What my Faith Means to Me

A few days ago, as an introduction to the Year of Faith recently proclaimed by Pope Benedict, I posted the question on my Facebook page, what does faith mean to me? After all, it would be helpful to know why faith is important in my life before I go out and try to convince people it should be important in their lives. I was at a retreat today where spiritual direction was compared to a GPS system. You can have the most cutting-edge system in the world, but unless it can figure out where you are at the moment, it is useless. So here is my initial attempt to figure out where I stand in my faith, and what it means to me.

During this last phase of my life (i.e. college), God has primarily been two things: my reason for existence, and the ultimate friend, lover and beloved. God is for me that ever-elusive “meaning of life”. God gives meaning and worth to everything and everyone, just by creating them. Faith gives me a purpose: to love God and to make him known and loved. I can work on this mission every minute of my life, no matter where I am or what I am doing. No moment need go wasted if I can say a prayer in it. The smallest of my own and others’ actions can become rich in meaning (though I have to be careful not to let my imagination read anything and everything into every little action).

In the person of Jesus, God has been my close friend, who gave everything so that I might live, and who is still present, still desiring to come to me daily in the Blessed Sacrament. In the first month or so of freshman year, I came closer to Jesus simply because I was lonely and hadn’t established close friendships yet. Now that this experience is repeating itself as I start grad school, hopefully I can come even closer. Yet so many times I am not a good friend in return. Another thing the priest said at the retreat was that, in a relationship as close as, say, a marriage, little things are not unimportant. A careless word or an absent mind might not mean so much coming from a classmate or co-worker, but coming from a spouse or a best friend, they can hurt. A few days ago, I was on the bus, all fired up about the Year of Faith and still bouncing around inside from the confidently upbeat praise and worship music to which I’d woken up. Then I overhear this conversation between two guys about how the one had always gotten A’s in religion class because, even though he didn’t believe in God, he could argue his point decently well. He’d argued from a biological standpoint, he said. I felt like I should say the tiniest little thing about how God and science are not incompatible, but hesitated too long and didn’t. Now you could say it was none of my business, but then again it could have led to an interesting conversation. Public transportation gives you those weird opportunities sometimes. Maybe I overreacted, but I felt bad for a good while afterwards. I felt like I’d let down a friend… But, more opportunities will come.

As I transition to a new school, I’ve kind of been absorbing the atmosphere. I’ve been wondering how in the world I can bring God to this world where angry, tattered political stickers cling like scabs to the gray concrete walls, and the bathroom stalls are scribbled over with advice about sex. Now, this is the negative side, to be sure. But in my observations, two things really have stood out to me about evangelization. I (we Christians) need to be joyful and honest. Joy will bubble out beyond fear and will be contagious. Honesty will keep us from deceiving ourselves and being hypocritical. These are a few things I’d like to try and cultivate during this Year of Faith. How about you?

Memorable Moments of my VIDES Experience in Germany

Most of the special experiences I had during my VIDES experience were small and personal. When I say personal, I mean a moment shared by myself and another individual, as opposed to something obvious to the world and measurable in terms of numbers or material conditions.

Working with the afterschool kids was very enriching because it allowed me to view my faith through different eyes—often the eyes of children who knew little about faith and religion. We hardly ever talked explicitly about religion, but sometimes it came up, especially when the kids needed help with their ethics homework. (Every student in the German school system is required to take religion class if they are Catholic or Lutheran, and all the rest are put into ethics classes.) Around Easter, the ethics homework was to copy a paragraph about Easter and what it means to Christians. I was working with this one Vietnamese girl who sometimes spoke to me about Jesus because of the crucifix I always wore. I was checking to see if she understood what she was copying, since she was still learning German. It didn’t seem like she understood everything, so I began to explain the idea of “resurrection” to her. I said, “You know Jesus, right?” She nodded. “Well, he died--” (her face became sad). “But then he came back and was alive again!” (Her face brightened). Her response: “Das ist doch unendlich cool!” (“That’s just endlessly cool!”) Seeing Easter through the eyes of a child who was just getting it for the first time helped breathe new life into my Easter season, when sometimes I started thinking “yeah…I know all that already…etc.”
Another positive development I saw with the afterschool kids was that they actually did start speaking more German. As we got to know each other better, they would talk to us more, and we could talk better with them. It was very encouraging to see some of the kids get moved up to the regular class with the regular German kids.

