Yesterday afternoon I meditated beneath my favorite tree. It is a towering white pine. Somewhere in the timelessness of the meditation—now that’s a very cool thought, lost somewhere in the timelessness—a breeze came up. I felt the light touch of pine needles landing on my skin and when I opened my eyes (I was leaning in the farthest back setting in a canvas lawn chair) I saw the breeze clearing the tree of the needles it was shedding—pure symbiosis—and so incredibly beautiful.
It was as if it was snowing, only the needles were the flakes and they were golden in color in the late afternoon sun!
This morning, returning from the paint store with the last gallon of white for the house trim, I passed Torno’s Lumber. There was a pile of redwood stacked high up by the road, which instantly brought my mind West.
Although I hate it whenever I see the trucks carrying redwood trunks along the highway, I was thankful that seeing the stack of wood brought my mind out to northern California instantly.
Yesterday I was meditating beneath a white pine in Connecticut. I hope, in a few months, to be meditating beneath a redwood.
It seems like Dr. Shawki will have his clinic—as if there ever was any doubt. Great souls have begun to step forward to help, both with money and time.
This process reminds me of Maharishi’s story about the sea gull that decided to empty the ocean. So he just started taking the water one drop at a time and walking it up onto the sand and dropping it until another seagull came along and asked what he was doing and joined in and then another and another and so on.
I guess you just begin and then if someone else likes the idea, they join in. Pretty simple isn’t it?
I like it when I can see certain basic principles, like this one, at play in the fields of the Lord!
An old friend, my roommate from prep school just emailed me and joked, "are you being worshipped as the Buddha yet?"
Strange as it might seem, I’d been waiting for the perfect time to say it out loud—I AM the Buddha.
We are all the Buddha. We are all the Christ, Krishna, Mohammed and Our Higher Power. My process of self-discovery always leads me back to this Truth: I am my own God. Whenever I look outside myself, I see the beautiful universe and world around me. But what is the Universe and the Earth but a part of me? More of me. The universe, the world, our villages, our families, even the internet, are all part of us. They are part of Buddha’s body. But our Spirit is the heart and soul of Buddha.
We ARE the Buddha. I am the Buddha as you are the Buddha. I am me and you are me and we are we, together.
It is time to take on all that we are. If not now, when? We all need to be the Buddha. So let’s start acting like it. (You too, David, if you are reading this. You’re Buddha too.)
I swear, I’ve experienced something truly profound that is so very simple it’s almost comical. The idea comes from Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob (the founders of AA and creators of the 12 steps.) Contained the simple program they created is one of the most profound principles anywhere—it’s right up there with the Laws of Nature:
The best way to keep sober myself is to help another suffering alcoholic.
That’s it.
Step Twelve reads "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs." The key is "carry this message" in other words, give away what we’ve learned.
The practice of helping someone else that takes us out of our own head. Guess what, we feel better about ourselves. We feel good.
Most people on earth undoubtedly already know this. But for me, an entirely self-centered individual, it comes as a revelation!
The following is an article I wrote for Westport News which pretty much tells the whole story of my recent trip to Iraq:
When the relief and humanitarian aid organization AmeriCares invited me to document their first flight into Iraq last month, I have to admit that I was seized less by humanitarian fervor than by the prospects of raw, adrenaline-fueled adventure.
Right from the start, the trip seemed to contain all the right ingredients for adventure: We had a flight into Iraq but no guarantee of a flight back out. The alternative was a day long drive along what had become the highway famous for hold-ups in broad daylight. After I’d agreed to go, I was asked to sign a two-page disclaimer and fitted for a bullet proof vest, which only added to the adventure.
Although admittedly the mission seemed somewhat dicey, I had the utmost faith in AmeriCares. Moreover, I was aware of the importance of getting medical supplies to the hospitals in Baghdad, which I knew from the television news, had been stripped by looters. So on May 12th, I climbed aboard a chartered Ukrainian cargo plane in Maastricht, Holland, bound for Iraq.
Good Morning, Baghdad!
As it turned out, our Russian-built Ilyushin-76 cargo jet, filled with 80 skids (80,860 pounds) of medical supplies, was the first non-military aircraft to land at Baghdad airport. We were greeted, just as a huge orange ball of sun seemed to be hoisted into the sky above one of Saddam’s huge palaces, clearly visible in the distance.
