To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon me is to live on the doorstep of hell. – Thomas Merton.
I recently painted five rooms in my house. As I inspected my work, I was reminded about perspective. If I looked at the wall straight on, it looked perfect, but if I took a few steps and looked from the right, I saw spots that needed touch up. And different spots if I looked from the left. Perhaps you can relate to this. What you see depends on where you stand.
What is the cost of the war with Iran?
From the perspective of living an ordinary life in the United States in the middle of May 2026, we notice that:
We pay more for gasoline. A lot more. Here in Arizona the price has doubled. Prices for almost everything else have also risen.
We mourn the 15 U.S. troops who have been killed.
Our government has spent $29 billion so far, and is asking for much more, yet we can’t afford to feed our own people.
But this isn’t the whole story. We must not limit our perspective to how it effects the United States.
If we look from the perspective of Iran or Lebanon, we see the violence and devastation of war. We see that 3,468 people have died in Iran and 3,042 have died in Lebanon. Most of these people didn’t sign up for a war. Most of them were civilians, some were children. Most of these people did not even support their own government in the war. Thousands more were injured and millions have been displaced. Included in the indirect deaths from war are the slow deaths from disease, exposure, collapse of infrastructure, and malnutrition. It is estimated that so far in the 21st Century, indirect deaths from the war number between 3.5 and 4 million, roughly four times the number of direct deaths.
We who live in the United States have very limited actual experience with war unless we served in the military and were deployed to a war zone. For us, war is “over there” and we have not been “over there.” We like to divide the world into good guys and bad guys, and we want to believe that we are the good guys. But war is ugly and it is evil. War is worse than hell, because, as the quote from MASH* points out, there are not any innocent bystanders in hell. The bombs of the “good guys” are just a deadly as those of the “bad guys.”
The cost of war cannot be calculated based only on what we in the United States experience. Each of those who died in Iran and Lebanon were beloved children of God, made in the image and likeness of God. Each of them was created with unique gifts, with unique potential to contribute to making the world a better place. If we try to look from God’s perspective, we see that God loves all of us. God does not love the people who live in the United States more than people who live far away. God doesn’t love Christians more than Muslims. God’s love for us cannot be earned or lost. None of us deserve it, and yet we all do. And if we claim to follow the teachings of Jesus, we will strive to save lives and promote a world where everyone can thrive.
It is hard to watch the images of the destruction that our own military action causes. It is hard to watch bodies being pulled from the wreckage of their homes. It is hard to see the images of children in body bags. It is hard to watch the masses of people leaving their homes because they have been reduced to rubble. But we must watch it to have a wider perspective. We must allow our hearts to be broken by what has happened to our brothers and sisters, because they are our brothers and sisters.
The cost of war must include the destruction and loss of life in countries we consider our enemy.
The cost of war must include the numbing of our own souls so that we can tolerate war.
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Jeanette Arnquist is a former Director of the Department of Life, Dignity & Justice for the Diocese of San Bernardino.