By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad

Dear Friends,

The day began with a rich reflection. Neville read parts from the introduction of Jonathan Schell’s book, the Unconquered World, and we went from there. Mr. Schell suggests that the U.S. had settled into a complacent type of triumphalism after the end of the Cold War “simply too pleased with the status quo to imagine that it could be upset.” But the spell was broken, he says, on September 11th, 2001. “The slumbering dragon of total violence had only twitched its tail, and yet with that one stroke the United States was brutally startled out of its sleep.” I could picture it so vividly. The dragon slumbers no more. Raised up on its hind legs, the ugly raging beast, spewing the fire of revenge from its mouth, igniting fires of terrorism around the world.”

Before our common reflection, I had been having my own quiet time in the upstairs room. I brought a beautiful calendar with pictures of Gandhi from the states hoping to use parts of it in our reflection times. One picture is of Gandhi as a young man. It shows him in a Western suit, his arms crossed over his chest. It was the penetrating eyes that caught my attention. It made me think of the piercing eyes of the Imams who visited us recently. Next to the picture is a statement by Gandhi “I have noticed that life persists in the midst of destruction, therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction.”

Yesterday afternoon an Iraqi NGO called Childhood Voices had invited our team to its inauguration celebration. After we finally found the house, Ed and I were ushered into a large upstairs room and shown, like royalty, to seats in the front row. The place was packed with children and guests. All eyes seemed to be on us. Music was blaring from a loud speaker system and there was a MC who was also an accomplished magician, singer and jokester. After some of the youngest children came forward and belted out a song (in rote-like Saddam regime fashion) they were lined up and brought over for Ed and me to kiss! I felt like Paul Bremer. One by one the children approached us with big saucer-like eyes and apprehensive expressions having no choice but to fulfill their obligation of receiving a kiss. I was only grateful that none of them burst into tears!

On the heels of this act two people dressed as Mickey and Minnie mouse appeared and did a dance with the MC and a couple of the children. Little by little I began to relax as I tried to give myself into the situation. Over the next couple of hours, I had ample time to study and delight in the children’s beautiful faces and antics. They had so much fun. And so did the rest of us. It was truly a celebration with music blaring, people laughing and enjoying themselves, everyone having a good time. As we left the event on foot and set out to try and find a taxi in this not-too-populated area, we heard what sounded like gunfire and the electricity went down. Thankfully we returned home safely. These happy faces of yesterday are still before me. We too take note that life persists in the midst of destruction, and believe there must be a higher law than that of destruction.