At the student residency, I had similar small experiences. My prayer group was a test in perseverance for me, because the average attendance was around two people per week, sometimes only one. On St. Patrick’s Day, however, I was able to draw in more girls with the promise of playing Irish music on my violin during the prayer group. (I was also looking forward to this, since I love Irish music.) At this meeting, we had four girls come, a doubling in number! What really made my evening, though, was that one of my closer friends, who had seemed to be feeling kind of awkward at first with the setup of singing praise and worship songs and then exchanging prayer requests actually shared a petition with us! This little bitty moment made me so happy because I felt like it was a big thing for her, since that kind of prayer didn’t really seem to be her style. Little moments like that made it worthwhile to keep up the prayer group, even though there was an evening when nobody but Jesus and I attended.

One more experience, which was typical of my time in Europe, happened on the train. A friend and I were headed to a Holy Week retreat on Holy Thursday in another town. We happened to get a group ticket with another girl and these two boys from Kazakhstan who were studying in Munich. We asked if they were going home for Easter and they told us they were Orthodox, so their Easter was later. This sparked a long and intense conversation about God and the Church—keep in mind these boys were complete strangers to us! It turns out that they had drifted away from any kind of organized religion and even from faith, preferring a more scientific view of the world (they were both studying engineering and physics or something along those lines). They had had bad experiences with relatives who were a little over-zealous in their religion and more attached to ritual than to really spreading God’s love (at least this is what I gathered from the boys’ account). In the end, they admitted that they believed in a certain something, whether it was God or not. The conversation itself, though, and the fact that we were total strangers talking about these most fundamental and deep things, was what moved to me. When we got off the train, I felt we’d known them for a long time.

I found many people willing to engage in these kinds of conversations, and many of them were very thoughtful. Perhaps this was because I was mainly socializing in Christian circles, though even with strangers and long-time-no-see relatives, my volunteering with VIDES often made a good talking point. People would often ask me if I got compensation for what I was doing, and I would reply that I got food and a place to sleep, and access to subway tickets if I needed them. This made one of my uncles comment on how remarkable it was that that was really all a person needs. Food and shelter, loving people and a purpose for life. These little things, these conversations in which people started thinking about God, were what made my mission time in one of the richest cities in Europe worthwhile. (Not that I wasn’t brought to some heavy thinking myself!)  The personal nature of these experiences really emphasized to me the need to get to know and love people individually before you go around trying to “convert” them to your way of thinking. I think this is a perfect example of the VIDES idea of accompaniment—walking the way with people on a journey to the Lord, not just standing there and preaching to them as they pass by.

Pro-life themes in The Hunger Games

Reading Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy left me an emotional wreck, I admit. But despite all the violence, or perhaps partly because of it, I perceived a message of life and love threading its way through the story. For those of you who have not read the book, it basically shows reality TV to the extreme: 24 children and teenagers from the 12 districts of the nation Panem are released into an arena to fight to the death, and only one may return alive. These “Hunger Games”, for which the book is named, are the government’s punishment for a rebellion that happened generations before, and are televised to remind the nation of the government’s absolute power.

As the people of Panem starve to death and watch their children forced to kill each other, we meet Katniss, the main character. She has sworn to herself from an early age that she will never have children, so that they will not be forced to participate in these lethal games. This comes up again and again throughout the book, illustrating how tragic a world these characters inhabit. A world where people fear to have children must be a gravely wrong world. In our country today, how many people also go to such lengths not to have children, though most of our lives are substantially better than those of the people in the book? What are we afraid of? Loss of personal “liberty” to do what we want? Responsibility? Lower living standards in the future? I am not saying that everybody must have ten kids. But a thought came to me while reading these books, probably one of those old thoughts that everyone hears a million times but must ultimately figure out for themselves. Children are hope. A world full of children is a world full of hope. To love a child is to trust that the world will go on and that the future will hold good things for that child. In many circumstances on this planet, the only reason for anyone to have such hope and trust is God. Take him out of the picture and the future seems a lot more depressing.

