February 2012 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.

Arch Street Methodist Church

Observance of the end of the Iraqi War

Christmas Week 2011

Here at year’s close our hope for one war’s close A strange Christmas observance for some of us

The Holy Innocents a sad bible story

A king a newborn child

An imagined threat to the kingdom

A grim image among joyous Christmas Feasts

Soldiers wresting infants from mothers’ arms Matthew’s Gospel mentions Jeremiah’s lament For the mayhem of an Assyrian invasion:

A voice was heard in Rama Weeping and loud lament Rachel weeping for her children She would not be comforted Because they are no more

We do or should know Rachel’s tears Ours came and stay these thirty years The death of children mothers as well

The elderly and innocent the bystanders

A demonic litany now familiar to us:

Pre-emptive strike Drones Abu Grabh Blackwater

Waterboarding Guantanamo Mercenaries (called contractors) Displacement (the exile Rachel wept)

Collateral damage

(the hugely disproportionate civilian death)

Our hand candles our tolling bells Lament all of these and all of us:

The warlords the complicit the indifferent

We powerless for anything but protest

The New Year soon with us needs stronger voices More protestors to the war that still rages

Peace for our own who will never come home

Peace for those who return wounded body spirit or both

For all

Casualties conspirators the innocent the silent the guilty Mercy upon mercy upon mercy.

John P. McNamee

December 30, 2011