We were escorted inside a giant hanger where a U.S. Army Lieutenant keyed our personal information into a laptop computer while he welcomed us to Iraq with warnings about travel in and around the city. Outside, some troops took pictures of our plane as two forklifts had already begun emptying its cavernous cargo bay. Meanwhile we listened to small arms fire a few kilometers away and watched an Apache helicopter over-fly the airport and put a quick end to the matter. Welcome to Baghdad!
My first two days in Iraq were spent photographing the movement of the supplies that had begun in Milford, Connecticut, shipped via Maastricht, Holland ending in three separate hospitals in the center of war-torn Baghdad. The Doctors faces revealed the gratitude as they watched a line of hospital workers pass hundreds of cartons of basic medicine and equipment through the front doors of their hospital. I had the feeling they were having a hard time believing what they were seeing. It seemed as if a tremendous vacuum was being filled created when the hospitals had been completely stripped of their supplies in prior weeks. Now U.S. Army troops were camped out in sandbagged bunkers tanks and armed vehicles in front of the hospital to protect it from looters.
The hospital staff thanked us with endless cups of chi, delicious strong black tea mixed with lots of sugar, and extensive tours of all the hospital wards. It was wonderful to witness an effort, which filled such an immediate need, and was appreciated so fully.
Now that the job was done, we were eager to see the city that was the setting for so much recent history. Our tour was lead by Rafal Badri an Iraqi-American Doctor from Cleveland who had grown up in Baghdad. Our core group consisted of three AmeriCares people: John Connell, Logistics Specialist, Peter Tokarczyk, Director of Disaster Services and Randy Weiss, a Product Manager and myself.
Following the military’s example, we traveled in two cars wherever we went—a white Chevy Suburban with dark tinted windows and a well-preserved ’88 Chevrolet Caprice Classic. The driving was hair-raising. Baghdad traffic is a free-for-all with no traffic lights and no traffic cops.
Dr. Badri was eager to show us the city he grew up in as a young boy as well as Saddam’s empire. We passed buildings, familiar from television news, as targets of U.S. air strikes—the telephone tower, the communications building, as well as Saddam’s headquarters buildings and palaces, all of which were partially or wholly destroyed. It was a sad journey in many ways; one that bolstered the argument for an American invasion of Iraq because of the ludicrous disparity between Saddam’s ridiculous wealth with the poverty of the remainder of Iraq’s population.
We had just crossed the Tigris and were headed into a residential neighborhood when we passed the burned out hulk of an old convertible which our driver pointed out was one of Uday’s cars. Suddenly we’d transformed into a group of eager tourists and we took pictures of each other in front of it.
Our first stop was an eerie drive through the open gates of Saddam’s once heavily guarded secret police headquarters. The doctor told us that the people who went in—were usually never seen again. The vibe was very strange. We parked in the front courtyard and watched as looters were tearing out the aluminum window frames, about all that remained to steal. Doctor Badri, his Iraqi patriotism flaring, started to yell at the looters. One of the looters ran over to engage the Doctor in a heated argument in Arabic, which culminated in the man lifting his shirt to show off a line of scars across his stomach. "Saddam! Saddam!" he yelled. He was one of the lucky ones who got out of the place alive. My guess is that he thought he deserved the window frames!
Next we parked outside the gigantic "Mother of All Mosques" —a series of a dozen or so structures gathered around a central dome. Dr. Badri explained that for a Moslem, building a mosque guarantees one a place in heaven. A few minutes later, on the site of what was once Baghdad’s sporting club and horse racing track is a mosque in the beginning stages of construction which—we can hardly believe it—dwarfs even the Mother of All Mosques. This one we dub the "Mother of the Mother of All Mosques." The ridiculously out of proportion scale of these testifies to the scale of Saddam’s insanity.
We continued through Baghdad’s richest neighborhood where the architecture was striking—to the point of being bizarre. The lavishness of the houses and their grounds belonging to Saddam’s closest associates would not be out of place in Beverly Hills.
But it was our visit to one of Saddam’s weekend palaces on the banks of the Tigris that excited everyone the most. A Company of the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry was camped out in several of the large rooms that had not been destroyed by the bomb, which had leveled one side of the building. Much of the original furniture and décor appeared to be Louis Quatorze style, contrasting with the standard Army-issue cots and mosquito nets of the current occupants.
