A Christmas Carol from Ukraine
Kathleen Temple / Peace Bit

(December 25, 2023) — Not everyone celebrates Christmas, but our circle of “peace lobbyists” has been given a gift today that can be enjoyed by all, whether or not we usually celebrate.

Our fellow Peace Bit user in Kyiv, Ukraine, Yurii Sheliazhenko, created a “Christmas carol” we can embrace for a “World Beyond War”. I am sharing it below, within a message we can send on to each of our legislators. Our legislators must heed its words!

ACTION: Contact your legislators through their websites today. Staff will be monitoring the messages

“[Legislator],
One of my associates is the Ukrainian pacifist attorney Yurii Sheliazhenko. Yurii is perhaps the most famous of living pacifists. He and his friends of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement are persecuted relentlessly by the Ukrainian government because they refuse to stop denouncing the killing.

Ukrainian pacifist Yurii Sheliazhenko

Yurii has penned a poignant “carol” for this Christmas season, for people like me to share with our legislators. It of course applies to the continuing deadly war in Ukraine, to the genocide in Palestine, and others. A brief note from Yurii updates his situation with this comment: “as air raid sirens on Christmas morning because of Russian strategic bomber jet fly.”

Joy on Earth,
Peace in hearts:
Child is born,
Hope with us.
Guns, don’t kill!
Heads, don’t hate!
Peace and good will
Save souls and planet.
Think, don’t be wild.
Wars must cease.
Love like child,
Live in peace.

Peace,
Yurii

So many of your constituents are in grief today —on this day that should bring happiness — because the Biden administration in the US is shipping weapons everywhere. Force them to send instead orders to CEASE FIRE NOW.

We watch today for glimmers of Light such as Yurii’s “carol”.

Thank you, Yurii, for sharing your sense of hope and your perseverance with us! Thank you to all for advocating together in our Peace Bits circle!