March 21, 2005

Thoughts on Palm Sunday in Iraq

Thunder 6 writes about faith and free will from the perspective of a Palm Sunday service in Iraq.

I walked over to our chapel, a drab concrete building whose defining characteristic is an odd architectural feature that resembles a missile ready to puncture the sky, and entered its single room. As I took my seat I looked around and noticed that in addition to my Army brethren there were Marines, Bangladeshi contractors, Eastern European truck drivers, and several Iraqi interpreters all silently gathered in this small outpost of faith. Our admixture of origins and backgrounds made no difference, for the rest of the mass we were one in faith. There in that small chapel a few hundred miles removed from the ancient cities of the gospel I truly understood the sanctifying power of belief.

The closing hymn was one I remember from my years as an alter boy, but its meaning seemed to have taken on greater gravity in the ensuing years. My voice is ill suited for carrying a tune, but I managed to sing one of the verses - "If you stand before the power of hell, and death is at your side, know that I am with you through it all". The words were a spiritual salve, and I left the chapel a stronger man then when I entered.

As I walked back to the TOC my thoughts wandered to the jihadist insurgents and the differences between my beliefs and their own. The answer was simple, it wasn’t faith that separated us but our concept of the value of free will.

As the Iraqi people continue to shape their destiny they will forge a democracy that will be both familiar and strange to our eyes. But as long as it embraces free will – the jihadists are destined to fail.