Another theme in this book is that of love and solidarity as resistance to evil. When Katniss finds herself in the arena with a slain twelve-year old girl, she stays by her side, singing and surrounding her with flowers. This gesture of love shows that the two have not succumbed completely to the evil dog-eat-dog “game”. The people of the young girl’s home district send Katniss a gift of bread in thanks for this act; it is the first time a district has given a gift to a tribute from another district. Normally the districts are not even allowed to communicate with each other—the growing solidarity is frowned upon by the controlling government. Divide the people, turn them each against the other, is part of the evil strategy. As the districts begin to interact more, a rebellion slowly begins to rise against the tyrannical system. Even though this was never Katniss’s intention. But love cannot help making evil its enemy, or else it is not love. In the end, though the revolution ends up bringing about a time of peace, the book makes painfully clear what the war has cost, as well as the danger of living on anger, no matter how justified it may be/seem. This is shown heartbreakingly (for me) in the character of Gale, Katniss’s best friend for most of the books, who helps win the war by thinking like the enemy, but goes too far, inventing a cruel weapon that is ultimately used against those he loves. Opinions may vary, but I find him quite tragic in the end.

I won’t spoil the story by saying more, but, as much as love can be seen as a “liability” in these books, it is the only real weapon against evil, and the only thing that makes life truly livable in the end.

Waiting...and Waiting...and Waiting: The Essence of Advent

Like every year, the many pre-Christmas festivities of Advent have nearly worn me out. I’ve decided implement a cookie-fast for the last week of Advent just to regain a taste for cookies, which is pretty drastic, considering that the cookie is one of my all-time favorite edible things. Last weekend, however, I was blessed with a very long wait that helped me get re-focused on what Advent is all about. For the first time here in Europe, I experienced a confession line that would rival any I’ve sat through in college. (That is saying something, as any UD people reading this will know.)

It all began amid colored spotlights, lively music, hazy smoke and people walking around carrying trays of cups filled with fiery goodness. No, I wasn’t in a bar, I was at Mass, followed by Adoration. Every second Saturday of the month, a group of young people gathers in the Church of the Holy Spirit on the Viktualienmarkt (literally the victual market—they still sell food) here in Munich for the event “Stay and Pray.” They have Mass at 7:30 pm followed by Adoration until midnight. All passersby are welcome to come in to pray, sing, talk to a priest, or just take a moment of silence. Last weekend the group happened to be celebrating their 40^th anniversary—there must have been at least 200 people at Mass. I saw at least five confession stations, possibly six. I saw lines forming and knew I was in for a wait.

I found a nice short line with three people in it. Can’t be that bad, right? The woman who happened to be confessing at the time seemed to be taking forever, though. After a while, the other women in line began to ask the typical question—what could she be confessing that takes so long to say? After a little longer while, one of them left to find another line. Now, by a while I mean about 45 minutes. By a longer while I mean an hour. Eventually another woman left, leaving only one person between me and the confessional. I decided to stick it out. When it got to be almost 11 (I’d been there since a little before 10, roughly) I realized I was going to be sitting there until midnight. I decided to say a rosary. By the time I was done, I think the next person had finally gotten to go. It would all be faster now, right?

Wrong. The girl in front of me, who had just wanted to go to Confession, not spill her life’s story to the priest, ended up taking at least as long as the last one. I was left on the hard wooden bench, near the open door through which the December air was blowing. I sent my friends on home without me, telling them it would be a while. I started to get existential thoughts running through my head. Why am I here? Do I really mean all this? This existential angst was only heightened by what I heard the priest say about 45 minutes into the confession (they weren’t actually in confessional boxes, just on chairs a little ways away). He asked the girl, “What do you want? When you first came, you said to wanted to go to confession. What do you want now?” Uh-oh, thought I. It was entirely too late at night for this kind of thinking. I don’t remember the results of my existential soul-searching, but I remember that it was a very good mid-Advent mini-retreat. Waiting. What do you want? What are you waiting for? Why are you waiting?

