church

Church was fantastic today. As always, it's great to see people you feel connected to. Even better when you find inspiration and learning there. Today we were fortunate to be visited by a woman from the local Islamic Society who came to talk to us about her faith and about Islam. She was kind, funny, thoughtful, sincere and truly respected the fact that although our belief systems may be different we are all seeking the same things, a closer connection to whatever your spiritual guide is, to be good people and to do good things.

I was surprised to learn that Muslims regard the Torah and the Bible as holy texts containing messages from God. They also regard the line of prophets to include Moses, Elijah, Zacchariah, and Jesus. She explained that they believe there have been 240,000 prophets, each being sent at the time that God felt humanity needed to have a prophet sent to them. And that each of the religious texts builds upon the previous one with their believing that the Qu'aran is the final version.

She also explained many things about the Five Pillars and about how they incorporate their faith into daily life.

It was truly wonderful to share that time and space with such a gracious person and she also seemed very pleased that we were so open to hear and so willing to learn more. I truly believe that if people looked at the basis of other faiths they would find lots of similarities and that this in turn would lead to more understanding and tolerance and less violence.

It was truly a thoughtful Sunday at church today.