Religious Scholar

President Obama's words to the Muslim world this week ring true.

"My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives," President Obama told Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language news channel based out of Dubai. "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy." (The Blog, WhiteHouse.gov)

What the President has spoken of Western/Muslim relations is every bit as relevant to other religious tensions that throughout history have divided families, nations, even our world. The great obstacle to understanding, to peace and even our very survival, is intolerance, the act of closing our ears and eyes to the Other, repeating the familiar mantra of our own (often narrow) cultural understanding. When we view those with other beliefs as the enemy, we have in fact declared war on them. And this in spite of the fact that all major religious and spiritual paths offer the promise of peace and good will to all.

We are not your enemy, and you are not ours. Let us all learn to listen, to suspend judgment, and to explore together the core of common values that we all share. Let us not be isolated or passive, but embrace our essential unity with enthusiasm and energy, finding points where we can meet and respecting the differences we can never understand.  Few things can make such a monumental difference in our world as cultivating an attitude of mutual respect and charting a course of active, whole-hearted tolerance.