...Ten minutes before midnight, it was finally my turn. I actually had a lady try from another line try and beat me to the spot I’d been waiting nearly two hours for. With a small twinge of conscience, I thought, no way, and sat down quickly to finally confess my sins, if I could remember them after all this time. Apparently the priest realized that time was tight and listened quietly, only asking me at the end what I would ask from Jesus. Closer friendship with Him, and clarity for my life’s path were my answers (good thing I’d had time to think about it beforehand). Since the hour had struck and Benediction was beginning, the priest let me go without much further soul-searching. All in all, the experience was a very good way to crystalize the meaning of Advent for me.

In case anyone is wondering, the aforementioned fiery goodness was tea lights in plastic cups! J

A Late Reflection on the Solemnity of Christ the King

Over the past few years, the feast of Christ the King (November 20) has become one of my favorites. It’s so beautiful and full of light and eschatological. This year, on the evening before the feast, I finished reading the biography of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old resistance fighter against the Nazis. Sophie’s story speaks to me because she was about my age, a college student who lived the ideals of the philosophy and theology books that she loved to read. Anyway, the story ended with her execution by guillotine in February 1943. I must have cried for an hour after reading how she was arrested, put through a show trial and condemned to death all in a matter of days, with barely time to say goodbye to her family. The only way I could stop crying that night and finally go to sleep without having to get up for a Kleenex every five minutes was by thinking of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in which he calls Christ the first-fruits of the dead, i.e. the first of us to rise from the dead, without even realizing that this was one of the readings for the next day’s Mass.

Here in Munich, a city once quite in the grip of the Nazi regime, many resistance heroes were remembered on the feast of Christ the King. Among them were Bl. Fr. Rupert Maier, a local priest who spoke out against the regime, and Bl. Clemens August Cardinal Graf von Galen, a bishop known as the “Lion of Münster” for his sermons against the Nazis, especially their program of euthanasia. Both of these men only survived the regime because their deaths would have made them martyrs in the eyes of the people. The solemnity of Christ the King also became the day for the German Catholic youth to profess their faith; this day of profession had previously been the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity until the regime chose that day for the national sport festival.

Professing Christ as King is, however, goes beyond setting up the Kingdom of God over and against an oppressive political system. Proclaiming Christ as your King involves setting yourself against the values of the world—‘world’ here referring to the aspects of our world which are not of God. Thinking about this made me think of having dual nationality. The US government does not encourage this because a person who is a citizen of two countries must obey both countries’ laws, which may conflict with each other. This is similar to being both a citizen of the world and of the Kingdom of God, two realms whose laws quite often contradict each other.

Shortly before Christ the King I also read an article by Dr. Marcelino D’Ambrosio of Crossroads Ministries about how this solemnity reminds of the second coming of Christ, when Christ will come back to earth in glory to judge the living and the dead. This judgment will be based on one thing: “whatsoever you do for the least of my people, that you do unto me.” We are citizens of a Kingdom in which the laws are: love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself. This includes feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick and imprisoned. (See Matthew 25: 31-46.) These are the commandments of the King, and if we do not carry them out to the best of our ability, how can we expect eternal life with him?

Back to Sophie Scholl and her fellow students who formed the resistance group “The White Rose”. In the spring of 1942, she became convinced that mankind would not allow Hitler to win in the end. She wrote, “[i]ch will versuchen, mich auf der Seite der Sieger zu schlagen”—“I want to try to set myself on the side of the winners“ (Beuys 375). This is perhaps partly due to the fact that she expected the war to be over soon, based on how badly things were going in Russia, but it also shows great confidence in God and humanity. Christ really has already won the battle with evil, has already conquered death. All that remains for us to do is to testify to this victory in acts of love and justice, empowered by the grace of the Holy Spirit and Christ in the Eucharist.

