Ritualizing War
A Meditation by Rev. Cameron Trimble
“They have treated the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” — Jeremiah 6:14
Only months ago, we were told that Iran’s nuclear capability had been destroyed. The language was conclusive. The threat had been neutralized. The danger had passed.
Now we are told the threat has returned.
That contradiction deserves more than a shrug. If something was eliminated, how does it reappear so quickly? Either the original claim overstated reality, or the strategy failed, or the announcement of victory served another purpose.
The pattern has become familiar. Intelligence warnings escalate. Ultimatums are issued. Diplomacy is briefly performed. A strike is executed. Victory is declared. Then the warnings resume.
When this happens once, we call it crisis. When it happens repeatedly, we need a different word.
This begins to look like ritual.
A ritual does not exist primarily to resolve a problem. It exists to sustain meaning. It reassures participants that something decisive has occurred, even when the underlying conditions remain unchanged. It produces the feeling of action and the language of closure without delivering transformation.
War often functions this way.
The threat must remain near enough to justify force, but never fully resolved. The strike must be visible enough to project strength, but limited enough to avoid systemic reckoning and real accountability. The declaration of victory must arrive quickly, because permanence would end the performance.
When violence becomes ritualized, it no longer aims at peace. It sustains identity. It preserves budgets. It organizes loyalty. It stabilizes power through repetition. It becomes theatre.
Dorothy Day once insisted, “We must renounce war as an instrument of policy.”1 She did not mean that conflict disappears from the world. She meant that a government cannot claim to seek peace while repeatedly turning to violence as its primary language. When force becomes routine, it ceases to be emergency action. It becomes policy. When it becomes policy, it reshapes the imagination of the nation that relies on it.
The costs fall elsewhere.
Iranian civilians live with sanctions, instability, and infrastructure damage. Regional populations brace for retaliation. American service members deploy, many from communities with fewer economic alternatives. Trillions move toward weapons systems while healthcare, housing, and climate resilience remain severely underfunded. Military emissions accelerate planetary warming, yet remain largely absent from climate accounting.
The ritual requires sacrifice, and the sacrifice is rarely shared equally.
James Baldwin warned that a society that avoids confronting its own violence will repeat it under new justifications. When escalation becomes normalized, the public grows accustomed to brinkmanship. Language of annihilation slips into ordinary speech. Anxiety becomes ambient.
The ritual does something to the moral imagination.
It trains us to mistake dominance for wisdom. It teaches us to equate action with progress. It narrows our sense of what genuine security might require.
Real security looks different. It invests in durable agreements, transparent inspections, and regional stability. It funds diplomacy as seriously as it funds weapons. It measures success not by the force of the strike but by the absence of the need to strike again.
Isaiah imagined swords beaten into plowshares not as sentiment but as structural transformation. He envisioned an economy reorganized around cultivation rather than destruction. Ritualized war does the opposite. It reorganizes society around permanent readiness for violence.
That is the madness.
When war becomes ritual, peace becomes unthinkable.
And a nation that cannot imagine peace will continue rehearsing conflict, at enormous cost.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
Where do you see repetition in our public life that no longer seems aimed at resolution?
What does the ritual of escalation produce in you — fear, fatigue, resignation?
What would it mean to measure security by stability rather than by spectacle?
A Prayer for the Day
A Prayer for Courage to Question
God of nations and of neighbors, We confess that we have grown accustomed to the language of threat. We have allowed escalation to feel normal. Give us the courage to question patterns that claim inevitability. Sharpen our discernment so we can distinguish performance from wisdom. Protect those whose bodies bear the cost of decisions made far from danger. Teach us to desire peace with the same intensity that we prepare for war. Reorder our imagination so that plowshares make sense again. Guard us from becoming people who accept perpetual tension as the only option. Form in us the patience and clarity required for lasting peace. Amen.
Spiritual Practice
Breaking the Spell
This week, notice how often public language frames escalation as inevitability.
When you hear it, pause.
Ask: Does this action move toward resolution, or does it simply reenact a familiar script?
Then commit one small act that resists the ritual — write an elected official urging diplomacy, support humanitarian relief, read beyond headlines, speak carefully in conversation rather than inflaming fear.
Rituals form through repetition. So does peace.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
February - My team and I launched a new experiment we are calling “The Commons.” It’s an online space centered around communities of practice: groups of people who share a common concern, set of problems, or passion for a topic, and deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. I will be leading a book study on Brian McLaren’s book, Life After Doom, that starts on Feb 17. Join the community here.
March 17, 23, 31 and April 7, 2026, 7-8:30pm ET - Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox and I will be hosting another 4-part series on “Visions for the Common Good.” This series will include sessions with David Abrams, Randy Woodley and Lynne Twist! All sessions are recorded, and you will get the link if you can’t make it. Learn more here.
I drafted a Strategic Framework for Congregations as we move into the coming years of increased authoritarianism around the world. If interested, you can download it here.
Fun Things My Friends Are Up To…
I get to work with such amazing, creative people. This section is my way of celebrating them—no paid promotions, just joy in what they’re creating.
Science and Nonduality is offering a Community Gathering with Dr. Lyla June, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, facilitated by Rae Abileah on February 26th on how spiritual practice, trauma-aware care, and neighborhood organizing are being woven together as living traditions. Learn more here.
The need for us to persevere and contribute grows ever more challenging as the horror and cruelty escalates, created by leaders with “malevolent incompetence.” Dr. Margaret Wheatley is offering a “Bundle for Good” for shipping within the U.S. She will send you seven copies of Perseverance, and one copy of her book of poems, Opening to the World as It Is. She’s including the poetry book as another means to support you personally. You can learn more here.
The Convergence Music Project is hosting a songwriting event on March 19-21, 2026 in Nashville. No songwriting experience is required, so feel warmly welcome even if you've never written a song before. There will be plenty of content also to further educate, inspire, and develop the gifts of advanced songwriters as well. Learn more.
Millions of people are seeking training in becoming Legal Observers for their communities vulnerable to ICE. Here is a recorded training that is helpful produced by the team at No Kings. If you know of other trainings, please post in the comments below.
The phenomenal team of “Singing Resistance” has gifted all of us a songbook of protest songs that groups are now using across the world. Here is the link. I am marching around my house singing these throughout the day. My dogs are very confused.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
Dorothy Day’s statement comes from her 1941 speech opposing U.S. entry into World War II. Robert Coles, Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987), 114–115.