Learning the Silence

I entered a world deeply rooted in tradition, yet constantly touched by waves of change. A world where time does not flow in minutes, but in rhythms of feeling, respect, and the spaces between words. At first, I was a visitor, an observer, a student. Today, after years of journeys, thousands of conversations, and countless silences, I feel myself slowly merging with their world – and this connection is not one-way. Just as I adapt to their world, they too shift ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, toward my gaze.

It was never my intention to change anything. I came with respect – and with the desire to understand.
Even just sitting with a man in white, holding a cup of cardamom coffee, and sharing silence with him tells you more than ten conferences ever could. In the Middle East, words are not tools of persuasion, but symbols of honor, and often the greatest shift comes in the form of a smile or a hand gently placed on the chest.

Over the years, I’ve realized they are not interested in who you are, but how you carry who you are.
They don’t measure you by your knowledge, but by your inner peace. And that inner peace is something you cannot fake there. If you are tense, you will wait. If you are at ease, they will invite you in.

Today, as I sit in the shade of a palm tree, drinking tea from old copper cups with a Bedouin, we no longer speak of the differences between East and West. We don’t speak of religion, politics, or the future. We speak of how important it is for a person not to forget to be human. Not to forget the gaze. Not to forget the silence. Not to forget the earth.

Over the years, I’ve noticed something else too: my arrival awakens something in them.
Not as a missionary, not as a bearer of ideas, but as a mirror. As someone who respects – and through that, invites. Some have started to ask me how I see family, freedom, raising children, courage. Perhaps there is something in my presence that allows them to dare to question, without feeling they are betraying tradition. And perhaps there is something in them that allows me to dare to forget my culture as the norm – and start seeing it as one of many human stories.

Slowly, over the years, boundaries begin to melt. My face, my voice, my way of walking no longer seem foreign.
Sometimes someone forgets I’m not a local. Sometimes someone asks if I might have once lived here. And more and more often, when we part, I hear: “Thank you, brother.”

But this is not a story about integration.
It is a story about respect. About presence. About the quiet recognition of a shared human substance beneath different scarves, prayers, sands, and names.
The Middle East has taught me that you don’t need to speak to be heard. And you don’t need to belong to be accepted.
You just need to be.
Honestly. Consistently. Silent when it’s needed. Brave when you’re called.

Today, when I walk through the streets of Doha, Abu Dhabi, or the old quarters of Amman, I no longer carry the gaze of a tourist.
My gaze has grown softer. My step slower. My heart more open.
And when someone asks what I’m doing here, I simply answer: I’m learning to live with a soul that does not divide.