Dear: Today, the curtains come down to your departure, which brings on a new journey. With a new year’s months, days and hours, each one of us wishes them to be filled with hopes and dreams that were sought after throughout life.
Who among us hopes for pain or sorrow for himself or for his beloved ones?! Who doesn’t hope for happiness and joy?!
Who stops in his way seeking for distresses?! Who doesn’t seek for peace?!
We all live in this world with a new hope and warmth of love and goodness in every new day.
In our hearts, we cherish a dream of the life pulses and the meanings of the exalted humanity imprinted in us throughout the journey of our lives, and we wish to achieve such dream.
As such, all those whose lives are filled with love and goodness are dreaming for humanity as much as they dream for themselves.
Many have wished for you to come to an end rapidly! Due to the excessive
cruelness of yours which they have perceived, you have brought them much pain and distresses.
However, I wonder: was it your fault or ours? Was that you which brought us distresses, or it is us who imprinted the distresses’ features on your days?
Shall I blame you or us?!
Well, I will not even blame anyone, yet I will attempt to make the days we shared together be experiences that teach us how to live in a new year;
We shall take lessons from all incidents we have passed through; whether they were filled with distress or comfort.
Let me talk with you, o old departing friend, about this good side which distress shows us: it is through distresses that man realizes his limitedness and weakness, then he finds nothing better than leaving his entire life issues in God’s hands in order to manage it perfectly.
Yet, wait my friend! My words don’t encourage slackness, dependence or
ceasing to work, nor to adopt the viewer’s stance of life, nor to neglect
events, but rather they mean that we shall live with the fullness of love,
work, goodness and hope, seeking to cheer ourselves as well as every man
when we attain success, with our trust wholly laid in God.
Another thing I can’t skip in my conversation with you: distress, in its essence, is a kind of filtration for man’s feelings, thoughts and intentions
Distress separates between those who cling to virtue, having faith in it and in its importance in the journey of their lives on earth, and those who paint its features and images in their lives without knowing it well in order to gain others’ glorification; it is such a great difference between the lives of these and those!
Whoever learns to successfully cross the bridges of distress and pain gets his life and abilities strengthened with every crisis coming to an end, while those who live in the virtue’s shadow without delving into its essence stumbles over the tests of life, or perhaps he lost the features of the road and humanity. While he who overcame distress, has learnt the most important humanity values; compassion, affection, tolerance, the value of being there whenever others need you, and the value of encouraging grieving souls to pass their trials; this is simply a message in life.
I remember a short scene from a video I had watched a couple of days ago, which perhaps illustrates the positive impact that each of us can leave in others’ lives:
Someone was walking down a road when a paper fell from him without him noticing, he was watched by a cleaning man who gazed at the paper annoyingly, bending down to pick up the paper, a girl rushed to take it, wrote something on it and presented it to the man. He quickly looked at what she wrote, smiled and folded the paper and held it! Then he met a gloomy man carrying a number of wrapped boxes and returning to his home, he put the paper between two boxes, thus the man found it, read it and put it into his pocket smilingly. The paper moved from the pocket of the man to his wife, and then to an angry car driver, until it reached a young boy who found a smiling face drawn, and written below: “Smile!”
The girl’s message to the man was to overcome his annoyance through focusing on the aspects of happiness and hope in order to be able to surmount his negative feelings.
And thus, her message passed to others, and she was able to give them a hand with a simple positive idea. Yes, this is life.
We have great influential power on the life of whom we deal with, and through few good feelings and love, we can attract others to life and success, while through few negative feelings we will destroy others’ power and life. However, we must be careful: construction or demolition will not only affect others but is directed firstly at ourselves.
My departing present friend: Perhaps we have been exposed to some pitfalls throughout your days, through which we have learnt patience, forbearance and insistence upon achieving our dreams. No one is born with patience or determination, but some people decide not to surrender to the obstacles all through the path, which benefit his steps and days with strength and ability to overcome and to gain victory, and other people have learnt to change their mind and style and to renew their depths positively in order to achieve what they aspire to.
My year friend, which is departing after a few hours, whether we consider your moments to be harsh or compassionate to us, we eventually learn and decide: what side do we want to join? We are those who choose: Either to be humans, or to become semi humans!
Your days as well the coming years’ days will go on, they will be either added to our years or counted against us, we shall learn from their negative aspects before the positive ones, and how love is getting actually firm in us, not just in words, we wish our days would provide good for every human being, which is a sign for God’s love.
We must realize and step towards truth and justice, thus we would know the way to peace.
As for you, our new friend approaching us with all its accompanying events, I hope you’d be a milestone in our steps:
Towards achieving security for each soul which lost its sense of security amidst the turmoil of the world,
Towards the happiness of each soul to be raised above the suffering of life,
And towards the success for each person whose steps have stumbled throughout the way, our days are still a gift from God – His name is blessed- granted to attain our hopes and dreams.
Each of us shall start to make peace, yes: peace then peace then peace; this is the true message for which we shall live, and work.
Truly it is said: “Blessed are the peacemakers,for they shall be called sons of God”
Signature
A man dreaming of a world prevailed by love and peace
And … About “Beautiful Egypt” talk has no end …!
The General Bishop,
The President of The Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
