Sheila Provencher
Christian Peacemaker Teams
10 November 2004

Somewhere, someone was playing a flute. The melody drifted down the stairacase.

Fr. Yousif Thomas, an Iraqi Roman Catholic priest, led me into the library of the Dominican friars in Baghdad. “See?” he pointed at the ceiling. A cross, made up of wooden panels and mirrors, faced down into the room. Next he led me outside. “Now, see?” he pointed to the courtyard floor. Another cross of the same design was molded into the tiles. “This is to remind us that the cross is down here, with us. The cross is in the mud. Even while it is also over us.”

Fighter jets roared overhead and broke the evening music.

“Someone’s crying, Lord, Kumbaya.”

Somewhere Fallujan children in look out windows at the night and wonder if the bombs will hit their homes. Somewhere, hospitals that once functioned well now lack sufficient bandages to treat the wounded. Somewhere refugees are crowded in rooms. Somewhere military families yearn for their spouses, their children, their siblings. Somewhere, youthful U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and Fallujan freedom fighters kill and are killed.

Somewhere in my neighborhood in Baghdad, someone cannot get out of bed. People are beginning to crumble into depression and despair. It is too much, the violence of all these years. One wants to sleep all the time, just to escape the weight of it all.

Somewhere, Fr. Yousif Thomas is working intensely on his hopeful projects. “I have no fear,” he says. “I am prudent, I try to seek wisdom. But I am not afraid.” He focuses on education, to counter the poverty, illiteracy, and subsequent violence that years of sanctions created in Iraq.

Every second sentence is about a different project. “Oh yes, this reminds me, we have produced this MP3 of an Aramaic Children’s Bible. And here, the theological journal, the oldest in Iraq. Also I am learning how to teach a course on the Internet. I will teach English and French, because we need these languages in order to have access to more books. Did you know that 5% of the world is Arab, but only 1% of the world’s books are available in Arabic?”

He is irrepressible. And he teaches me hope. Not “I hope that such- and-such will work out,” or “I hope that magically there will be no more bombs.” No – nothing so flimsy. Real hope is rooted not in what might be, but in what always is. And what always is – from my Christian perspective — is this: God is close. God is “in the mud” with us. In Islam they say “God is closer than your jugular vein.” Closer than your life-source. That close.

So we have to tap into that infinite Source and keep building, reaching out, risking. Never settle for cheap hope. Never give in to the easy way out, the violence, the bombs, the “good guys” vs. “bad guys” worldview, or the temptation to just numb out and pretend it isn’t happening. Listen. Listen to the Source, the crying, the fear, the anger and the yearning that can move us to communion and action.

Somewhere, someone is playing a flute.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical violence-reduction program with roots in the historic peace churches. Teams of trained peace workers live in areas of lethal conflict around the world. CPT has been present in Iraq since October, 2002.
To learn more about CPT, please visit www.cpt.org.
Photos of our projects may be viewed at www.cpt.org/gallery