Tom Fox, a member of the Christian Peacemakers Team who was kidnapped last November 26, was found dead in Bagdhad on March 10.

We honor Tom’s decision to stand with those facing death, destruction and violence in Iraq. He practiced the difficult but transformative journey of the nonviolent life, a life lived in the midst of violence as a vibrant and powerfui alternative to it.

Tom Fox lives as part of the circle of the living and the dead who refuse to succumb to ther artificial separation into “Us” and “Them.” He reawakens us to the reality and power of nonviolence and its consequences: the willingness to give our lives for all life.

We reflect, we pray, and we hear the call to live the power of love and of life — not death and all its alluring but ultimately illusory masks — that Tom even now shares with us in the most profound way.

In October 2004, Tom wrote the following reflection on Gandhi’s words:

“If an attacker inspires anger or fear in my heart, it means that I have not
purged myself of violence. To realize nonviolence means to feel within you
its strength—soul force—to know God. A person who has known God will be
incapable of harboring anger or fear within him, no matter how overpowering the cause for that anger or fear may be.” (Gandhi speaking to Badshah Kahn’s Khudai Khidmatgar officers, cited in A Man to Match His Mountains, by Eknath Easwaran, 1985.)

When I allow myself to become angry, I disconnect from God and connect with the evil force that empowers fighting. When I allow myself to become
fearful, I disconnect from God and connect with the evil force that encourages flight.

The French theologian Rene Girard has a very powerful vision of Satan that
speaks to me: “Satan sustains himself as a parasite on what God creates by imitating God in a manner that is jealous, grotesque, perverse and as
contrary as possible to the loving and obedient imitation of Jesus” (Girard, I See Satan Falling like Lightning, 2001).

If I am not to fight or flee in the face of armed aggression, be it the
overt aggression of the army or the subversive aggression of the terrorist,
then what am I to do? “Stand firm against evil” (Matthew 5:39, translated by
Walter Wink) seems to be the guidance of Jesus and Gandhi in order to
stay connected with God. Here in Iraq I struggle with that second form of
aggression. I have visual references and written models of CPTers standing
firm against the overt aggression of an army, be it regular or paramilitary.
But how do you stand firm against a car-bomber or a kidnapper? Clearly the soldier disconnected from God needs to have me fight. Just as clearly the terrorist disconnected from God needs to have me flee. Both are willing to kill me using different means to achieve he same end—that end being to increase the parasitic power of Satan within God’s good creation.

It seems easier somehow to confront anger within my heart than it is to
confront fear. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right then I am not to give in to
either. I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm
against the soldier. Does that mean I walk into a raging battle to confront
the soldiers? Does that mean I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign
saying “American for the Taking?” No to both counts. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I am asked to risk my life, and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were when murdered by the forces of Satan.

Standing firm is a struggle, but I’m willing to keep working at it.