Near-Death Gift of Hope in the Middle East

Watching coverage of the Israel-Hamas war takes me back to the moment when I had what I call a “near-death experience with eyes wide open” in Cairo, Egypt. I was there covering the assassination of President Anwar Sadat for an American news outlet. It is a moment that transformed how I now see the world and its conflicts. I saw a Light and felt a Force that can — peacefully — heal any conflict, no matter how deep the rancor or wide the differences between all sides of a dispute.

Here’s what happened…

An Egyptian teenage boy puts a .357 Magnum kissing distance from my face. I am sitting in a car near the Presidential Palace.

Moments before the boy walks over to the open window of the car where I sit, I notice a change in the light around me. Trees, homes, lawns, even the air shine with an iridescent glow. All sound evaporates. Nestled in that Silence and Light, a radiant Peace wraps me in its arms.

For some reason, I am fixated more on the black and brown herringbone pattern of his soiled, frayed pants pocket than the gun he removed it from.

I’ve seen what a .357 does when shot at close range. I don’t want to see the teen pull the trigger, so I turn to face the passenger’s window. Unfortunately, the window is up, and I can see our reflections. His finger tenses. In that instant, from inside the profound Silence, I hear myself think, “If you pull that trigger, will killing me heal the pain that’s driven you to this moment?”

I feel neither hate nor fear. The Light simply lets me understand that it’s pain and suffering that’s put the teen at my car window with his gun pointed at my head. From within the Silence I then think, “You are already forgiven, even if you kill me.”

In that instant, we seem to have a Vulcan mind meld, because, with that thought, the teen pulls his hand back and walks away — never looking back. The iridescent Light around me fades. All sound returns. But the Peace inside me remains.

Later that night I go to a neighborhood where there are other young men like the teen with the gun. There are alleyways lined with single-room concrete huts with doorways, but no doors for privacy. Children play in open sewage troughs. I’ve no doubt this is how the young man with the Magnum grew up and where he now likely lives — in inhumane conditions with no power to change his present or his future.

I never suffer a moment’s trauma from what happened in Cairo. Instead, the Light let me see that even though the world gave that teen’s life no more value than roadkill, the Light saw him and extended forgiveness. Even if he chose to do the unthinkable — take the life of another in a desperate attempt to kill his own pain and suffering. The Light I saw, the Peace I felt, and the message of God’s forgiveness, for anything we do, are divine offerings I never expected from that moment with the gunman.

The gift from that moment…

Being swaddled in what I now call the Bubble of Light with the young teen in Cairo was a gift. Inside that bubble, I felt the Force that has the power to dissolve all disagreements and make compromises possible, even between the deepest of enemies.

I cling to this gift as I watch what is happening in all the conflicts around our world. Feeling the profound Peace that remains with me still and gives me daily Faith in this time of brutal insanities. In that moment the young man made the decision to honor his personal humanity and not kill me, no matter the depth of his rage at the terrible injustices he was suffering in this life.

I trust I’m not naïve in my Hope that the leaders on all sides of the Israel-Hamas war will be wrapped in the Sound and Silence of the Peace that makes compromise, forgiveness, and healing possible. No matter the terrible injustices felt by both sides.

How the moment in Cairo changed my life…

It was twenty years before I told family and friends what happened in Cairo. The Peace I continue to carry inside me is not of this world. The biblical phrase, “the Peace which transcends all understanding” is the most accurate description I have for it.

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote “not all who wander are lost.” Well, that wasn’t true for me. After Cairo I wandered through my life very lost. The career I had loved — and was at the core of my identity — no longer felt relevant to me. No place, including my beloved Manhattan, felt like home. “Home” now seemed like someplace high above me, up in the stars, well out of my reach. I spent many a night standing under the stars in Central Park, feeling like ET when he points to the sky, with tears welling up, and says, “Home.” I felt the same wrenching aloneness and longing he felt.

During my wanderings — and ruminations on what I was meant to take away from Cairo — I kept thinking about the legions of people who, like that teenager, feel their lives are judged as unimportant by both the public and the media. Who are they to have the right to speak and be heard about the wrongs, frustrations, and injustices they experience?

My reaction to having that gun put to my head never morphed into rage or terror. Instead, I experienced a metanoia that left me with a longing to support everyone’s right to speak up for themselves — instead of thinking only turning to violence will make them seen and heard.

Then I discovered The Right to Speak: Working with the Voice by world-renowned voice coach Patsy Rodenburg. Her book outlines how to mobilize your right to speak, and to speak with a skill and confidence that makes others willing to hear what you have to say.

That book ended my twenty years of wandering. At an age when most people are thinking of retiring, I headed off to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama School in London to earn an MA in Voice and Accent Coaching. Central is the same school Rodenburg graduated from decades earlier.

Now, rather than spending my days covering conflicts in the news, I train people from around the world in how to use their voices with confidence. How to gain their listeners’ trust when they speak. How to share their stories in a way that makes others want to hear what they have to say. Most importantly, they learn they have a right to speak and have their stories heard.

Today, when I walk into a room to train either one person or a group of people, I see the same Light and experience the same Peace I felt in Cairo.