WELCOME

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

TERRY ANDERSON

Terry Anderson, a journalist with the Associated Press, went on assignment to Lebanon. He had been raised a Roman Catholic but had dropped out of the Church as a teenager. He had started divorce proceedings before leaving the U.S. but as far as he knew his divorce had not been finalized. Still he became involved with a Lebanese woman, Madeline. At this time he was also drinking too much, perhaps as an escape from the tensions of his environment.

After living there for two years, this very different culture had its effect on him. The scenes of fighting, war and death caused him to begin thinking seriously about his own life. He admitted to himself that physically and morally he was deteriorating, so he cut down on his drinking and began to exercise. This may seem like a merely natural decision but as we shall see God used these efforts to move him to the next step.

September, 1984, Terry began reading the Bible to satisfy an intellectual interest in religion. He also became engrossed in Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. He had the strange feeling that he was looking for something more than intellectual stimulation but was not sure what.

In December, 1984, still feeling confused, he went to England for a visit to Madeline's sister. Every place he looked there seemed to be church steeples. There was no escape from their presence. After lunch in a restaurant, he walked around the corner and entered a Catholic church. He sat and just gazed at the crucifix, not really trying to pray. A sense of peace filled him and he felt at home, relieved to recognize he was still a Catholic at heart. Terry liked to read poetry but it was only in prison that he began expressing his thoughts and feelings in verse. Looking back later on this quiet time in the London church, he wrote about his experience:

I'm not a Catholic by conviction,

or through belief that this one

road is better than the rest.

I cannot even say that I've accepted

all the teachings, and certainly

I've failed to keep this narrow path.

If I could choose, I think I'd be a Quaker,

or a Buddhist, even Hindu--reincarnation's

such an elegant and reassuring thought.

But I can't--my parents chose before me.

And although I've spent a large part

of my life trying to choose otherwise,

one still half hour in an

empty church defies all logic.

I am what both my fathers made me,

and I'm content to find myself at home again.

PRISON

Returning to Lebanon, he found Beirut in chaos. In March,1985 Terry also was kidnaped, blindfolded and driven to an unknown location where he was chained to the wall.

For months, in the midst of the deprivations of his captivity, Terry struggled inwardly to understand his experience in the church in England. Where was God leading him? What did God expect of him? He was allowed to have a Bible which he read often as he tried to cope alone with his anger and frustration. It may have seemed to Terry that he was making no progress in solving his inner conflict but God was active throughout his struggles. In July 1985, Terry learned that Father Jenco,head of Catholic Charities, was brought to the same prison. Terry asked the guard if he could see Father Jenco to go to confession. Father Jenco was brought to his room and they were left alone for ten minutes. They pulled down their blindfolds and Terry went to confession for the first time in 25 years. God had prepared him during his lonely struggles for this moment.

Later Father Jenco and Terry shared the same room. Then they could have Mass often, saving a small piece of bread from their meager meal. Terry expressed his thoughts about these Masses in a poem:

EUCHARIST

Five men huddled close

against the night and our oppressors,

around a bit of stale bread

hoarded from a scanty meal, and a candle, lit not only as

a symbol but to read the text by.

The priest's as poorly clad,

as drawn with strain as any,

but his voice is calm, his face serene.

This is the core of his existence,

the reason he was born.

Behind him I can see

his predecessors in their generations,

back to the catacombs,

heads nodding in approval,

hands with his tracing

out the stately ritual,

adding the power of their suffering

and faith to his, and ours.

The ancient words shake off

their dust, and come alive.

The voices of their authors

echo clearly from the damp, bare walls.

The familiar prayers come

straight out of our hearts.

Once again Christ's promise

is fulfilled; his presence fills us.

The miracle is real.

Terry and Father Jenco spent many hours discussing religion and Terry came to realize that the Church in 1985 was very different from the Church he knew as a boy. Terry was impressed by Father Jenco's work with oppressed people--Australian aborigines, alcoholics, Californian migrant workers, Indian lepers, and Cambodian refugees. Father Jenco, recognized that justice toward the marginalized was an essential element of faith so Terry saw how the social teachings of the Church had come alive.

Terry spent many hours reading the Bible, trying to understand the God of the Old Testament. He realized "the Old Testament reflects as much a harsh, tribal people's view of the deity as that Deity's true being." With Father Jenco's help he started serious study of the New Testament, comparing the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This study of the Gospels was not merely an intellectual pursuit but rather an attempt to understand God's actions in his life so that he might respond positively. Terry was actively participating in his own transformation. He wrote:

"But somehow, here, now, I have to work out some way of understanding what is happening to me, physically and spiritually, some way to come to terms with Him, and with myself, to know what we expect of each other.

In the beginning of his captivity he had prayed for freedom. Now his prayer had changed. He wrote: "I rarely ask God for freedom anymore. He knows how much I want to go home--I've already told Him so many times. Instead I pray for patience, acceptance and strength for myself."

Sometime later he confessed: "I find it easier to say to God, `Whatever you want will inevitably be. I have no choice but to accept, do the best I can with these circumstances, with what I am.'" Terry's surrender to God was expressed in his acceptance of the situation in which he found himself. He desired to see God present even in the humiliations and sufferings of his imprisonment.

After each step forward spiritually, God led Terry to a new insight, a new challenge in their relationship. Terry had come a long way from the first days of his captivity. He wrote:

Sometimes I feel a real joy in prayer, a real understanding of what it means to be loved by God as I am, as I know myself to be--faulted, proud, self-indulgent. Those times ease the pain of this existence so much, give me hope that I can not only stick this out, but perhaps emerge whole and live a better life when its over.

FREEDOM

On December 4, 1991, Terry was finally freed in Baalbek, Lebanon, the last of the hostages to be freed. In his new found peace, Terry realized how God had used his captivity to free him from habits that had entrapped him. Responding to God's initial aims Terry emerged from prison determined to lead a new life without hatred for his captors. Many questions filled his mind about the future as he asked himself: "What am I going to make of my life? Can I keep the faith and the determination of this time? Will I be able to keep from slipping back to self-indulgence, the arrogance that I know I was full of then?"

As a final reflection on his experience, Terry wrote:

STIGMATA X

No man can ever start anew completely;

he's everything he's ever done

or said or failed to do.

Each bit is added on,

altering the whole,

But covering, not replacing

what has gone before.

A piece of unfired clay,

he bears the marks

and scars of all his years.

Not just clay, though--

sculptor, too;

Object, artist, audience.

sometimes, though, larger hands--

destiny, fate, karma, God--

take firmly hold and,

wielding fierce events, risk fracture to hack

and carve away some

awkward, ugly bits.

The final work cannot be seen

until it's fired,

and all fires cooled.

Paul knew: suffering and pain

are the truest ways,

and only ways for some of us,

to draw out that within

which answers to

the purpose of it all.

From Den of Lions by Terry A. Anderson