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Your neighbor is your other self dwelling behind a wall.
In understanding, all walls shall fall down.
—Kahlil Gibran, Jesus the Son of Man1
My last visit up into the mountains of Bsharri took place in the springtime. Olive trees were just beginning to bloom, overflowing streams coursed toward the sea, and cultivated vineyards on hillsides were showing signs of new growth. Remembering my earlier visits and the various seasons in which I had traveled the world “in search of a prophet,” this trip felt like a celebration of all I had discovered. Kahlil’s life, expressed so vividly through his art and writings, was a profound reminder of the need for beauty and imagination, to seek peace within and throughout the world, to reach beyond ourselves and build bridges of understanding with all peoples, regardless of creed, culture, or ethnicity.
In the midst of the increasing chasm of discord and misunderstanding that exists between the Middle East and the West and between their creeds and cultures, our day calls for a whole new kind of movement—not of belief, religious unity, or cultural uniformity but rather, quite simply, one that builds on what we hold in common. Kahlil did this innately and authentically. He experienced the oneness of creation, moved beyond religion into the realm of embracing nonsectarian spirituality, and sought to foster a culture of peace, beautifully intertwining the East and West. His search was earnest and lifelong, an inspiration to live harmoniously with God, the earth, and one another. A unique blend of East and West, Kahlil embodied the struggle for reconciliation, and his spiritual quest is an invitation to awaken and to grow into one’s “greater self.” His voice is timeless, full of compassion and hope, artistry and elegance, appealing to heart and mind, faith and reason. Kahlil calls each of us to be “a candle in the dark,” in the words of the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s renowned poem “Think of Others.”2
Kahlil was a man for our times. With a foot in every camp, he embodied the words of Rumi, the great Sufi mystic.
I am neither Christian nor Jewish, nor Muslim
I am not of the East, nor of the West. . . .
I have put duality away, I have seen the two worlds as one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.3
As Father Samir Khalil Samir, the renowned Jesuit priest and interreligious scholar, said to me over lunch in Beirut, “Gibran went beyond religion to the core of universal spirituality.” It was not a forced journey but rather one of spiritual openness and discovery, leading to greater and greater transcendent depth. To Kahlil, religion served as an attempt to connect with the divine, yet he realized that could not be found solely in creeds or dogma; his search became an opportunity to unearth what God had woven into the very fabric of creation. In an age in which issues in our environment are at the forefront, with deep respect for the earth, Kahlil’s holistic worldview rings forth. He did not separate the spiritual dimension of life from the natural world, but rather saw them in harmony. Insightfully, he wrote:
Religion began when man discerned the sun’s compassion on the seeds which he sowed in the earth.4
Although Kahlil often spoke directly of God, his art and writings were infused with his deeper concern, that of living in harmony with one another and all of creation. Understanding and empathy emanated from his person, ideals so necessary in our contemporary context.
I bid you to speak not so freely of God, who is your All, but speak rather and understand one another, neighbor unto neighbor.5
I love the way Kahlil expresses his collective embrace of the oneness of humanity in Sand and Foam:
Should you sit upon a cloud you would not see the boundary line between one country and another, nor the boundary stone between a farm and a farm. It is a pity you cannot sit upon a cloud.6
Kahlil came to see himself in the “other” as if standing before a mirror.
My friend, you and I shall remain strangers unto life,
And unto one another, and each unto himself,
Until the day when you shall speak and I shall listen
Deeming your voice my own voice;
And when I shall stand before you
Thinking myself standing before a mirror.7
A prophetic voice during his own lifetime, Kahlil’s words are perhaps even more timely today. To heed his wisdom would heal our world. Always highlighting the importance of the spiritual side of life, he at the same time advocated finding practical and honorable solutions to the major challenges that face our world today. In a wonderful short story called “The Critics,” Kahlil explored the futility of finger pointing and the need to focus on solving problems rather than creating them. He narrates the story of a man traveling on horseback who stops at an inn for the night. During the night the traveler’s horse had been stolen, and rather than receiving empathy from his fellow lodgers, he found only criticism from them of his own supposed faults and shortcomings. Astonished by their treatment, he points out the obvious—that the one who stole the horse should be the focus of their attention.8
Kahlil sought to build bridges and tear down walls. His compatriot Khalil Hawi, Lebanon’s late-twentieth-century prophetic poetic voice, was one of the most eminent pioneers of modern Arabic poetry. Words from his poem “The Bridge” visually express the essence of Kahlil’s life and message.
Why is it that our house is split in two?
And that the sea flows between the old and new?
A cry, the shattering of wombs,
The tearing apart of veils.
How can we remain beneath a single roof?
When there are seas between us, and walls, deserts of cold ash,
And ice?
When are we to break out of the pit and prison?
And when O lord, are we to be strong and build with our own hands
Our new, free house?9
In an essay written to Middle Easterners titled “The New Frontier,” Kahlil wrote a forward-thinking challenge to the children of tomorrow, which continues to ring true with hope for today.
But the children of tomorrow are the ones called by life, and they follow it with steady steps and heads high, they are the dawn of new frontiers, no smoke will veil their eyes and no jingle of chains will drown out their voices. . . . They are like the summits, which can see and hear each other—not like caves, which cannot hear or see. They are the seed dropped by the hand of God in the field, breaking through its pod and waving its sapling leaves before the face of the sun. It shall grow into a mighty tree, its root in the heart of the earth and its branches high in the sky.10
Mary Haskell, who played such an enriching role in Kahlil’s pursuit to create compelling visual and literary art, recorded Kahlil’s musings on living a purposeful life.
If I can open a new corner in a man’s own heart to him I have not lived in vain. Life itself is the thing, not joy or pain or happiness or unhappiness . . . live your life. . . . I am different every day—and when I am eighty, I shall still be experimenting and changing.11
In his own visionary words, Kahlil spoke of life’s end as enabling a new dawn.
Night is over, and we children of night must die when dawn comes leaping upon the hills; and out of our ashes a mightier love shall rise.12
In a tribute to Kahlil, his friend Mischa wrote:
Gibran Kahlil Gibran’s was of those souls that experienced moments of utter clarity in which Truth delights to be mirrored. In that was Gibran’s glory. . . . Whoever knows not Gibran’s sorrows cannot know his joys. And whoever knows not his joys cannot know the power that made it possible for him to put his joys and sorrows in words that ring with melody, and in colors that stand out as living thoughts and longings, and lines that are ladders between the animal in the human heart and the God enthroned within that heart. In revealing himself to himself Gibran reveals us to ourselves. In polishing the mirror of his soul he polishes the mirrors of our souls. In the same Truth he is glorified we, too, are glorified.
For some purpose unknown to you and to me Gibran was born in Lebanon at the time he was born. And for a reason hidden from you and me Arabic was his mother tongue. It would seem that the all-seeing eye perceived our spiritual drought and sent us this rain-bearing cloud to drizzle some relief to our parching souls.13
By capturing our imaginations and enriching our spirits, Kahlil poetically inspires us to realize what is possible, what is precious, and how we can all play a part in shaping our world into one where beauty, understanding, and compassion are valued above all.
In a simple blessing for us all, Kahlil wrote:
May the vines in your vineyard be weighted with grapes, and your threshing floors be heaped with corn, and your jars be filled with oil, honey and wine; and may God place your hand upon the heart of Life that you may feel its pulse.14