Retreating from the World…

In the wake of the most recent suicide bombing in Hermel, I headed from my home on the sea in Beirut to the mountains of Qadisha Valley for a retreat at the Qozhaya Monastery. Strolling through the quiet grounds of this sacred space, past its hermitages and saintly statues, I felt far removed from the suicide bombings that keep striking close to my home in Beirut. As I entered this beautiful church–cut into the side of the mountain–I took a deep breath, and tried to leave the trauma of the recent violence behind…

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness,
and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange…

— Khalil Gibran