Upstairs, a bomb had landed just on the other side of the wall of Saddam’s bedroom, leaving the room in tact. So of course we didn’t pass up the opportunity to take our pictures on Saddam’s bed. It was true, just as we had heard, the fixtures in his bathrooms were all gold. We stumbled over expensive treasures of silver and precious wood lying amidst the dust-covered rubble. At one point I stepped on an intricately carved silver pot and resisted the temptation to steal a piece of Saddam’s booty.
My promise to Dr. Shawki
The next day, we revisited Al-Kindi and Yarmuk Hospitals, where we’d delivered medicines only the day before, and where lines of people were now waiting to be treated. In the afternoon we were invited to tea with the doctors of the Sherhebel Clinic, one of the best hospitals in Baghdad. There we were introduced to Dr. Hilal Shawki, Baghdad’s top cardiologist. I used the opportunity to discuss my three recent heart operations with the doctor. He sympathized, asked me a lot of detailed questions including what medications I was on, and then shared with me the story of how his clinic had been leveled by a U.S. air strike. It had received a direct hit that left absolutely nothing remaining.
A simple and obvious thought came into my head and, before I could stop, I heard myself say, "maybe I can help you." Although I wasn’t sure exactly what I would do or how I would do it, the sentiment was genuine. Moreover, it suddenly seemed as if I’d been given a way to repay the universe for giving me my life back!
The next day, as we were racing across the desert on our ten-hour drive to the Jordanian border, it occurred to me that my promise to Dr. Shawki tied me to Baghdad. I thought it probably meant that I’d be traveling back to see Dr. Shawki’s clinic when it’s built.
From working with AmeriCares I’ve learned that volunteering means you do it yourself. It is not something you can believe someone else is going to do it for you. I realized that I was "the someone else" and that I was the one who was going to have to help Dr. Shawki rebuild his clinic.
As crazy as Baghdad was, I look at it as a place that offers tremendous opportunity. I can’t think of another place under the sun where there is more that needs to be done.
If you might be inclined to help with the re-building of Dr. Shawki’s Cardiac Clinic—which will undoubtedly be the finest in Baghdad, you can email me at: tony@beneathbuddhaseyes.com
My local paper printed an article I wrote about my trip to Baghdad last month and how I promised to help Dr. Shawki, one of Iraq’s pre-eminent cardiologists, to rebuild the clinic leveled by a U.S. air strike.
I have met with positive support already from the hospital where I had my operations and from the cardiology group of which I am a patient.
I received my first email from Dr. Shawki mentioning his desire to re-open his practice in the Sherhabeel Clinic. This is an easier task than trying to build at the moment, which is says is a most difficult task. Now it is a question of setting up the supply line to deliver donated equipment to Baghdad, which should not be a huge problem.
I am confident God will fill such a clear and obvious need. Already I can feel things starting to move.
Some people, for whatever reason, come into this world and give more than they take. Linda Reinberg is one of them.
After Charlie Graney had welcomed me to the event at the Ships Lantern bar, I was introduced not long afterwards to Dr. Linda Reinberg. Linda was a therapist who specialized in helping Vietnam Vets with Post Traumatic Stress. She became my therapist (and it was no small deal for me to accept the fact that yes, I needed this kind of help) and thus began the real healing in my life.
Somewhere along the way in our one and a half years of sessions, as I began to remember the language vets used in Nam, I started to take notes for what would become my first book, "Life is War But You Can Win." The phrases soldiers used became a kind of code language, the words did not always mean what they said. Instead, they were code for a message. "Don't mean nothin" was an expression heard all the time that haunts me to this day. Because "don't mean nothin" was really and truly the ultimate expression of protection. When a soldier was feeling so much pain they couldn't deal with it, they'd use that phrase as if almost to say, "I'm really hurting but this is not the place or time to express what I'm feeling because if I do, I'm just going to fucking self-destruct right in front of you!" That's one possible definition.
So I compiled the phrases I could remember, they started coming back to me as therapy moved on. A great guy, a Doctor, named Morrie Krikun, who ran a publishing company Morgin Press, responded to the manuscript (he was about the 25th person I'd sent it to) and published the small 96 page book.
