I Continued To Play… An Inner Protest To Sirens, Bombs, Murders And War

Surely it was not his intention.

Nonetheless, in the earliest days of Lent, 27-year-old Alex Karpenko dared – DARED,  perhaps unwittingly - to proclaim an Easter message.

As we write this, we do not know if he is still alive or has become another uncounted casualty or anonymously murdered victim of a sociopath’s madness.

It is now almost two months since the youthful musician began his wartime ritual: carefully making his way to the public piano outside Lviv’s railway station to play for the tens of thousands of his fellow Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. 

Alex was there on March 19, a day after Russian missiles first struck his city, indiscriminately killing children of God. Totally absorbed, he played legendary composer Hans Zimmer’s “Time” from Inception.

“The sirens gave me more energy, adrenaline and hatred for Russia. So, I continued to play and didn’t head for the shelter,” he told a reporter. On his social media, he described his music as “an inner protest to sirens, bombs, murders and war.” Alex’s “Time” caught the ears and eyes of National Geographic photojournalist John Stanmeyer, who posted a video of the young man, who was eventually joined at the keyboard by a young woman – her flying fingers and pink nails adding a surrealistic counterpoint to the ominous notes of air raid sirens. 

Stanmeyer explained on his Instagram account:

When bomb sirens began, police asked everyone to move inside the railway station. Alex @alexpian_official wouldn’t stop, playing his piano louder against the air raid warning. His friend joined with the most calming pink nails. A simple, overwhelming one-minute passion against fear, against war…

Would [have] loved to share with you Alex’s complete giving. He went on and on, never letting go. The air raid app on phone came on too, stopping the camera.

As we write this on Passion Sunday/Palm Sunday and in anticipation of the Easter Triduum of Holy Thursday/Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Celebration of the Resurrection, Alex and other men, women and children of music call us to a new reflection on these celebrations of Faith.

Ukrainians across that war-ravaged nation have pulled and tugged and played their instruments and lifted their voices – sometimes singularly, often in courageous groups; in concert halls and subway tunnels – to offer consolation, courage and a promise of tomorrow. They have put aside their profoundly human, primordial fear of Russian missiles and snippers, their fear of starvation and death, and acted with the simplest, yet most profound acts of kindness. 

Tales of inhumane horror emerging from mass graves and bombed refugee trains obliterate our recognition of the deepest of our fears – dying alone. The Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion illustrate the humanness of that fear:

“Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?’ 
which means, ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?’
…Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed His last….”
Mark 15: 34, 37

Surely, young Alex knew that fear. Please God, he still knows that fear. What calls us to a new reflection on the Triduum is the simplicity of his Kindness. In the freezing cold outside Lviv’s railway station, he – and his young friend with the pink fingernails – assured others as frightened as they must have been that they are not alone. 

As Jesus had encountered Jarius, who begged Him to heal his beloved child, and promised “I am here,” Simon of Cyrene shared His burden and must have whispered “You are not alone. I am here.” As Jesus had wept at the tomb of Lazurus and comforted his sisters with the promise “I am here,” Joseph of Arimathea was simply present, promising “I am here” and offering refuge. As Jesus had understood the soul-crushing fear and pain of the Centurion already grieving the loss of his child and assured him “You are not alone. I am here,” the boy John shouted unceasingly over the roar of the crowd “I am here.”

As Jesus had imagined His own mother’s pain at the death of her son and assured the Widow of Nain “I am here with you in this most painful moment,” Mary whispered in maternal Kindness “I am here.” 

In the final moment of His life, the man Jesus, who could barely breathe under the weight of His own collapsing body, offered Kindness and Presence to the thief suffocating beside Him – “I am here. You are not alone. This day you will be with me in Paradise.”  

Hours later, the women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome – went to the tomb – the kind gift of Joseph – to offer a final Kindness. 

Only to discover… Emptiness. 

An emptiness born of the ultimate Kindness… the loving call of The Father “Come Forth!”

More than fifty years ago, a priest friend offered an insight into the selfless Kindness of Jesus in response to the Father’s call: Jesus had died, His pain – the pain of the whips and thorns, the pain of blistered shoulders and collapsed lungs, the pain of seeing His mother’s pain and the pain of separation from all whom He had ever loved and in whose loved He had bathed – was ended. He was at peace on the stone offered in Kindness by Joseph of Arimathea. As our friend observed, at that moment Jesus knew that – should He dare to go forth - He would again experience all of that pain – if only for microsecond. He knew that the scars of the thorns, the marks of the nails, the horror inflicted by the centurion’s lance would still be there. He knew that again, some time hence, He would again experience the gut-wrenching, death-like pain of leaving behind all those whom He had loved. And in the consummate act of love, He embraced all of that pain – to be  “risen” and to conquer death forever.

