Iran RPCV Gordon Morrison recalls Middle East experiences
Minister recalls Middle East experiences
By JUDY JENKINS, Gleaner Columnist
March 25, 2003
The Rev. Gordon Morrison has "smelled Saddam's smoke" and keeps a spent Iraqi anti-aircraft shell on a book-lined shelf in his office.
The rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church was on one of the first civilian planes into the Gulf area at the conclusion of Desert Storm in 1991 and experienced the eye-stinging, nostril-assailing clouds from oil wells burned by retreating Iraqi forces.
Just as he did at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Morrison spent a month relieving "burned out" Episcopal priests serving in the war zones. It was during his post-war stay that he picked up the empty anti-aircraft shell at an Iraqi battery. The shell "still smelled strongly of cordite," said Morrison, who is in his eighth year at St. Paul's. "I soaked it in bleach so it wouldn't ring any bells in Customs."
He has roots and friends in that troubled section of the world, and said he may again be called upon to relieve Episcopal priests when Operation Iraqi Freedom is completed. If summoned, he said, he will go.
In addition to serving congregations there, he would have an opportunity to visit with his and wife Lynda's son Gregory, 33, who is a foreign service officer in the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria. Gregory's wife Elizabeth and 19-month-old son Gabriel were sent back to America several weeks ago, and the two stayed in the parsonage here for a time before going to Elizabeth's parents' home in Alabama.
Morrison said he has some concerns for his elder son because of the anti-war demonstrations in Syria. But, he added, Gregory has good Syrian neighbors who look out for him.
The rector, who grew up in Oakland City, Ind., is by no means a war monger, but he believes that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant, "and people who appease tyrants have something to answer for." He points out that early on Hitler was appeased by some European leaders.
Morrison has been to Auschwitz, where so many Jews were executed and burned in crematoriums, and notes that, "If people hadn't appeased Hitler, Auschwitz wouldn't have happened."
He considers Saddam Hussein "one of the five biggest killers of the last 100 years. More than two million people have died because of him."
Morrison's first venture in the Middle East had its start on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November, 1963. Morrison, who hadn't yet entered the ministry, was a college graduate with a degree in environmental planning, and the death of the president spurred him to go straight to the nearest post office and obtain a Peace Corps application.
"Kennedy originated the idea of the Peace Corps," and Morrison saw service in that organization as a way to honor the slain leader and help make a difference in the world. He began training the following summer, and was assigned to the historic Persian city of Isfahan in Iran.
There, in that fabled place famous for its blue-domed mosques, he ran a youth center and befriended the Iranian Episcopal bishop, who was a long distance runner as was Morrison. They often ran together, and remained in touch after Morrison completed his Peace Corps posting.
Later, after Morrison had met and married Lynda, the bishop urged him to return to Iran and develop youth programs for the Episcopal Diocese of Iran. Morrison agreed, and his wife -- now a USI history professor who was a medical technologist at that time -- established a lab "in that ancient city of Islam.'' One of the first pregnancy tests she did was for herself, and she learned that she was, indeed, expecting. That was Gregory, whose name is Persian for "one who captures wild horses."
While in Iran, Morrison befriended a priest who was later beheaded by revolutionaries who ousted the Shah and seized control. "They killed him right next to the altar of his church and drew a cross on his forehead with his blood." At that point, the Morrisons had been back in the States for two years.
The minister has no antipathy toward the Muslim religion. "I have high regard for Muslims...I am a friend of Islam," he said. Both religions believe man was created by God, and both hope for eternal life with God.
"It's the fanatics who have distorted that religion."
It is because of terrorist fanatics that Morrison also has some fears for his younger son, Christopher, who works for a law firm in Washington, D.C. and is regularly in and out of embassies.
Asked if he believes there will ever be peace in the Middle East, Morrison sighed. "I don't know...Our Lord wept over Jerusalem 2000 years ago."
