Tom Fox And The Last Supper
Tom had grown up in Chattanooga, then did twenty years in the Marine band in Washington DC. He played bass clarinet – and was about as unmilitary a soldier as one could feature. He began attending Friends meetings during this time. My first memories of him was being at meeting in a khaki uniform.
After the Marine band, he became a baker and assistant supervisor at a health food supermarket. He was good at this, and his bosses wanted him to move up in management.
But Tom heard a “different drummer,” especially after September 11, 2001. With a war on, he felt called to “pursue peace” in a concrete way. After much prayer and reflection, he joined the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT).
CPT sets out to bring the “weapons of the spirit” into the front lines of conflict, places where death and life are often but a hair’s breadth apart. This was dangerous work, in a region where conflicts seem hopelessly intractable.