CPTnet
10 May 2005
IRAQ REFLECTION: The middle of nowhere
by Tom Fox
Recently our team received a visit from a young Iraqi man whose family
raised more than twenty thousand dollars from contributors worldwide to buy
medicine for the hospitals and clinics at Fallujah. He asked that CPT
accompany the delivery of the supplies into the city. During his visit, he
gave us the grim news that four people he knew had died in the previous few
days.
The day before his visit, the father of one of his friends became a target
for kidnappers. When his friend's father resisted, the kidnappers opened
fire with their weapons, riddling his body with bullets. Our visitor had to
help take the body to the morgue.
Later, another young man who is both a college student and a journalist
visited us. He told us that a car bomb detonated within several hundred
feet of his house. No one in his family was injured, but two people driving
near the booby-trapped car were killed. The driver died instantly but the
passenger died as the young man and friends tried to get him to a hospital.
On the previous day, we met with an Iraqi human rights worker who gave us
information about a 13 year-old boy being detained as well as information on
inhumane living conditions at the Multi-National Force detention camps.
The ability to feel the pain of another human being is central to any kind
of peacemaking work. But this compassion is fraught with peril. A person
can experience a feeling of being overwhelmed. Or a feeling of rage and
desire for revenge. Or a desire to move away from the pain. Or a sense of
numbness that can deaden the ability to feel anything at all.
How do I resist the welling up of rage towards the perpetrators of
violence? How do I keep from disconnecting from or becoming numb to the
pain?
After eight months with CPT, I am no clearer than I when I began. In fact I
have to struggle harder and harder each day against my desire to move away
or become numb. Simply staying with the pain of others doesn't seem to
create any healing or transformation. Yet there seems to be no other first
step into the realm of compassion than to not step away.
"Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere
makes our hearts more tender. When we are brave enough to stay in the
nowhere place then compassion arises spontaneously" (Pema Chodron _The
Places that Scare You_.)
So many spiritual teachers say the middle of nowhere is the only authentic
place to be. Not staking out any ground for myself creates the possibility
of standing with anyone. The constant challenge is recognizing that my
true country of origin is the middle of nowhere.
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Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the historic peace churches
(Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers) with support and
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Supporting violence-reduction efforts around the world is its mandate.
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