This afternoon, I was in Oshkosh prison, sitting in our meditation circle. The day’s topic: War in Ukraine. Collectively it’s on our minds and in our hearts.

What would we do? How would we protect ourselves and those we love? How might we engage in necessary violence without coming from a place of hate?

Here’s some wisdom from the prison circle…

“What choices do the Ukrainian people have? They flee and they lose everything. They fight and they lose their lives. It breaks me up. If my family was under attack, I’d defend them. I love them too much not to.”

“I come from a military family. The Russian soldiers can’t say ‘no’ to their orders. Saying ‘no’ means jail or likely worse: placing their entire family at risk. What’s happening there is awful, but the soldiers aren’t to blame.”

“I saw pictures of 3-year-old Ukrainian kids looking out a window. I saw myself in those kids. It rips me apart. [A pause to hold back tears.] I don’t know what I’d do in a war. It’s easy to say, ‘I’d do…’ but until it happens, I can’t be sure.”

“I’ve been in prison for 25 years. My last fight was in 2013. It changed me. At a certain point, I got the upper hand, but I saw I had a choice. We both wanted to be happy. It’s just that we had unhealthy ways to find happiness. No one feels better after violence. So, I stepped away and stopped the fight. Afterward, as I sat in the hole [hole = solitary confinement], I realized how unhappy violence is.”

“Years ago, I realized that people are taught to hate from their parents (who learned from their parents). We’re taught to hate people who are different from us. I saw it in my own parents. And I decided to be different; to not hate people.”

Our world is complex. There are no easy answers, even in war. It tears us open. Yet if we stay with the complexity, we live into deeper, more engaged lives.