CPTnet
27 February 2006
CHICAGO/TORONTO: CPT lectionary reflection for third Friday in Lent, 9 March
2007--Tom Fox remembrance

[The following is the fourth in a series of Lenten reflections incorporating
experiences of Christian Peacemaker Teams and based on readings from the
Revised Common Lectionary, Year C.]

CPT Lectionary Reflections for Lent - Year C

Third Friday in Lent, 9 March 2007

Focus: Hebron and Iraq

Readings: Genesis 15:5; John 12:24

Remembering Tom Fox

by Dianne Roe

"I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and
dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.'
(John 12:24)

On 9 March 2007, the first anniversary of the day that our colleague Tom Fox
was murdered in Iraq, CPT Hebron is planning a commemoration service. We
invite Israeli, Palestinian, and international friends to help us make this
commemoration the beginning of a cooperative project that Tom envisioned.

Tom looked at the closed shops on Shuhada Street and Souq Shaheen when he
was in Hebron in 2005, and said, "Why not turn one of these locked up
buildings into a safe place for all people, Christians, Muslims, and Jews?"

Outside the door of the CPT apartment, a wire fence straddles the street. A
parallel cinderblock wall with an opening borders Shuhada Street. The
commemoration will take place in between the fence and the wall at the Musa
Shaheen building doorway that the Israeli army welded shut in December 2002.
In 1929, Musa Shaheen and his brothers risked their own lives to protect
their neighbors, the Mizrahis, by blocking these doorways.*

In front of the doorway is a three-sided cement block (a fox hole which
soldiers abandoned in 2002 after they erected the fence.) We envision
completing the fourth side, and filling it with dirt before 9 March. On 9
March, we will use the transformed foxhole as a planter.

A group of Israelis, including some who served in Hebron (Breaking the
Silence, and Combatants for peace) will walk down Shuhada Street and enter
through the opening in the cinderblock wall. Palestinians returning from
Friday prayers will gather inside the fence, reaching through openings in
the fence to help plant seeds for the future.

Pray that the seeds we plant will flourish. Pray that Muslims, Christians
and Jews, reaching across borders or through fences, may turn fields of
conflict into Holy Ground.

*[See 22 February CPTnet posting, " CPT lectionary reflection for second
Sunday in Lent," for more on this story.]