This reflection is entitled...

Ode to Marla Ruzicka

Marla Ruzicka with Harah, who was 3 months old when her entire family was killed when a U.S. rocket struck their car. Marla was killed on April 16th by a suicide bombing on a road near the Baghdad airport.

Twins are blessed and Marla Ruzicka was a twin ~

I know because I'm a twin.

Accompanied by her brother on her nine month uterine journey, she held on to something she deeply felt and never let go of.

She held on to her connectedness with a loving plan and her strong desire to be in service from that place of soul consciousness.

At 28, she represented the very best of America ~ working to bring public awareness and official help to the plight of innocent war victims in Afghanistan and later Iraq.

She was an ' Angel of Life ' and Phillip Robertson , Salon, describes her as such in his moving eulogy of a thousand words:

"In the end, she knew more about the true nature of conflict than any analyst in the United States, more than the president himself. If Marla's methods were unorthodox, it's because the war couldn't be handled the normal way. It needed her personality and her style. Her heart was pure."

Catherine Philip, a foreign correspondent for the Times of london, and one of Marla's closest friends describes her thusly:

"We live in such a jaded community, and she alone seemed untouched. She was like an angel of life, but an angel with a broken wing. It made her seem so fragile that everyone wanted to help her."

She founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) in 2003 that began as her own operation ~ but soon included many Iraqis who tried to compile statistics of Iraqi civilian casualties ~ while the Bush Administration publicly refused , and still does, to acknowledge the carnage of thousands of innocent civilians.

Robertson, who also knew her well, eloquently writes her epitaph with these words:

"She fought cruelty and bloodshed and indifference. Marla Ruzicka was a true enemy of war and she triumphed over it again and again with every person she helped. The last thing she said to me that night in New York was, "You know, Phillip, I'm trying to save the world."

You didn't save the world, Marla ~ but you did remind us that beneath man's inhumanity, cruelty and blatant deceptions lies innocence, purity, joy and love.

As such, you made a difference and touched the world in the process.

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