[263.1] THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING HELD

Last month, Tom Fox [one of the four CPT workers kidnapped in Iraq] helped lead one of the team's more gruelling missions, helping 19 Palestinian refugees who were trying to migrate to Syria because of rising animosity against Palestinians in post-Hussein Iraq. Team members rode with the Palestinians to the Syrian border and camped with them in the desert for a portion of the five weeks it took to get the refugees entry. Fox, who is tall and thin, later joked that the trip had been a great weight-loss programme.

In Baghdad, the team lives at a nondescript downtown apartment building and shares chores in what feels like a group house for aging college students. Last month, after fixing a dinner of pasta and salads for the team and a visiting reporter, Fox offered a variation on the traditional mealtime prayer of thanks and blessing.

"Let's take a moment to meditate about journeys," he said. "We're all on journeys."

Fox's team members expressed anguish on Wednesday about where their peacemaking journey has taken him and his fellow hostages. (A Perilous Peace Trek)

Blessed are you peacemakers,
who say no to war as a means to peace.

Blessed are you peacemakers,
who are committed to disarm weapons of mass destruction.

Blessed are you peacemakers,
who wage peace at great personal cost.

Blessed are you peacemakers,
who challenge and confront judges, courts and prisons.

Blessed are you peacemakers,
who bring hope to those who are hurting.

Blessed are you peacemakers,
who befriend perfect strangers.

Blessed are you peacemakers,
who open doors for acting justly,
loving tenderly and walking humbly with God

And all people of good will.

[From Pax Christi’s Prayers & Liturgy (scroll down), echoing St Matthew 5. See also this Jewish, Muslim and Christian invocation created out of an inter-faith encounter in Jerusalem, 2003. As for my title... well to live in prayer is to be held in the midst of not being held, and to know the question "whose are you?" And yes, the Milan Kundera reference is meant, for a number of reasons.]

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