Sources:

Beuys, Barbara. Sophie Scholl. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2010.

D'Ambrosio, Marcelino. Feast of Christ the King: Last Judgement and Sins of Omission. http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/806/Christ_the_King___Last_Judgment.html

The Bishop and the Bear: Jugendkorbinian 2011

November 20^th is the feast of St. Korbinian, a Frankish missionary to southern Germany (specifically Bavaria) in the early 8th century. He is the patron of our diocese of Munich-Freising, and was its first bishop. Last weekend, I joined thousands of Bavarian young people in a pilgrimage to the cathedral in Freising, where Korbinian’s relics are housed. Jugendkorbinian, or “Korbi” as it’s known to the youth, is a long-standing tradition around here; this is attested to by the many smaller traditions associated with the annual pilgrimage, such as the “Never-empty-Korbi-Cup”, a tin-looking mug that you buy once and fill with all the tea you can drink for free every year you come back.

So, you might be wondering where the bear comes in. Once when St. Korbinian was making his way back to Rome to visit the Pope, a bear came up and ate his horse. Korbinian simply told the bear that now it had to carry his things to Rome, and it obeyed. (If you’ve ever wondered about the bear on Pope Benedict’s papal insignia, that’s the one.) The current Pope was also ordained a priest in the cathedral of Freising, along with his brother Georg, and became a successor of St. Korbinian when he was made archbishop of Munich-Freising.

The theme of this year’s “Korbi” pilgrimage was the very Bavarian and very untranslatable expression “Guad, dass di’ gibt!” This pretty much means, “Good, that you exist.” As part of my work here at the student residency, I prepared stations for us to pray as we walked the five kilometers from the neighboring town’s train station to the cathedral. In keeping with the theme, I selected bible verses that emphasized human dignity and individual worth, beginning with Genesis 1:26-31, the creation of man in the image of God. Next came Psalm 139:1-18 (God, you have searched me and know me…You knit me in my mother’s womb…). Every person is loved and wanted by God. Next was Luke 15:11-24, the Prodigal Son; God loves us even though we don’t deserve it. Our worth is based on the fact that we are created in God’s image, independent of our deeds. Finally, we ended with John 14:1-3 (In my father’s house there are many rooms…I go to prepare a place for you) and Luke 23:39-43, the repentant thief on the cross. All of humanity has the same destiny: heaven, and we have the responsibility of helping others fulfill this destiny, as well as doing so ourselves. (To read the full bible texts and meditations, see my blog “Pilgrimage Stations”.)

Mass on Sunday morning (we started out on a Saturday) was quite an event. Our group was literally camped on a foam mat a few feet behind the altar where the cardinal was celebrating. I could have touched the concelebrating priests’ robes, had I wanted to. The Gospel was the one where the master gives his servants talents (a form of money) and expects them to invest it while he is away. This message didn’t particularly speak to me at Mass, but it came back to me later in the day.

After Mass there were many, many different workshop we could participate in and booths we could visit. We decided to see a film called Soul Boy, about a boy (Abila) living in Kibera, one of the biggest slums in Kenya. This film, and the dialogue we had afterwards, ended up being the thing that inspired me most about the weekend. Unlike what you might expect, the film was not in the least depressing. Abila’s father loses his soul to a witch-doctor woman, and the boy has to get it back by performing seven tasks, including standing in another’s shoes and representing him in public, helping a sinner without judging him, paying another’s debts without stealing, encountering a new world and realizing how it is different from his own, using his reason to save a life and facing the snake that he fears (a train). What I liked about this movie was that it was a production made with the people of Kibera, not about them. They wrote the story, and they were the actors. The slums were also not directly the focus of the story—they were simply the background in which the characters lived their lives. The movie also sent the positive image of a young person making his world better by making himself a better person and gaining confidence in his abilities and gifts. Such a film can help people living in places like Kibera gain a sense of self-worth. It was also inspiring for me, though, to see how art and creativity really could do something good, even in Africa, where we normally just think of sending food and medicine. Here is the theme of the talents again! Each of us has gifts, and God has a plan for these gifts; we just have to dare to use them, a challenge that is currently shaping my volunteer experience. Guad, dass' uns alle gibt!

