<-#22: 2 Christopher - Chapter 1 - Wounded#24: 2 Christopher - Chapter 3 - Immitation ->