From Beirut to Aleppo, few meditations and lot of sorrows...

a scene from Beirut. (my lens- winter 2014)

One of my greatest joys in Beirut is those small surprises I come through while taking an unplanned walk into its streets. It often happens that a similar scene stops me for a few minutes of meditation... and sorrow!

I call those buildings "The War Survivors". It amazes me to see few old buildings still holding on after
all what the city has been through; not only the destructive war, but also the destructive trucks of the so-called modernity with its 20 floors building arising everywhere in the city!

Is it that our ancestors had a better architectural taste? Or it has to do more with the nostalgic crisis I am having towards my city Aleppo and its destroyed heritage?

An old house in the old city of Aleppo, known as Dar Zamaria (my lens - September 2008)

Whenever my Beiruti meditation/thinking goes to Aleppo I can't keep but to feel my heart aching. Oh my God what have we done?!

the old city of Aleppo, in front of the Umayyad mosque (my lens - September 2008)

I took those two photos in September 2008 (I was testing my new camera then), while I've been preparing myself to leave Syria towards Egypt where I joined the society of Jesus' novitiate. When I remember those days and how it felt leaving my country back then, it feels like it was a very different life time, as if it was on a different galaxy. I was full of joy for I will be leaving soon on a rich spiritual journey to get well prepared for the service of my country and its people. Or at least that what I thought!

And now, with everything turned upside down, I can't but keep asking myself is there any possible way to act differently so things wouldn't have to take this bad turn, both on the national and personal levels?

Regret is all I feel sometimes, But then I read those sentences of Napoleon Bonaparte:

We must avoid all reaction in speaking of the Revolution. No man could oppose it. Blame lies neither with those who perished nor with those who have survived. There was no individual force capable of changing its elements or preventing events which arose from the nature of things and from circumstances.

Do I feel better now? I don't know, maybe for a while...