Sources:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korbinian

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Boy

Remembering 9/11 at the World Peace Prayer in Munich

This year, 2011, marked the 10^th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, but it also marked the 25^th anniversary of the interreligious World Prayer for Peace called in Assisi by Pope John Paul II. I was fortunate enough to be able to commemorate Sept. 11 by participating in this prayer for peace here in Munich. The peace prayer is organized by the Community of Sant’ Egidio, a group founded after the first World Peace Prayer to continue the spirit of Assisi. This group also works to foster peace by caring for the poor and the otherwise needy. The local diocese of the host city also plays a key organizational role. Religious leaders from all over the world, from many different religions, come to discuss and to pray and to build friendships. A main message of the World Peace Prayer is that religion does not have to be a source of conflict, but can rather be a path to peace.

The three-day prayer event (Sept. 11-13) started off with Mass in the Cathedral in Munich, at which Reinhard Cardinal Marx of the Arch-diocese of Munich-Freising was the main celebrant. Countless other bishops, cardinals and priests were also present—I hadn’t seen that many pink and red hats since Rome! Many Eastern Orthodox priests were present as well, including the Metropolitan of Minsk and Sluzk Filaret, Patriarchal Exarch of all Belarus, who gave an address and blessing at the end of the Mass. There were also a number of Lutheran bishops who processed in with the other Christian church leaders and addressed the congregation. In the congregation itself I definitely saw some Buddhist monks, and a man who looked like a Muslim, judging by the turban on his head. The readings were so perfect: Sirach 27:30—28:7 “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail.” Psalm 103 “The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger and rich in compassion.” Romans 14:7-9 “Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s”. Matthew 18:21-35: The servant whose debt was forgiven but who refused to forgive his debtor. Hearing these readings, I could only think of the feelings of anger, and probably of revenge (though mostly fear on my part), felt by myself and others after the attacks on Sept. 11. I remembered the homily given by a visiting priest one day in my home town: “If you don’t forgive Bin Laden, you’ll end up in hell right next to him.” Aside from the assumptions made about the state of Bin Laden’s soul, this is pretty much what the Bible says, put plainly. This peace prayer was very symbolic for me, in that I could commemorate these attacks by praying together with peace-loving Muslims. I had wanted to find one and shake their hand in person, but I didn’t end up doing so.

As we left the cathedral (and other events later that day), there was a weak scattering of protestors facing us. I was surprised—who would protest peace? It’s like reverse hippies…I was not happy to see that one of these protestors was waving an American flag. The signs they carried said things like “9/11 was an Islam job” or “Solidarity with persecuted Christians”. They seemed to be accusing us of cooperating with people who should be our enemies. 9/11 may have been an Islam job, but will refusing good relations with those Muslims who actually want peace prevent future attacks? And how can persecuted Christians be better helped than by religious freedom, an important issue in many of the talks? As to the American flag being used to protest peace and interreligious cooperation, all I can say is that our flag represents freedom, which cannot be had without peace, which cannot be had without people of different communities working together.

Speaking of freedom and cooperation brings me to another point: tolerance. I know many good people who say that tolerance is not at all a characteristic of a faithful Christian. This view tends to define tolerance as saying that “all religions are equally true and efficacious for bringing about salvation”. There might be some (or many?) who use this word with such a meaning in mind, but for me, tolerance is first and foremost simply not killing those who disagree with you. We take this so much for granted in the U.S., but so many people all over the world continue to be persecuted and killed for their religion. Live and let live, literally—this is tolerance. Taken a step further, tolerance is establishing a positive, respectful atmosphere in which ideas can be exchanged. Seen in this light, tolerance is a precursor to evangelization—it is only a hindrance when it turns into apathy.

