Writings by Cathy Breen

Amman, Jordan
November 4, 2011

What a handsome young man. He came three months ago from Baghdad. He said he had to. He left his wife, his mother and six little children behind. When I asked about his children, he became silent and I realized after some moments that he was crying. I too was silent, hesitating to continue. So young, I thought. All he has ever known is war.

Amman, Jordan

April 29, 2010

Dear Friends,

My time in the Middle East is coming to an end and I would like to write you one last time. I was very sorry to leave Syria yesterday, but my return flight to the U.S. is out of Jordan. I had hoped to travel by land from Damascus to Amman, but the road was closed due to confrontations in southern Syria near the border. So I found myself in the early morning hours yesterday at the Damascus airport waiting to board a plane heading for Amman. How I wished I was arriving instead of leaving.

Damascus, Syria

April 23, 2011

Dear Friends,

So much has been going on here that I don’t know where to begin to write you.

Yesterday was Good Friday for those of us in the Christian tradition. It is one of the most solemn feast days in our church calendar. I believe there are about 2 million Christians in Syria, and ancient churches in the old city seem as abundant and as the beautifully striking mosques. All of the street processions reenacting Jesus’ passion, and normally celebrated here in Damascus, were cancelled due to demonstrations.

Damascus, Syria
April 10, 2011
Dear Friends,

Two nights ago while visiting an Iraqi friend in his apartment, I asked if we could turn on the TV news. I wanted to take advantage of the gracious woman who was translating for us to get a sense of what is going on here in Syria. I will call her Fatima. We had not met before, and at my urging she had just shared some of her own story with me. Now as photos of chaotic scenes flashed before us (of smoke, of people running, of the dead and wounded), Fatima exclaimed, trying to laugh as she spoke, “We ran away from Palestine to Jordan. We ran away from Iraq to Syria. War seems to follow us!” The two friends told me nervously that there had been some disturbances at the other end of the neighborhood earlier in the day. They, of course, had stayed close to their homes.

Damascus, Syria
April 9, 2011

Dear Friends,

I want to laugh today. As the mystic Indian poet Kabir sang, “A whole body laugh, feeling God’s poke in the ribs.”

There is no lack of things that make me sad just thinking of them. An Iraqi man separated from his family for almost two years. The wife and four children left for the U.S. in June of 2009, but the father was denied on “credibility.” For what reason? I challenge anyone to try and get the Dept. of Homeland Security to release this information to the family. His little son in Michigan, now 4 ½ years, has long since forgotten his dad’s voice over the telephone. The family in the U.S. is trying another route to reunite the family, but the wait seems eternal. I hope to see the father tonight.

April 4, 2011
By Cathy Breen
Dear Friends,

I arrived in Damascus a few days ago. There weren’t many cars crossing the border, so it was a relatively quick trip, and inexpensive (about 4 hrs. and $12.00). Friends living in Damascus had found me a room to rent in a house in the old city. There were four other boarders, all of them studying Arabic. Two of them are German women, in their 50s, who, sadly, will be leaving in a few days. One young fellow from the states left early today for Amman. On the occasions when I spoke with him he appeared quite nervous. He told me late last night that his mother really wanted him to get out of Syria for awhile.

New York City, December 8, 2010

They say she cries tears of oil, and that occasionally there is a hint of a smile on her face. The story has it that the statue is owned by a Muslim woman in Windsor, Canada.

When the statue began to shed tears, it created such a furor in the town with crowds thronging to see her, that the statue was transferred to a little church. I was taken to see her just a few days ago by an Armenian Iraqi family I was visiting in Canada. The church was open and we were the only visitors. Almost life sized, Mary was indeed smiling down on us. We saw no trace of tears, though her eyes were large and luminous and it was easy to imagine her weeping. The thought that went through my mind was that Mary only cries when we stop crying. Crying for the ongoing suffering due to our wars, for families uprooted and separated from their loved ones, for families still burying their dead and trying themselves to escape the ongoing violence and killing in Iraq.