The Meaning of the Feast

... The seasons of feasts in Lebanon never cease.

From the Prophet's birthday to the birth of the Nazarene, from al-Adha to Easter, from New Year to New Year... season after season the Lebanese people celebrate in this land and rejoice in them, and in their name they slaughter the poor victims — from a fattened lamb, to a pampered rooster, to...

And wines are poured out at the tables, glass upon glass and bowl upon bowl; festivities are held in the houses; the green pine trees rejoice in the lights of the feast; the sweet swings are set up in the squares, going and coming, coming and going... and the night stretches on with people until the break of light... Here a delicious table, here a cheek and a cup, here weddings for bodies and there funerals for morals... Such are our feasts...

Our feasts are feasts for bellies: in them people's stomachs are filled, while heart and faith go hungry.

Our feasts are feasts for the halls and the cafés: in them the houses of song and the dance floors of the taverns flourish, and the tables of gambling and drink, while the houses of God stand empty — the houses of God empty on the feasts of God.

What meaning, then, have our feasts? What meaning has the feast, if with us the feast is a wine shop and a gambling den? What meaning has the feast, if the feast is lust and frivolity?? What meaning has the feast, if the feast is a den of hashish and a den of lewdness? And what meaning has the feast, if the feast is not faith and tenderness?

A faith that drives us toward God, so that we live in accord with God, with ourselves, and with people — once in a lifetime...

And a tenderness that draws us to the poor brothers who pile up at the gates of our houses as the rubbish heaps pile up at the corners of the streets?

What meaning has the feast, if the feast is not warmth in a cold bed that has never known warmth in its life, and the wiping of a tear from the eyelids of a downtrodden orphan whose eyelids have never known the sparkle of the feast and the radiance of the feast?

What meaning has the feast, while in our mouths are blasphemies and in our hearts blasphemies, and the name of God on our lips is a curse and an insult.

Would that we lived our whole lives without feasts — for it is better for us to forget God than to make of God's seasons seasons of mockeries, debaucheries, and traffickings...