This too Shall Pass

My friends, my brethren, my people, my big extended family spread farther than the eye can see, my souls, my bloods, the reason I am alive and still willing to live, I beg you, I beg you as my fingers tremble and my eyes well-up with tears, brace yourselves, join the broken bridges with your outstretched arms, fill the gaping craters with your unwavering pride, build and rebuild with the torn bodies of those who have fallen, keep together, raise the chants of unity, be not afraid but strong, be not angry but resilient, be who you've always been, be alive, stay alive, for this too shall pass. Do not give in to violence, do not embrace it, for there is no victory in killing, but there sure is one in faith, in strength, in unity, in peaceful resolve. The enemies of this nation cannot wipe it out of existence, they cannot kill us all. The hate-ridden hearts and bitter souls will not thrive. They will not persist. What is of stone can be rebuilt a thousand times over, and what is within us, our history, our abiliy to brave all dangers and rise from the rubble stronger still, is what they cannot and will not take away. I say this as my bleeding heart traces its thirty-one years on the streets of the land it fell in love with, the land of giving, of divine inspiration and beauty, the land of all things sacred and all things cursed, I say it as I helplessly watch my land disappear in a dark haze of destruction and death, because I know that this too, as bleak and tragic as it is, shall pass. Just brace yourselves sons and daughters of Lebanon, be strong so I can be strong, survive so I can survive, for you don't know you are all right here with me in this small room in Nashville, and my heart, my spirit, my tears, are with you, today and everyday until a better day comes, until a better life comes, until the very end of time.