THE MIDDLE EAST Separation Four years ago at this time my wife and I were in Iraq, on the eve of the invasion. With the members of the Iraq Peace Team we were trying to bring to the attention of world media the enormous mistake the coming invasion was about to enact, and the agony […]
Writings related to ‘Syria’
The Believer’s Candle
November 24th, 2003
DAMASCUS, SYRIA Our pilgrimage to Syria left many traces on our hearts of realities deeper than headlines. In this letter I would like to describe three images that particularly touched me during the journey. These are images of people praying. I have always been drawn to the company of people at prayer – Hindu or […]
Syrian Pilgrimage
November 22nd, 2003
DAMASCUS, SYRIA “In America, the idea of us Syrians is that we eat foreigners,” joked Mahat El-Khoury, a 71 year-old human rights worker and recent Damascus “Woman of the Year.” “We Syrians feel misunderstood by the West. You don’t understand our religions, our family ways, our history, or our politics. You think we’re terrorists. We […]
From a Desert Monastery
May 27th, 2003
THE MONASTERY OF ST. MOSES, SYRIA Up here in the desert cliffs everything that is not human, goat, or chicken, is stone or sky. A long rocky path winds up to the stone walls of this 6th century monastery. At dawn and dusk the sky is the color of mother-of-pearl, otherwise it is bright blue […]