In the small world of recovering vets, the book became a hit. It was bought by Vet Centers and Veterans Hospitals around the country and I guess it helped some people. I received some heartfelt letters, which in turn helped heal me even more. I truly felt that writing "Life is War" was about the best thing I'd ever done!
Stanley Thompson of Puppet Press is going to publish it as an ebook now, after its original publication ten years ago. We could call it the "Tenth Anniversary Edition." A lot of people have asked for the book since then. I even get messages from bookstores asking where they can get it.
So, thanks to Lee Fleming, who has fixed the manuscript for E-publishing, it is once again available. "Life is War But You Can Win" will be available on this website as well as on www.puppetpress.com as of July 4th.
The real thanks must also go to Linda Reinberg, who is not doing so well these days, but who was one person on earth who I can truly say, "gave me my life back."
Back in 1993—way back then—by the Grace of God, I went to get help. I was behaving like a real asshole, yelling at people who didn’t agree with me—including my own wife and kids (and even the dog). I was a mess but I couldn’t see it. One day—and I really mean "by the Grace of God"—I finally got a glimpse of my behavior. I was standing in the front hall of my house yelling down at my older son, who was eleven years old then, and from the scared look on his face I saw that whatever he had "done wrong" wasn’t equal to my horrible reaction.
It was this quick glimpse that got me to seek help.
I had seen an article in the local paper, the Westport News, for an event to be held in the vacant building which for years was the location of "The Ships Lantern" Westport’s most notorious bar—the one often mentioned in AA meetings. The "Ships" had been the sight of many drunken nights for me. It probably was no co-incidence that the event which was to begin my healing process was held there!
A group of Vietnam Vets who called themselves the "Vietnam Veteran’s Assistance Foundation" was sponsoring a talk by Kitty Kelly a New York television entertainment reporter who had decided to quit her job and open an orphanage in Saigon for Amer-Asian children—the illegitimate kids of American Soldiers and Vietnamese woman.
With the exception of my buddy from Nam Walter Jackson and my former Commanding Officer Joe Hebert, I had not spoken with another Vietnam Vet since the war. I had gone completely underground. So showing up at the Ships was a huge leap for me. I’m sure that by having the meeting in familiar territory was part of God’s plan.
The Saturday of the event, I drove around the block a few times peering in the window. I noticed Kitty Kelly’s well-known head of curly silver-gray hair. I could also make out the figures of men standing around talking.
As shy as I was at that time, about meeting new people and heading into new territory, it truly WAS A MIRACLE that I dared myself to open the door to the old bar. But that’s all it took—that one simple act of opening the door.
Instantly I was greeted by Charlie Graney, the friendly and out going leader of the group. I don’t know exactly what it was I said to him—actually, I think it was nothing at all. It was most likely the angry, tired, lonely, fed-up frightened look on my face that gave me away in an instant. Of course I was a Vietnam Veteran.
"You’re in the right place," is what Charlie said. And I felt—I knew—that my healing journey had begun…
(to be continued)
I dreamt last night of the ranch in northern California where my in-laws live. It was a dream of walking on a dirt road through the forest. Nothing special you might think, but extremely special if you take close notice. Because that is what happens when you walk through the woods in a place where there is nothing but Nature—and trees and squirrels and deer and bear and birds singing and a few snakes and spiders and assorted bugs. You notice those things, but also the flowers and the grass that moves in the wind. And up above, the tall trees reaching up to a blue sky that seems to go on forever because it does.
And, when you’ve walked enough and run out of thoughts and things to say—you’ve been talking to the trees and the grass and the bugs, and then finally to yourself—then you begin to feel the Earth breathing. You notice that it is a living, breathing thing, just like a person is and that it is very cool to be walking around on it, almost like you were a bug crawling around on someone’s stomach.
And then at night, although you are tired from all the breathing of really pure air, and all the walking—and you’ve gone for a swim—you walk outside to bathe for a bit in the starlight. And there is where you honestly begin to feel how the world we live on is an organism. And why this is important is because all that happens on this Earth is part of its life of which we too are a part. We as a bug on its stomach find our food here and our allotted breaths of air are gifts given us by the Planet as well.
