Reconciliation

From Down in My Heart by William Stafford:

"Those landmarks that had made us a part of society we discovered to be certain elements of fellowship that we came to value for ourselves and for others - all others; and we looked for other human beings everywhere and for fellowship. When we found it in bits here and there we hoped for it again, and analyzed it, and traced its antecedents and consequences. Down in our hearts we found it and wanted to protect and promote it as something more important than - something prerequisite to - any geographical kinship or national loyalty. The social fabric rent by war presented itself as thousands, as millions indeed, of broken fellowships, of alienations. Continually the forces of war incited frustrations and enmities that led easily to personal rebellion; but for us a personal rebellion against other human beings became a capitulation to the forces we held to be at the root of war."