"Suffering the consequences"

Terry and Madeleine Anderson have written a deeply spiritual book, Den of Lions. It is spiritual because after Terry's abduction by Hezbollah thugs, both he and Madeleine wrestle with spiritual questions daily during his seven years in captivity. Both fight internal battles with depression, anger and frustration. Terry does so much introspection. It is a fascinating read. Amazingly, their love for each other just grows and grows. Sometimes I think it is easier for love to grow when people are forced to be apart than it is when people are together! Not that there was anything easy about what Terry and Madeleine experienced.

On March 15, 1985 Anderson was kidnapped. For endless weeks he was chained, blindfolded, and told not to move. "Each small movement brought a curse, a threat, a blow." Often the "vultures gathered around to poke and prod with talon, stick or gun," but Anderson knew that "no thief throws away his booty." He was never to look at his kidnappers: "you see, you dead." "Silly, I'd already seen. Typical militiamen - small, thin, scruffy beard, sharp Arab nose, black hair: completely inseparable from a thousand, ten thousand others."

The terrorists' plan was to swap Anderson for terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait. They dictated letters for Anderson to write, to get Washington to make the deal for the terrorists in Kuwait. Madeleine writes that she had always thought that the American government had the power to find out anything it wanted, and to do anything it wanted. "I learned quickly that we were dealing not only with Lebanese terrorists who were ignorant of the western world, but with Americans who were equally ignorant of Lebanon, and Terry and I and our families were suffering the consequences."