Syria is in the news. I listened to President Obama last night as he talked about Syria. Syria has been in the news for a long while.
The Syrian Arab Republic, Syria, is a country to the east, to the rising sun. It is the center of the Levant. “Levant” is an old word which means “rising,” from the Latin “levare” meaning to lift or raise. It is the land where those on the earliest vessels navigating the Mediterranean Sea looked to the east and saw the bright globe of the sun break the horizon and warm the growing day.
Syria is the center of the Levant. The country borders the Sea, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. The Levant, Syria, is the crossroads of western Asia. Today, it is the crossroads of the world, the place where the words and thoughts of all the peoples of all the planet travel and pass.
The country is described as a land of fertile plains, high mountains and deserts. It is as diverse in the beauty of its terrain as it is in the variety of its many peoples. It is a place of variation and variety, and it is home to all within its boundaries.
Damascus, ash-Sham, is the capital city of Syria. Know as the City of Jasmine, Damascus is one of the oldest places where peoples have gathered. The name Damascus has been found in the records of the Egyptian pharaohs from the 15th century BC. Carbon dating in the area shows settlements dating back to 9,000 BC. Damascus is mentioned in the Bible in the Book of Genesis, and an ancient historian records the founding of Damascus by Uz, the son of Abraham, the great-grandson of Noah. The city of the sweet flower, the jasmine, has been long the home of man and woman and their children, the families of the earth.
To reflect on the history of a land, the beauty of its vistas and the many families and friends who travel its roads and watch the evening sky fade to quiet night may help to see the bonds that exist between us and the common ground we all call home.
To the rising sun, the Levant, Syria,
Grandpa Jim