As for me personally, a quality I will need to develop while I am here is what I call “diversity tolerance”. (I took a foreign language pedagogy class in college in which we learned about “ambiguity tolerance”: basically, not freaking out when you don’t understand every word being spoken around you.) By diversity tolerance I mean the ability to deal with the fact that other people believe different things than me. The ability to remain cool and not get angry, the ability to not feel threatened by different views. If my own beliefs are true, then the erroneous beliefs of others cannot hurt them, no matter how badly I argue or debate my point. If my own beliefs are in need of revision, I pray God for the humility to accept the truth. I’ve been faced with this quest to discern the truth almost every day that I’ve been here in Germany. It’s funny—I never saw diversity as a value until recently. I now see it as a value because exposure to other beliefs helps you to better articulate your own beliefs, and to keep evaluating them critically, making sure they withstand all possible tests.

Anyway, back to the Peace Prayer. On Monday the 12^th, David Brodman, head Rabbi of Savyon in Israel, spoke to a special group of youth convened by the Community of Sant’ Egidio. What struck me more than anything he said was the fact that he was so open and friendly towards a group of German youth, since he himself had been in a concentration camp when he was a boy. One more thing made an impression on me:  his description of the many peace talks he’d been to where they’d sign an agreement only to revoke it three days later. His tone overall remained optimistic, but after the discussion I was left with the impression that peace talks were not how peace was ultimately going to come about. This one Muslim boy in the group seemed to have a similar idea: “Let’s just close the books and agree not to kill people.” By “books” he meant religious texts, and was referring to the passages in the Koran that seem to condone violence, though he and other Muslims at this peace prayer all found ways of interpreting those passages that did not involve actually killing infidels. He also referred to a passage allowing revenge on those who kill one’s relatives. He said that his family had been in this situation, but had chosen not to do what their book would have allowed them to. He then proceeded to say that the Bible allowed revenge too, definitely a misunderstanding. Maybe the Old Testament in some passages, but certainly not the teachings of Jesus. I wanted to jump up and correct him—and there we would have been, arguing over texts again, talking about doctrine and already misunderstanding each other.

It may never be possible to make all of these religions agree on paper. It may be possible, however, to bring them together in reality. Another thing that left an impression on me was a story the rabbi told us about an Israeli family whose son was killed in a bus explosion. His organs were saved, and the family donated them to save the life of a young Palestinian girl. In the end, the mothers of the boy and girl were simply two mothers who loved their children. Acts of love like this are what will really bring about peace. Peace conferences like this one do have value, however, in that the big discussions spark lots of little conversations between individuals, which is where real progress is made.

To conclude this admittedly gargantuan post, I would like to share the experiences I’ve had since the Peace Prayer. I never did shake hands with a Muslim, but I played soccer with five of them several days after the event. Twice a week I go to an after-school center at which many immigrant kids come for help with their homework, and for somewhere to hang out while their parents are at work. A large number of the kids happen to be from Iraq. They have only been in Germany for two or three years, which means they must have experienced the recent war in Iraq. For years now, the word Iraq has only been associated in my mind with roadside bombs and death counts on the evening news. At the worst of times, I even (not very seriously) entertained the idea that our world would be better off if the entire Middle East just ceased to exist. After meeting these kids, thoughts like that make me sick. Perhaps because of the long war that our country has led in their country, the Iraqi kids have become dear to me, and I feel a certain responsibility towards them. How terrible, if anything had happened to them. I was at first very reluctant to tell them I’m American, but now that’s gotten out and we’ll see how it goes. Despite western panic that Islamic immigrants will spread ideas hostile to our own, I think there are potential benefits to this immigration. The kids in our group are learning (hopefully) that Christians can be their friends, and hopefully they will learn to value democracy by being here in Germany.

One last related thought: at one of the talks at the peace prayer, it was once again disputed as to whether the Israelis and Palestinians could ever live in peace. Someone then said, however, that the integration is already taking place in the schools, where the children play side by side and learn to be friends. This example is one more testament to the fact that peace will only come as a result of concrete relationships and friendships between individual people. Hopefully future World Peace Prayers, such as the one next year in Sarajevo, where there has been much religious conflict, will bring about such friendships.