I write this within a few days of the 20th anniversary of the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and my experience as a hostage in that embassy.
And 20 years later, I am still asked some of the same questions posed on Day 445, the day after my release. The response I made to two questions asked during my first few days of freedom stand out in my mind as the most crucial to my "survival" and my ability to move forward to a post-Iran life that has been full, rich and meaningful.A youngster asked the first question. Her elementary school class came to the first major press conference I held on my own after my release.
The questions from the networks and wire services were pretty standard.
But out of the corner of my eye, I could see this girl, 9 or 10 years old, and she had been raising her hand persistently. When I called on her, she asked, "Did anything you learned as a kid help you through this?" What a question! I found it more profound than any of the timeworn questions posed by the professionals.
Everything I used for survival in Iran was based on training I received as a child in Iowa. And for me, one of the most significant pieces was the religious education I received and saw in the daily lives of my nuclear family, my grandparents and extended family and the community around me.
This sense of being a child of God meant that I had responsibilities, that I would be able to sort out right from wrong and that there was a stability, because however much I might not like what was happening, it could serve a good purpose. This early training formed the basis for decisions I made on handling the hostage crisis.
This childhood preparation for life, based on Christian (in my case Lutheran) principles, brought me to a sense of urgency in dealing with the second question I was later asked, "How do you love your enemies?"
After the Iranian students gave me a Bible on Christmas Eve, I read it regularly and studied it assiduously, looking for promises and answers from my childhood training. One day I was hit in the face with the command to "Love your enemies." And this was said not once, but twice within a very short space in Luke, Chapter 6. If I was who I claimed to be, then I had to deal with this passage.
So began my search into one of the most profound experiences of my life. How could I love these people, knowing what I did about the treatment they were meting out? They had not bodily harmed me, but they were making my parents suffer, and it was no picnic being locked up, even as benignly as I was treated. The real question became, "How do I make this work?" I still don't know how it works. Suffice it to say that I found it possible not to hate my enemies; not to harbor feelings of resentment, bitterness, anger and revenge.
Am I angry at what happened? Yes. From our point of view. It was unnecessary and the political goals it achieved have perhaps been outstripped by Iran's subsequent 20 years on the outside of the global community. But I am glad that I have not been consumed by that anger and that I have learned to love my enemies. I don't have to bear the burden of anger. I have been able to focus on my wonderful career in the foreign service, on my family, and on the things I love: opera, reading, travel,family and friends.
As I began my search, I began to realize the things that felt so good -- anger, bitterness, lust for revenge --were destroying me and meant absolutely nothing to those toward whom they were directed. By letting go of those feelings, I was able to get on with my life. Do I love my captors? I don't know. I can definitely say I don't hate them. The anger I feel is positively directed -- to do as much as possible to prevent such a situation from recurring.
I often speak to groups about terrorism in its various forms and what we can do to counter this horrible threat. Even in the drama classes I now teach, I urge students to find the resolution of conflict, to analyze how reconciliation appears in its various guises and how reconciliation might have changed the dramatic action.
Yes, what I learned as a child was very important. It led me to an understanding of "loving my enemies," not through approval or becoming a doormat but by unburdening myself of things that could have a most crippling effect on my own life -- anger, bitterness, hatred and lust for revenge. I am glad I am not the judge. I am pleased that 20 years down the road I am beginning to understand just a little bit more of what I can only call the grace of a God who loves all of his children.
Kathryn Koob is at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, where she teaches theater as well as a course on reconciliation.