When I walk along the dirt road on my in-laws ranch, I notice this stuff—which doesn’t seem to occur to me in my living room in Connecticut. I look forward to following the wind, which blows towards the west. I look forward to walking under the trees, to talking to myself about things that don’t amount to a hill of beans, to standing outside at night and thinking of counting the stars but knowing that would be a waste of time, that just breathing is the most important thing—and feeling the Earth itself taking its own deep breath.
When they blow, it seems easier to go in the same direction the wind is going in.
Like when you’re sailing, going downwind—running with the wind, as it’s called—is the easiest tack. It’s quiet, sometimes silent, and usually the boat is moving with the waves. I’m trying my best to pick up on the wind direct and just let it take me.
As far as I can tell, it’s blowing East to West.
Don't ask me why, but I'm starting to feel like Mark Twain...
Today, is a hard day for me. I don’t know why but it is one of those days where things seem overwhelming. Not that I have too much to do. It is more a question of what to do. Which way do I go? What do I do first?
What I’m finding is that having one simple thing to focus on—trying to help someone else—is the best way to deal with my overly active and scattered mind. Trying to raise money for Doctor Shawki takes me out of myself. It makes my problems seem small. The Doctor’s clinic has been totally destroyed. Totally. So it needs building from the ground up. He has no money for this and it‘s up to me.
So here I’ve stated a problem, a challenge, which is so simple. So easy to understand. I start at square one. I take the first step.
And this helps me. There are temptations to do things that are not good, not healthy, not helping anyone. Here is a direction being pointed out to go in. It feels like sailing. Set the sails and let the wind take me there.
I was overwhelmed by all the new impressions, the foreignness of Baghdad, the noises of war we’d sometimes hear, the tanks roaring through the streets, the sound of Arabic being spoken, the dust and sand in the air, the smell of lamb cooking.
One thing that became familiar quickly was the Middle Eastern tradition of stopping for Chi in the afternoon—tea. It is served in tiny glasses balanced on saucers because the glasses are too hot to hold on their own. It is very strong black tea with lots of sugar—so much sugar that you see a layer of it in the bottom of the glass. But it’s delicious. Everybody seems to drink it and usually more than one glass of it.
Afternoon Chi is something I looked forward to. The caffeine and the sugar and the fact that it was time to sit down and take a break.
I believe that breaks are the secret to long-life and happiness. Meditating twice a day is taking a break, and so is taking a walk, walking the dog, reading the paper, taking a bath, taking a nap—whatever it is that is different from what we do for most of the day.
I’m beginning to see that my reality has become old and tired and I’m looking for whatever it is that I should do next… when I take a break, or a glass of Chi, I take the time to maybe let that new reality make itself known.
The line I think of next is, "my word is all I have."
Think about it. What I say describes me. It defines who I am. So, above all things, I’d better be truthful in what I say. In other words, I’d better mean what I say.
What’s got me thinking about the value of my word is the promise I made to the cardiologist I met in Iraq last month.
On the way home from a blood test this morning—they keep very close track of my levels these days—which always reminds me of just how mortal I am, I was thinking that I really don’t even know this doctor in Baghdad. I have heard that he is beyond reproach which is what I need to know.
But my point here is that this man who I talked to for maybe twenty minutes, is somebody I gave my word to. That fact has not diminished. It has not gone away, as one might’ve expected.
I mean, it could’ve happened that I would have returned from Baghdad, sent my pictures over to AmeriCares, written a few entries in my journal and then gotten on with other business.
The Doctor would’ve perhaps thought about that heart patient he’d had a cup of tea with, "I think he was a photographer" is all he might’ve remembered, "who said he thought he could help." But if the doctor never heard from me again, I would’ve faded from his memory and then after awhile I’d be gone completely and the good doctor would be going about his business in Baghdad on his own, or maybe some others would show up to help him.
…none of which pertains to me keeping my word. That is all up to me. As I’m finding it is with anything—and everything—it all comes back to me. Or it all comes down to me. Me, myself and I. It’s my word that I’m keeping, and I’m keeping it for myself, for my own self-respect. In the end, I will die by myself and be judged only by me. So I’d better learn to do as I say and say as I do.
…which is why I am keeping my word to help rebuild Dr. Shawki’s Cardiac Clinic. If I am completely hones, I am not doing this for any great "humanitarian" reason. I’m doing it for me. And really just because I gave my word that I would help.
