By Maxine Nash

It’s becoming spring here in Baghdad. The days are getting warmer, the sun shines longer, and I’ve seen some new growth on flowers and shrubs in the neighborhood. It’s a time of new beginnings.

Yet it doesn’t feel like spring in my heart. In fact, my heart is very heavy. I read a report today from a Quaker therapist who works with returning U.S. soldiers and their families. The therapist noted that the returning soldiers are feeling like they’ve lost an important part of themselves because of the actions they’ve done in Iraq, and fear they are damaged permanently by behaving against their core beliefs. The therapist also mentions that most of the soldiers returning from Iraq are angry, and that the anger seems to be a necessity to staying alive in Iraq.

By Maxine Nash
29 January 2005

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) recently conducted a five-day training for Muslim peacemakers at the request of a human rights organization in Kerbala. The training was held in Kerbala at the office of the human rights organization from January 22-26, 2005. Four CPTers, Peggy Gish, Cliff Kindy, Maxine Nash, and Allan Slater conducted the highly participatory training.

Each day of the training had a different focus. These included: stories of non-violent peacemaking, the power of non-violence, the spirituality of non-violence, planning for public actions, and on the last day various smaller topics were covered including trauma and self-care, working with media and human rights documentation.

By Maxine Nash,
Christian Peacemaker Teams

The medical world uses a term called “flatlining.” The basic meaning has to do with a machine connected to an individual to monitor their heart. When the heart is beating normally the screen of the monitor shows a mountain range of peaks and valleys, indicating the comforting thump-thump of a regularly beating heart. When the heart is not working normally, the peaks and valleys may be less mountainous, less regular. If the heart dies, the screen shows a flat line.

In my work with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) I have to be careful about the flatlining of my own soul. I work in conditions where there is so much trauma, so much death and destruction, that part of my coping mechanism includes hardening my heart to what I see and hear, just so it won’t overwhelm me.