An Evening of Tears - and a Godsighting in the Middle

A very personal reflection of trauma lived vicariously through the lives of others.

What follows below is a personal reflection on the war that has been declared by Islamist rebel troops in Syria against the regime of Bashir al-Assad.

Tonight was very tough for me.

Since I was received into the Syriac Orthodox Church in January 2023, I have learned a lot about the Christian Middle East. I thought I knew a lot, having traveled there as a Lufthansa flight attendant in my mid-twenties and later as both a business traveler and a pilgrim, when I got to visit the Holy Land a total of eleven times so far, with the latest trip in 2019.

Now, I am realizing how little I understand. Worshipping with Christians from mainly Iraq at my Syriac Orthodox church in Arizona has already made me realize many things that I either wasn’t aware of or—more likely—had only ever seen from a Western perspective, influenced by Western media. Conversations with them and the people from Tur Abdin in southeastern Turkey, whom I interviewed for my dissertation, have opened my eyes to my actually somewhat limited view. It’s ironic! I have always considered myself very well-educated in global politics and economics. Today added yet another reality check!

I had talked with my spiritual father a few times in the morning. He is in a monastery in Germany but has close family members in Syria. After checking my social media feeds (in particular, reporting on X) before speaking with him, I realized that Islamist rebel troops had overrun the city where his family lives close by while I was still sleeping here in the western US. With the Islamist rebel troops' rapid “success” in advance to the south of Syria over the past few days, this was not a huge surprise, but still a very unwelcome one.

A post I saw on X this morning. Lord, have mercy!

We had initially agreed that I would have my confession with him today, but one look at his face on a video call told me that today was not the day to do that. Instead, we discussed what was happening in Syria and looked at maps together, and he explained to me how the rebel troops were advancing from the north. He shared that several families had fled from their Christian towns outside of Hama to the west to seek refuge in other Christian communities. It was clear that Homs would be their next target. He showed me the Syriac Orthodox towns next to Homs. Once Homs falls, if things go according to the apparent plan of the rebel troops, it will be followed by Damascus, where our patriarchate and seminary are located.

Fast-forward to tonight.

Nick and I were going to Vespers (evening prayers) at his Greek Orthodox church here in Prescott, as tonight marks the beginning of the feast day of St. Nicholas. Already during the prayers, I could tell tears were welling up, and I found it hard not to think about what was happening in Syria. I prayed that the Lord would bring peace to Syria… and Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine. I found solace in Nick venerating the icon of St. Nicholas. I know the saints intercede for us with Christ when we ask their prayers!

After Vespers, we had our small group at the church. I shared with the group about how I had been crying over what was happening in Syria and tried to explain the situation. I realized very quickly that the pain and—honestly fear—over the situation could not be replicated promptly with others who have no “skin in the game,” so to speak. We all have felt greater empathy in situations where we knew the people involved, or at least had learned a great deal about their lives (think 9/11 in the United States, how we all felt we “knew” some of the victims because we learned their stories). I felt tears well up again, and I also felt a strong need to go pray, so I grabbed my bag and went into an unoccupied classroom, where I sobbed hard while praying and crying my heart out to the Lord.

It was a combination of remembering what I had learned about the Syriac Orthodox Sayfo, the genocide this community experienced in 1915, and some of the horrible stories I had read about torture and murder. This was coupled with the more recent stories I remembered—and which we all had heard and seen—about ISIS’s murderous rampages in the Middle East. Finally, just yesterday, I received a card with an icon featuring the twenty-one Coptic martyrs killed by ISIS on a Libyan beach in 2015 as I contributed to a movie about them.

So here is the Godsighting in the middle of it: As I sat and prayed, my phone, which I had put on the table, suddenly lit up. I saw that my spiritual father had sent me a WhatsApp text. Mind you, it was very early in Germany for him, and he would be asleep usually! I replied to his “Hi” by telling him that I was pouring my heart out to the Lord and crying. His reply: “I heard you. I see your tears.” I had goosebumps when he wrote this. I sent him a picture of the prayer rope I was using to pray with when he sent me the text.

Our small group had recently discussed reading a book about St. Paisios together. St. Paisios is a modern-day saint (he reposed in the Lord in 1994) in the Greek Orthodox Church. St. Paisios often knew things that he couldn’t have known.

Tonight, I had such a moment where I realized God cares about every detail of our lives. He cared so much about my tears and prayers that He woke my spiritual father to comfort me. I stand amazed.

We have absolutely zero reason to doubt His care for us. Praise God for how He is in every detail of our lives. It is genuinely His grace poured out on us that we experience daily when we follow Him. Glory to His name!