Prayer to Allah

We live in a world at war, where religion is cause for fighting and death is often cause for joy, an ending to a helpless world. We live in a country in which the majority of the population couldn't draw a map of the countries in the Middle East, yet here we are, in a war with the Muslim world. We are a generation that has pretty much grown up with our country at war, in a country in which Muslims and the vast majority of Islam are viewed as terrorists. We are a country in which faith is coveted by many, and in which we preach "freedom of religious views" and "equality for everyone" yet Muslims are profiled out of a crowd because they pray to Allah instead of God.

And perhaps my views are tainted because I find just as much beauty and truth in a mosque and the desert as I do in cathedrals and the rain. Perhaps I have a tainted view because of my childhood, because I have a deep respect for the Middle East and it's perhaps a part of my bones, perhaps because it's a part of my heart and always will be.

But one thing I've learned is that just because someone prays five times a day facing east toward Meccah, instead of going to mass on Sundays, doesn't make them any more and any less than the rest of us. It doesn't make them a sinner or an outcast or the enemy. I have had the privilege of knowing many Muslims in my life and I remember as a small child, having a conversation with a schoolmate about the differences our religions posed. She, a Jordanian Muslim and me, an American Roman Catholic. I remember so vividly how she told me we prayed to the same God, whether called Allah or God, He was the same. She told me she believed in Jesus too, just not in the same way that I did. She believed, as Muslims do, that Jesus was a prophet, just like Mohammed, but not the Son of God. And two children, from different sides of the world could understand something that many in our world refuse to even today.

Our world is at risk from so much today. From wars, to climate change, to dissappearing species, to endangered natural resources, to overpopulation, to greed, and to fear. We are often so afraid of what we do not know, we view places and people in a way of creating tension within our beliefs so that we don't have to deal with all that is wrong. Someone asked me recently, "Is there anywhere in the world you're just afraid to go?" And after thinking for a moment, my response was no. And truthfully I can say, that there is no where in the world that I am afraid to go, because in each place, whether it is safe or not, beauty and truth and justice can be found. In the deepest caves of Afghanistan or in the Jungles of the Amazon, there are people out there working for the good, there are places that will take your breath away and there are beliefs there that are as strong as ever.

We are a society and a world that has still so much to learn, a place that every day, we must take on a new challenge and continue all the ones we've had thus far. Every day, we must wake up and take on a new day, a new hungry child in Africa, a new Israeli woman hurt in a bomb blast, a new young girl growing up in Saudi Arabia, struggling between faith and independence. Every day a new challenge, every day, stronger faith in whatever it is you believe. But we must remember that there is no cause to single out the faith of others, we are no one to judge, we are no one to say that our faith is stronger or more true than theirs. We must learn to see beauty and truth in mosque, synagogue and cathedral. We must hear the Arabic call to prayer and smile, knowing that even though we may not pray to Allah, at least faith is keeping us strong.