I happened to surf over to a TV show the other day where I heard a very enlightened-sounding priest say, "I see the future of religion being in small groups of like-minded people worshipping together."
Since I stopped by, in the middle of his train of thoughts, I’m not sure where he’d just been on his journey, but what I just quoted struck an immediate chord.
I suspect that meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous and other support groups are what the priest was referring to. The meetings are, for the most part, anywhere from ten to seventy-five people. I’d say the average size group is fifteen to twenty—at least in my area. It’s not that the group couldn’t be any larger—anyone is welcome—it’s just that the groups, by their nature, end up being this size.
AA is immediately what came to mind when I heard the Priest’s words. I’ve witnessed the power of these small groups for over a decade now and they are, by far, the most spiritually powerful groups I know of. I wonder if it’s not because the people that come to the meeting have such a strong need for help. AA is not a social affair like church sometimes can be—it’s a life or death thing. The people who come really have an urgent need to be there. They are urgently seeking for something to help them and as such there is often a palpable feeling of a Higher Power hanging around the rooms.
There's another reason, I think, that the priest’s words made me think of AA. They call the meetings, "The Rooms" which intimates a small size gathering unlike churches which normally I think of as large—cathedral-sized—gatherings.
I spoke at an AA meeting not long ago where the audience numbered five and it was a powerful meeting. Didn’t Jesus say, "wherever two or more are gathered in my name…"
There is something about the intimacy of a smaller-size group that might even make it physically more powerful. It may be that a crowd over a certain size creates a diminishing return. In church, most of the people are strangers to one another. In a smaller group you do. It is more of a family so it's a family size meeting—a natural selection for group size.
God bless you, for reading this. I may have just been rambling…but thanks for letting me share!
I’ve planted myself in a lawn chair watching my older son cut the lawn. This simple action, contrasted with the place I’ve just been, seems very much a blessed event. My visit to the lawless country that is now Iraq—destroyed for 30 years by one man’s insanity—tends to put things in perspective, as they say.
So right now I’m feeling gratitude for simple things. At other times, it’s so easy for me, to view the glass as half-empty. Now, I have no problem at all seeing it as half full.
For some reason, it has always been easy for me to find fault with my older son. I think it was probably all the things he did that showed off too much of my own shortcomings were what upset me. It has taken me years of learning to do it but, blessedly, I am able to see him now for what he himself is—a wonderful young man of 21. He’s taken a year off from college and lived at home. During this time my wife and I have watched him grow a lot. He’s worked at a pizza place until recently when he started his own landscaping business.
When he instructs me in the operation of his gas-powered weed wacker, I listen. Evan is the kind of man you tend to listen to. He’s always had incredibly strong convictions, which is no doubt the same reason he and I have butted heads for years. He has about the strongest convictions I’ve ever seen in any man and, I hate to admit it, but he’s more often right than wrong.
So on my first day back from Baghdad, I have learned something invaluable. I’ve seen my first precious little boy become a man, right before my eyes.
As anyone who has grown kids will undoubtedly tell you, watch them closely, keep your eyes on the ball, because the growing up happens in the blink of an eye. And it’s not something you want to miss.
On our last day in Iraq, we revisited Al-Kindi and Yarmuk Hospitals, where we’d delivered medicines only the day before, and where lines of people were now waiting to be treated. In the afternoon we were invited to tea with the doctors of the Sherhebel Clinic, one of the best hospitals in Baghdad. There we were introduced to Dr. Hilal Shawki, Baghdad’s top cardiologist. I used the opportunity to discuss my three recent heart operations with the doctor. He sympathized, asked me a lot of detailed questions including what medications I was on, and then shared with me the story of how his clinic had been leveled by a U.S. air strike. It had received a direct hit that left absolutely nothing remaining.
A simple and obvious thought came into my head and, before I could stop, I heard myself say, "maybe I can help you." Although I wasn’t sure exactly what I would do or how I would do it, the sentiment was genuine. Moreover, it suddenly seemed as if I’d been given a way to repay the universe for giving me my life back!
The next day, as we were racing across the desert on our ten-hour drive to the Jordanian border, it occurred to me that my promise to Dr. Shawki tied me to Baghdad. I thought it probably meant that I’d be traveling back to see Dr. Shawki’s clinic when it’s built.
