Tomorrow marks the five-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it this morning, but instead will link to the text of Mark Twain’s The War Prayer. Twain was a brilliant writer, and his essay is as relevant and poignant today as it was when he first wrote it. This piece was considered controversial enough that Twain was discouraged from publishing it, and it appeared only six years after his death.
-
The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. -
Skulls in the Stars 
Thank you for this. I forwarded to the link to our minister, and he mentioned it in his weekly newsletter. I’d like to think that maybe Mark Twain was a closet Mennonite. š Not all Christians think war is glorious.
Janet: You’re welcome. I’d be interested to see what your minister had to say about it. Mark Twain is one of those authors who seems wiser to me every time I learn something new about him.
He said that we needed to think not only about praying those kinds of prayers for war, but even for everyday things.
I agree with you about Mark Twain. I can only imagine what he’d be writing if he were still alive today.