Voice of Ukraine

From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 522):

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous things.
Blessed be his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory!
Amen and Amen!
Psalm 72:18‭-‬19

I may have written about it before, but I was reminded of these thoughts recently. Among other less obvious things affected by this war is our vocabulary, the words and phrases that used to be ordinary.

I read an event description the other day, and the organizers promised to fill the venue with “explosive energy.” I couldn’t read past this phrase as the event immediately felt unsafe, even though it used to be a standard “hip” description.

I also saw someone share about the awkwardness of using the phrase “my hands are tied” after seeing pictures of those executed by the Russian army.

We often notice how much our language has changed and how the words have gained new meaning yet need no explanation. Most of these new meanings would be lost in translation (due to frequent creative wordplay), while some may have just a slightly different undertone in their meaning in Ukrainian.

For example, right now, all of Ukraine is under an air raid warning with the possibility of ballistic or long-range rockets being launched by Russia. This phrase, “air raid warning” or “air raid alert,” in Ukrainian, literally means “anxiety coming from the air.” So when you hear someone say, “I felt anxious,” you would immediately connect it to the air raid warning.

Please, keep praying for Ukraine as we are “slightly anxious” during the air raids and trying to make sense of all these new meanings to ordinary words.