Friday, June 26, 2009

Faith is what you feel when you are alone and find you're not."

(More on the incredible journey of Terry and Madeleine Anderson as written in their book Den of Lions)

On June 7, 1985 Madeleine gave birth to Sulome. Hezbollah terrorists hijacked a TWA airliner. Hopes were raised. Despite President Reagan's often-repeated pledges not to negotiate with terrorists, he extracted Israel's agreement to release several hundred of the Lebanese Shiites it was holding without charges, and the Amal shiites agreed to free the TWA hostages Hezbollah had kidnapped. Reagan had told members of the family of one of Anderson's fellow hostages that "all" the hostages were being released. The seven original hostages were still missing when the 40 Americans on TWA were bussed to freedom.

I remember Peggy Say's indefatigable campaign to get her brother Terry and his fellow hostages released. She wrote a book about it, entitled, Forgotten. In it she writes, "They make deals in private, deny them in public, and then renege on the whole thing; they sit there in their suits or caftans and lie to your face. These are the people running the world. Where do you go to find somebody you can believe, someone you can trust?"

President Reagan "was interested to the point of obsession in gaining release of the American hostages in Lebanon," writes Terry. This led to Iran-Contra and arms-for-hostages in July, 1985.

Anderson, like most journalists, was a liberal democrat, and had lived his life accordingly. He took advantage of an opportunity to confess his sins to fellow hostage Father Martin Jenko. Then, he writes this line in his book: "Faith's what you feel when you're alone and find you're not."

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