I found G_d… in dialogue.

I found G_d…

I found G_d… in dialogue and in the strong women I met. Big, pretentious sentence? Maybe… I found G_d in the eyes of many people I met while wandering around the world. I found him, I perceived him with all five senses, I tasted him, felt him, saw him, smelled him, heard him. And he gave me so much peace, a river of peace in my heart, every time I met him.

You ask me where I met him? How did I recognize him/her? Let’s start with research. If we don’t leave our comfort zone, we will never find anything. To have a nice basket full of mushrooms I have to prepare myself, I have to leave the house at dawn, walk for hours and hours, until I find the right clearing. If we stay on our sofa, nothing will happen to us. The departure must concern the heart, the mind and the spirit … the body can also remain closed in quarantine. It is an exit from our certainties, from our selfishness, from the idolatry of our ego, from our misfortunes, from the offenses we have suffered.

And once we leave, we walk lightly on the streets of the world, open to the encounter with diversity. With this positive attitude, we go into research, as with our mushrooms. The search must not have an objective that is too defined, it is a search for the infinite, so it must leave the space open to the spirit. And so, like the Russian pilgrim, sooner or later G_d lets himself be found.

Where did I find him?

I found G_d in the calmness and determination of Feride, a Sufi woman who manages to convey what she has inside without any violence. The way of Sufism leads to the way of peace. And Feride goes on without ever stopping, bringing peace everywhere.

I found G_d in the strong sweetness of Adina, an ultra Orthodox Jew from Jerusalem who made a real revolution in her closed community. Adina is the mirror of the wisdom of G_d. Adina is a breath of G_d.

I found G_d in the passionate preaching of Anita, a sage from the Living Church of Accra, an African Christian church. Anita represents the strength of G_d, the overflowing torrent that brings water to any desert. It is the queen who shows the way with a single glance.

I found G_d in the pure love of Alganesh, who through meditation supports her tireless work to free the prisoners of the deserts. He freed many hundreds of girls and boys, victims of the Eritrean conflict. Alganesh loves with the love of G_d, never sappy, but strong and full.

I found G_d in Sister Ersilia, 100 years old, a missionary in Morocco. She says: “Here I found G_d, in the simplicity and faith of these people”. Ersilia continues to learn, and this makes her the living book of G_d.

I found G_d in the pride of Druze storyteller Nassim, who was in our documentary Wells of Hope.

I must also speak of some men … So I will tell you that I found G_d’s joy in Philip, a seminarian of the Church of Ireland, with 4 children. G_d is “witty”, full of Spirit, and Philip interprets him in every situation of life, assisting refugees, inventing new paths of faith, being the father of a beautiful family.

I found G_d… in dialogue

Let’s open up to diversity, to the oxygen of life and we will receive great surprises.