I can't stop thinking about them

James Loney, one of the four Christian Peacemakers kidnapped in Iraq, doing what peacemakers must do: giving voice to the voiceless, in this case the wife of an Iraqi detainee. Photo source.

We can only wait, hope and pray that those who have seized these men will release them unharmed.

Their team continues the work in this statement about the kidnapping:

We believe there needs to be a force that counters all the resentment, the fear, the intimidation felt by the Iraqi people. We are trying to be that force: to speak for justice, to advocate for the human rights of Iraqis, to look at an Iraqi face and say: my brother, my sister,

Perhaps you [the kidnappers] are men who only want to raise the issue of illegal detention. We don't know what you may have endured.

We never can know what others have suffered; we can only control what we do ourselves.

Often the interventions of the "nonviolent" seem to me shallow, self-indulgent. It can be very easy for comfortable citizens of the superpower to "give up violence" while enjoying all the benefits of our country's wealth and power.

But then there are those who really do it, like these brave men. I don't know how it works, but I observe over and over that there is a power in the lives of those who willingly risk their safety and survival for the good of others. Our culture may scorn this notion, but that can't reduce its efficacy.

You can leave messages of support to the families of the kidnapped men here. I keep musing on the job that someone must be doing at that site, screening out the vitriol that undoubtedly will mix with expressions of love and hope. I guess the CPT folks might say that when we unleash the hatred of war, we bring it home with us.