The Sacred Bard

“While some non-Sikhs wear turbans as cultural garb, Sikhs are the only community for whom the turban is religious and nearly every person who wears the turban in the U.S. is Sikh. For many of us, abandoning this visible identity is equivalent to abandoning our faith and core values, including the commitment to protect the right of all people to practice whatever faith they choose.”

“Whatever our faith tradition, we all should take the dangers of interfaith misunderstanding seriously because all of us — Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, agnostics, everyone — are affected.”

“Rajiv Satyal, who is Hindu, will tour India with an Indian-American Muslim and one other performer on a Jan. 4-17 trip organized by the U.S. State Department. Their comedy show “Make Chai Not War” will include messages of diversity and religious harmony, with a measure of diplomacy.”

“I came to realize that what they were experiencing was something I had access to every day, if I chose to. I saw very clearly how we were all pearls on the same thread of God’s mercy. I returned to my own community and practice with a sense of renewal that has stayed with me ever since.”

“Peace begins with the individual, and each person is called to be a peacemaker.”

“SAUL GONZALEZ, correspondent: With Korean-American drummers leading a line of professors, a new experiment in American religious education began this fall. This was the opening of southern California’s Claremont Lincoln University, which describes itself as America’s first interreligious school of theology, one that will train pastors, rabbis, and eventually Muslim imams all on one campus. The school’s philosophy was captured in the opening remarks of Muslim-American religious scholar Najeeba Syeed-Miller, a professor at Claremont Lincoln.”

“It may be easy for some to blame religion here, but they would then miss the point that those in power will use whatever they have to keep a population that is demanding justice and accountability divided. They will seek out whatever opportunities they can to pit us against each other and distract us from the real issues in our society. It remains for us to remove as many of those opportunities as possible, not by trying to ignore our differences, but by embracing them and still finding ways to come to a meaningful consensus. ”

“It seems that, for now anyway, religion is unlikely to become irrelevant. And in a world where religious conflict is in the headlines on a daily basis and religious illiteracy is widespread. It actually feels increasingly relevant. The dangers of acting like it isn’t are clear: when fraught issues related to religion arise, being unable to contextualize them or understand their implications makes it difficult to know how to respond.”