All posts by Chuck Fager

February 12, 2006, Iraq: Quaker Hostage Tom Fox Disappears

“Tom Fox was our anchor, our stalwart. . . . During those first days of relentless, terrifying, excruciating uncertainty, Tom dove into prayer the way a warrior might charge into battle. He turned his captivity into a sustained, unbroken meditation. The chain that bound his wrist became a kind of rosary, or sebha (the beads Muslims use to count the names of God). He would picture someone: a member of his family, a member of the Iraq team or the CPT office, one of the captors–whoever he felt needed a prayer. . . .
Tom’s vigilance in prayer was astounding. . . .”

But as the weeks wore on, Tom seemed more adversely affected by the winter weather and the emptiness of the days:

Loney:

“BETWEEN CHRISTMAS and New Year’s, something shifted in Tom. Perhaps it was the lack of protein his body craved, the absolute lack of solitude or the relentless cold. Perhaps it was his inability to sleep, the burden of fear that came with his U.S. citizenship, or the extreme boredom. The intransigent strength and unflagging leadership of those first weeks evaporated. He asked for a sedative to help him sleep, and the captors obliged.

Tom took one, then two pills each day and still complained of being unable to sleep. His mind lost its suppleness. He seemed to be more fixed on his own ideas, less able to incorporate new information, his perceptions more rigid. We would frequently have to repeat things. He was either stone-silent or helplessly garrulous.”

Lewis On Bernie: “Didn’t see him. Never Met Him.”

I remember Selma, Rep. Lewis, when they tried to kill you on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Whips, tear gas, clubs, horses. But you’re indestructible.

Yeah, I was in Selma too. In our ragtag civil rights army, you were a general. I was a grunt. So you didn’t see me, never met me.

That’s okay. It wasn’t about me. It was about you and Dr. King and the hundreds of heroes from Selma who made history there.

Quaker FAQs #1-Why Don’t I Know Much About Quakerism?

From “Some Quaker FAQs” — So talking with people from such churches, we’ll likely be getting a lot of questions that include the phrase, “But the Bible says . . . .”

But wait: if something is “written in the Bible,” does that automatically make it true, or right?

It will be better if you can answer such questions based on your own study of the Bible. But it’s also a fair answer for a Progressive Quaker to say, “Suppose the Bible does say such and such. So what? For our kind of Quakers, we learn from the Bible, but the Bible is not the whole ‘TRUTH’ without any errors. It’s not the ‘complete source’ for our religion. It is not a substitute for God or the Inner Light or the Spirit for us.”

(Be advised, such an answer might shock some people. You might get a reply like, “But if you don’t believe in the Bible as all true, you’re going to burn in hell.” We’ll talk a little further on about this “burning in hell” idea. But don’t let it scare you.)

Norman Morrison’s Transcendent Language of Self-Immolation

On a chilly November day in 1965, a thirty-one year old Quaker pacifist named Norman Morrison, a father of three, left his home in Baltimore with his infant daughter Emily and drove forty miles to Washington, DC. Once there, as dusk settled over the capitol city, he drove to the Pentagon where he drenched himself in kerosene and struck a match on his shoe. It is not clear if he had handed Emily to someone standing nearby or had sat her down out of harms way. As Norman burned alive, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, looking out of his office window only yards away, was horrified. He watched as Pentagon attaches rushed to try to put out the flames, scorching themselves in the process.

Why Is North Carolina Yearly Meeting Like The Flint River?

So this proposal might be an interesting opener for broader discussion, but just a beginning. If the YM wants to set concrete standards of conduct (e.g., don’t steal YM money; don’t sexually abuse or harass others, especially children; respect your fiduciary duties), there are likely numerous specific infractions that could be agreed on.

But those who think they could now achieve a purge of meetings which have non-fundamentalist views about the Bible, social issues and other matters by tacking on these preliminary steps, will likely run into some stiff opposition, as they have before, pushing the purge idea from the YM floor.