From working with AmeriCares I’ve learned that volunteering means you do it yourself. It is not something you can believe someone else is going to do it for you. I realized that I was "the someone else" and that I was the one who was going to have to help Dr. Shawki rebuild his clinic.
As crazy as Baghdad was, I look at it as a place that offers tremendous opportunity. I can’t think of another place under the sun where there is more that needs to be done.
Today, as a kind of introduction to writing about AmeriCares’ wonderful humanitarian mission to Baghdad, I wanted to share a picture of extraordinary beauty.
It’s not a beautiful photograph in any sort of technical sense, it is a picture of a beautiful girl taken in one of the hospitals which AmeriCares delivered aid to.
I once heard Ingmar Bergman, the great Swedish film director, talking about film. He talked about his belief that there is nothing more powerful than the human face. The face is capable of revealing infinite emotion—infinite love, happiness and sadness.
This girl’s face reveals why it is that we should bring as much help as we can to Iraq. We should be in the business now of helping these people who have suffered.
There’s something simple and healing about trees. There is a lot we can learn from them if we learn how to listen to them speak.
Before I left for Iraq recently, I had an image of what the place would look like. The picture in my mind was of group of palms—as in an oasis.
It wasn’t until I’d been in Baghdad awhile, and we were leaving—racing at high speed in a mad dash for the Jordanian border—that I snapped this picture that was very much the picture I had of the place.
Sometimes it is far simpler to show a visual rather than say something. I’ll simply write some short captions for the four photos to follow.
The first is of some graffiti that caught my eye just because it was beautiful. I’ve always been a student of type fonts and symbols of communication in various forms. But this lettering, in bright red against a white wall transcends its written message and becomes art—also, that might be because I can’t read Arabic.
This photo was one of many shot from the front seat of our Suburban—which explains the tinted sun-shade across the top of the photo. I took the shot of the regal-looking statue in the center of the circle and it wasn’t until I saw the picture on the computer screen later that I noticed the satellite dish in the truck.
Sergeant Irving, glaring into the camera here, was saying something—I’m not sure what—with his eyes.
This picture needs no explanation.
I noticed the pose, even before I went to take this picture; it was Mary and Jesus—only in a hospital in Baghdad!
One thing that interests me about the picture is the expression on the mother’s face; I wonder why she is smiling. Why would she smile with her wounded son lying in her lap? Perhaps I am mistaken and it is just a look of resignation.
The object she holds in her hand is a lit candle in a glass.
While documenting the humanitarian aid mission to Iraq, we were taken to visit an orphanage for girls, which had received financial aid in the past. As soon as we stepped inside the guarded gate, it felt as if we’d entered an oasis of peace. Almost immediately we were greeted by a group of happy faces, vying as young children often do, to be the center of attention—to be the star in the photograph.
Although fairly close to the city center, the orphanage was a world unto itself—built around a central brick courtyard. On one side was the kitchen and dining room with the classrooms and living quarters on the other. The giggling group of young girls who had greeted us followed my camera everywhere, as we toured the facility.
Photo Captions: Greeting Committee. A classroom. Sweeping water that backs up in the hallway. Girls in their Bedroom. The cook in her kitchen.
As we heard in so many places, the orphanage had their own Saddam story: They had received a donation of a shipment of new furniture—as you might be able to tell from the pictures, the rooms are very sparsely furnished. As soon as the administrator in charge of orphanages in Saddam’s government got word of the arrival of the furniture, he confiscated it for use in his own offices.
Today I found this photo I took in Baghdad the week before last.
The reason I went to Baghdad was to document the first humanitarian aid mission there—for AmeriCares, a disaster relief organization. What I did was to document the shipment of medical supplies from where they were shipped (Maastricht, Holland) right to the hospitals where they ended up. I spent t two days in hospitals while the goods were being unloaded and locked away in the pharmacies under the protection of U.S. Army troops.
While this was going on, I roamed the wards of the hospitals photographing patients.
I never found who shot the man in the photo—a looter, a Saddam sympathizer or an American soldier? But when I went to take his picture, he held up the bullet the doctors had taken from his abdomen. I suppose at this point, it didn’t matter to him who shot the bullet. He seemed grateful to me for taking his picture—as if it was some sort of reward for having been shot.