As a young priest, I purchased the Rite of Funerals, now long replaced by the Church with newer ritual books. Despite its broken spine, stained and falling-out pages, I kept and still use it; each time I pull it from the bookshelf it unites me again with strangers, family and friends at whose gravesides I have presided.

The old Rite contains an almost magical closing prayer:

Peace be with those who have left us and gone to God.
May [our friend] be at peace.
May he be with the living God.
May she be with the immortal God.
May he be in God’s hands.

May she sleep in peace.
May he live in peace.

May she be where the name of God is great.

May he be with the living God now and one the day of judgement.
May she be with God.
May he live in eternal light.

May she live in the peace of the Lord.

May he live forever in peace.
With God in peace.

The rhyme, the rhythm, the almost-poetry. I love the prayer.

And hate it.

People of all Christian faiths and churches declare, as an article of Faith, that God is “omnipresent” – Always and Everywhere Present. 

People of all Christian faiths and churches proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of all.

Therefore, those who have died and are with - not gone to – God are as present to us as God is present to us because God is Omnipresent.

The Wonder of Resurrection is that it binds us together – all of Us, Everywhere – in a recognition that 

“Death is swallowed up in victory’
1 Corinthians 15:54

The Wonder of Resurrection is that it binds us together in community and in community – in the whisper “You are not alone” - our fear of dying alone can be conquered. 

Seemingly fearlessly Alex kept playing. Despite the sirens. In community with the young woman with the pink nail polish at his side. Playing in service to others even more afraid than they. 

Amazingly, Alex and his young friend are not unique in challenging the fear of death by service and in community.

Hope-filling, Faith-strengthening glimpses of Ukrainian musicians – at home, exiled or stranded abroad - can and seen at In bunkers and at evacuation points, music uplifts a nation under siege | PBS NewsHour and Watch what these Ukrainian musicians did amid Russian invasion - YouTube and In the streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine-2022 - Bach Cello Suite no 5 in C minor BWV 1011, Prelude - YouTube and Maria Avdeeva on Twitter: "Kharkiv Music Fest - one of the best international classical music festivals in Ukraine was scheduled to start on March 26. No one could have imagined that instead there would be a concert in the subway. But here we are on the day 31 of the war. https://t.co/1uyzHhGeId" / Twitter and Watch what these Ukrainian musicians did amid Russian invasion - YouTube.

Throughout the Universal Church, Compline – Night Prayer – begins with the declaration of St. Augustine (354 – 430 CE) “The Resurrection of Christ was God’s Supreme and wholly marvelous work.”

For many, this will be the saddest, most painful Easter in more than a generation. 

We continue to mourn the loss of parents, brothers and sisters, children and friends who died horrific deaths in the on-going Corona virus pandemic. We grieve the loss of friends from whom we have separated because we could not/would not bend to their vitriolic mask-shaming and science-denying rhetoric of hate.

Our emotional hearts are rendered by the unspeakable cruelty of a sociopathic dictator so bent on self-aggrandizement that he seems impervious to the deaths of nearly 20,000 young Russians – most of them recently conscripted into military “training” and unaware that they were being driven to commit crimes against humanity as instruments in the destruction of a people and culture.

Our families have been irrevocably broken by a pusillanimous blowhard for whom Truth is both a stranger and an enemy – a man who calls war criminals “genius,” who exchanges “love letters” with the most repressive dictator on Earth, and believes “[he] alone can save” us.

It seems there can be no “Happy Easter” this year.

Instead…

Instead, we are left with the ugliness of crucifixion – the Roman Empire’s favorite tool of terrorism and…

And the simple acts of Kindness and courage of Ukrainians who dare to defy Death by offering the Kindness of Music.  

Anglican bishop and theologian N.T. Wright speaks of Christ’s “incorporative Messiahship,” reminding us that the Resurrection is not just about Jesus; it is about all of us. 

As we observe the Triduum, let us remember that in the simplest acts of Kindness and Accompaniment “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Let us pray for our World, our neighbors and strangers - “I am here. You are not alone.”

Khrystos Voskres!
Christ is Risen!
Traditional Ukrainian Easter Greeting

Slava Ukraini
Glory To Ukraine!