What I am finding over and over again is that honesty heals. I didn’t realize that my post on the war of 2006 would be a relief for my Lebanese friends, not when I was writing it. I also didn’t count on readers to respond in such beautiful way. I am just busy figuring out what I am doing on this trip. I sometimes feel incompetent and frustrated that I can’t do more than bear witness. And I criticize myself for not being more outgoing and independent and too shy and money-conscious to go snowboarding all by myself.
When the young Syrian showed me the horrible footage, I realized he is trying to tell me a story he has no words for. Then I remembered an incident in a bus in the Philippines where I spent holidays with my first girlfriend, long before my spiritual journey had begun. The man next to me, who worked as a night watch told me about the corruption in his country. He was unable to send his son to University. He was clearly intelligent and overqualified but lived in an unfair system. I never forgot him or his story.
