If there is one thing that this season seeks to teach us, it is that Hope exists all around us, even when there seems to be none. Seedlings from brown, seemingly lifeless earth begin to sprout and yield plant life where none could be detected days earlier. People of different faiths find hope in beliefs of life when there seems to be none.

The world has been following the War in Ukraine for weeks. Every media outlet has its own perspective, likely connected to its political agenda, none of which broadcast the lesson of this season — and that is hope for the desired outcome of the people – peace.

Listening to Yurii Sheliazhenko, the executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement and a board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, reminds me, should remind us, to help humanity push aside the stone covering the odor of death and destruction. Collectively as grateful, aware inhabitants of the Earth, let us listen to the silence that tells us what can happen if we collectively will it so…discern, and act upon that desire in strength and love.