Anticipating the Kingdom

An e-mail to Jim Forest while I was in Iraq regarding something posted on the Orthodox Peace Fellowship (OPF) listserve in regards to a lady’s comments about the slow seep of Orthodox views on peace into our modern American mentalities.  The picture was taken at a bombed out track and field stadium on our base in Tikrit.  I was able to get such a clear low light shot by using my rifle as a monopod, ie, putting the barrel in the ground and resting my camera on the flat butt.

***

5 December 2006

Jim,

I really appreciated the lady from Alaska's posting on the OPF about our (converts in America) unfolding understanding of issues pertaining to peace and peace-making in the Orthodox Faith. It is something that has grown inside of me since that moment 10 years ago when I heard my priest explain to someone at an OCF retreat the Orthodox practice of requiring confession of a soldier who had killed in battle and prohibition from Communion for a time. It shocked me by just how much good sense it made and that it was not just a gloss over of "well, you did it in self-defense or for your country so it's alright" or even worse, "what you did was brave and commendable."

My commitment to the Army was made in these early stages of becoming Orthodox and I can't help but think I would have made a very different decision if only a few years later. As it is I gave my word to serve in the Army for a prescribed period of time and I plan to honor that. If I were required to "fight" or act in any way contrary to my calling as a physician and Orthodox Christian it would be a different story. So now I find myself away from my family and part of this war that I opposed from day one, when our President was first testing the waters and trying on different justifications to put us on the road to war in Iraq.

Something that really eats at me is the requirement that I carry a weapon around with me everywhere I go. Like in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" it is an albatross hanging around my neck continually reminding me of where I am and the decisions I've made to bring me here. One way I deal with it is by thinking of it as something other than a weapon. For example, I injured my knee before deploying and it has given me trouble so that I use my rifle to get up and down from my chair at the chow hall, like a crutch. I also sometimes have to navigate across a large graveled lot with various barriers and vehicles in almost pitch black darkness. I swing my rifle back and forth in front of me like a blind man's cane to keep from running into things. In this way I have tried to turn something as ludicrous as a doctor carrying an M16 into something helpful, if not equally absurd.

I distilled all of this into a poem, "Anticipating the Kingdom?"

And in the Kingdom of God
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
And the lion shall lie down with the lamb

But in the kingdom of Man
Munitions plow the earth violently
And the eagle strikes down the weak.

In the kingdom of me
A rifle functions as a crutch for my sore knee
And a blind man’s cane when walking at night

In doing no harm
Am I at least
Anticipating the Kingdom?