i search for signs of peace. i believe if you search for peace you will find peace. i believe if you ask for peace you will be given peace. In this day of violence where we are being taught to be suspicious of each other i have chosen to look for peace amongst those we are being taught to suspect. Below is a portion of a poem from a Muslim perspective on Jesus written by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, from "Christ after the Crucifixion." Ironically Al-Sayyab was born in Iraq and lived between 1926 - 1964. So he is a fairly recent poet. One whose voice hopefully represents many people both Muslim and non-Muslim. I think if we are to be free of our suspicion, we will have to spend time at the feet of Jesus and listen to him. After all Jesus is a significant person that both faiths share in common. I think if we do seek Jesus we will find his presence amongst the crucified of Iraq and throughout the suffering in the middle east. If we are to experience peace in our time it will not be at the end of a gun, whether it be an Islamic fundamentalistic gun, or an American fundamentalistic gun. Freedom cannot be imposed on a nation any more than an ideology. I think we all share a hope for inner peace and freedom that is born of a common human experience. Often we express ourselves differently and we misunderstand and are misunderstood, but I believe we all share the same desire for expression.

I was in the beginning, and in the beginning was Poverty.
I died that bread may be eaten in my name; that they plant me in season.
How many lives will I live! For in every furrow of earth
I have become a future, I have become a seed.
I have become a race of men, in every human heart
A drop of my blood, or a little drop.

After they nailed me and I cast my eyes towards the city
I hardly recognised the plain, the wall, the cemetery;
As far as the eye could see, it was somethingLike a forest in bloom.
Wherever the vision could reach,there was a cross, a grieving mother
The Lord be sanctified! This is the city about to give birth.