If you are free in your homeland, safe within walls that know you, under a sky that protects you,
remember that there are those who have been displaced from their countries,
from names that became strangers, and from lands that turned into mirages.

There, at the edges of the earth, where the wind howls over the ruins of the past,
they walk like ghosts among the remnants of life, carrying the darkness of absence,
searching for a homeland that has not yet been born in memory.

From the cruelty of tyrants, skulls have been shattered, and souls have been washed in a flood without a shore.
How many of the sick lie in their beds, robbed of hope?
How many dignified ones groan after nights of losing loved ones?
Nights where darkness became a tunnel with no doors, its echoes trapped within the walls.

Learn to be grateful for blessings, even when hidden.
For among people are those burdened by affliction—thick as clouds, heavy as the earth.
Hunger drowns them, cold suppresses them, and still they search for a touch of tenderness,
for a homeland not yet born, for water to quench thirst, for a voice to free them from the silence of endless night.

If you are free, let your heart be a refuge—
not one that only counts enemies, but one that counts the hidden blessings scattered among the clouds.
Let your heart be a home welcoming the wounded, the estranged, the displaced.
Let your heart be a light that never goes out, the only bridge from fear to safety,
and from pain to the knowledge of mercy.

Remember: freedom is not merely the absence of chains,
not merely living among relatives or within familiar walls.
It is the presence of mercy in your heart, the presence of gratitude in your nights,
the presence of compassion in all that surrounds you,
and the presence of wisdom in what is unseen.

Carry within your conscience all the displaced, the exhausted, those groaning in the dark.
Embrace them with your silence, with your patience, and with your light that does not fade.
Know that every blessing you live is a small river flowing between the harshness of the world,
that every moment of safety is a bridge from pain to healing,
and that every grateful heart is an echo of true freedom—
freedom that does not grow in walls, but in the spirit, in the horizon, in the stars that shine in the dark.

And at night, when the world moans with the voice of the wind,
you will realize that man is not alone,
and that freedom is not only to live without chains,
but to know how to light the darkness,
how to make silence a stage for life,
how to turn every tear into a river, every cry into a prayer,
and every aching heart into awareness of the unseen, guiding you toward peace.

And if you sit within the walls of your home, gazing at the stars,
listening to the echoes of distant hearts,
you will understand that the world is an atlas of suffering,
and that true freedom is to be present among the displaced and the estranged,
among those who have lost everything.
To carry them your light, to preserve your flame,
to know that blessing is not a right to be earned, but silence, giving, gratitude,
and awareness of the shared destiny.

Sharjah: 2-2-2010