"I wanted to let you know your name has come up for an Italian team heading to Beirut at the end of July for a Faith and Light training week. We'll also be electing a new Continental coordinator while we're there."
Panic. I'm not responsible for my Region—probably never will be—so it doesn't feel right to take this chance from someone else. Though the international Faith and Light gatherings I've attended before were so beautiful, so rich. I can't bring myself to say no. And what exactly are these Continents, anyway? What will the Middle East be like? Are our friends in Faith and Light there really so different from us?
When I board the flight to Beirut, I carry some answers with me and plenty of curiosity (plus a suitcase that gets lost and lands me the unexpected gift of my fellow travelers' attention, and our hosts' warmth and generosity). Now I understand: Faith and Light organizes our communities into Regions, Nations, and Zones so we can reach out to distant cities, countries, or continents. Since September 2002 in Rome, the many Zones that have grown up have been grouped again into what we now call Continents.
I'm not sure I belong here, but I arrive determined to offer whatever I can do. Whether there are other ways to "bear fruit," as our theme suggests, I'll only discover when I leave. Waiting for me are Swiss, Croats, Slovenes, Greeks, Cypriots, and of course Lebanese—plus Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and one shy Iranian.
It's hard to draw a line between these nationalities that fade gradually from West to East, where you catch glimpses, on the surface, of both common ground and difference. Faith and Light divides them into two Zones now grouped in the new "Europe-Middle East" Continent. The western zone has shifted; Greece and Cyprus are part of it now.
The babel of languages is both our richest resource and our most obvious obstacle. "Abuna. Père, Father, πάτερ, Our Father...": the Our Father spoken in so many tongues makes us feel, tangibly and powerfully, that all of us belong to one human family. At the same time, our spiritual guide admits his bewilderment following a Mass celebrated in Arabic according to a rite not his own. This is where Faith and Light's ecumenical calling becomes real and necessary. At our opening evening, I translate the introduction of all the nations into English and immediately collide with the fact that almost every Christian tradition and a remarkable number of rites are represented here. For everyone else, it's another gift. For me, it's a collision—because I'm absolutely not equipped to describe it in English!
Lectures, small-group discussions, candlelit vigils push us to think, to discover or rediscover what matters, or to see things differently. We speak about community, about responsibility, about the importance of accompanying others and being accompanied ourselves. Maroun offers us a simple but suddenly clear idea: that conflicts between people—in Faith and Light as elsewhere—spring from unresolved inner conflicts. He speaks while his children sleep beside him like small wings. In one corner of the conference room sits Elias, always there in his bed, smiling, held by the community, reminding us where we are and why. The international language of smiles works with him, though sometimes it frustrates me—I wish I could tell him something more than "Marahba! Kiffak?" (Hello; how are you?)
Around us is Beirut, which I experience mostly through the stories of its people rather than through our hurried visits. The city is proud. There's a strong wish to show the world its soul—a phoenix rising from ash—and to erase every trace of ruin quickly. "The next generation will have good relations with the neighbors, because we don't speak of war."
Before heading home, I'm fortunate enough to extend my stay and taste the legendary hospitality of this region. In Syria, as in Lebanon during our gathering, we are welcomed, escorted, and indulged for two intense days full of human and historical beauty. In a monastery at peace on the desert's edge, beside a Bedouin tent that holds a church rich in carpets and silence, we eat a biscuit dipped in Nutella alongside people from different nations—mostly Italians, linked by chance. We laugh with a laughter that fits the place. We prepare to carry home everything we've lived.
— Valentina Camomilla, 2002
