“Whoever comes to me cannot be my disciple unless he loves me more than he does is father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and himself as well.  Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. None of you can be my disciple unless he gives up everything he has.” (Luke 14: 25-33)

I write this from the city of Suleimaniyah, in northern Iraq.  I came here fragile.  Frightened.  I came unprepared.  A part of me understands that there are more then enough issues to keep one occupied in New York City, or wherever one resides. Yet there seemed something right, if belated, about going to a country that my government had declared war on.

 I have only been here one month.  I have listened to stories of discrimination, torture, and murder. I have traveled to Halabja and toured the museum telling the story of the chemical bombing and attempted genocide by Saddam in 1989.  I see construction and reconstruction all about.  And I feel love.

 I have experienced similar hospitality in Palestine and El Salvador—more than I could ever claim I offer on the lower east side of Manhattan.  When friends traveled across Cuba in 2005, attempting to visit the detainees in Guantanamo, they knocked on doors of locals each night and asked if they could perhaps camp in their backyards.  They were warmly allowed each night. “What would happen if twenty-five Cubans did this in New York” my friend Matt Daloisio said.

 Back here in Iraq, I cannot think of one person who has treated me with anything but compassion. I realize that here in the north we are “reasonably” safe. Baghdad remains a ticking nightmare of violence and fear.  I do not take my safety for granted; I am aware of where I am.  But I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to be here; to learn of the situation over here, of the struggle of the Kurdish people for their own identity; of a country looking to forge its own government; of a people attempting to live freely.

 I shall return to New York as the Lenten season approaches. On Good Friday, as we do every year, a number of us, partaking in the Pax Christi Stations of the Cross, will traverse across New York, from the United Nations to the U.S.S. Intrepid air and space museum.  At this war museum, we will read the names of those innocents killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And as we are arrested, I shall be mindful of all those I have encountered here in Iraq and of the love and caring I have witnessed here.