The Story of the Faith Club

a muslim the question you need to sit down together to write a book you know it's not the beginning of a bad joke it's the story of the faithful agree women who came together to write a children's book after nine eleven and came away with much more i'm kenny macintyre and today on gay characters and we'll hear from running it'll be suzanne oliver and priscilla warner the three women whose dialogue with thick cloud a bestselling book that explores they're moving often turbulent journey as they grapple with each other's and their own stereotypes about religion first we hear from running it'll be i came to the faithful about a deep sense of isolation and alienation from the dominant voice of his mom right after the events of nine eleven as a mother as deeply concerned and anxious about the future of my american born children but i also knew that to be private and i felt like it's time to become

more of a burden and a privilege that i was handing down to them especially after the events of nine eleven saying that to myself that i would not ask them to remain true to the religions of their ancestors just out of pure about loyalty so that challenge and i hit the books and the good news says it does not take me long to reconnect with what i believe are the universal truths within islam the fact that muslims do not considered their religion and new religion but rather the third of the first two abrahamic faith the fact that muslims kneel down five times a day and their prayers with sanitation is a peace to abraham moses and jesus on the prophet muhammad the fact that muslims are required to believe in the gospels and the torah the fact that muslims believe in the virgin birth of jesus the fact that muslims believe in the manner that came down from the sky to save the israelites one story in particular stood out in my mind and that's the story of the attention is in the city of

isn't on the profit is that to have seven june seven heavens and as he goes through the seven heavens he meets abrahamic family he meets john the baptist and most in abraham and jesus and david and he's welcomed as a fellow brother and a prophet and at the end of this vision as he reaches the threshold of the kingdom of god they hold the sand and they engage in interfaith communal prayer is by a temple mount when i read that story my heart was racing leagues latent my goodness i thought why aren't muslims hearing those that the rest of the world to be wonderful to reach out to christian and the jewish mother what the thought of doing a project that would help highlight the commonalities between the three fates the fact of the matter is that as soon as it doesn't take as long when we start talking to run into conflict conflicts happened between the it's us and the christian mother and i have been muslim ended up playing the role of mediator but let me tell you one thing i was not going to let these

ladies off the hook easily come what may they had become my temple and my church and my mosque right there in my rescue me from my spiritual isolation can affirm my voice and it was not much hope for next we hear from suzanne oliver wang vacant story began at the school bus stop that's why narrowing in september of two thousand and one when her daughter started kindergarten together and like a lot of americans in particular only a lot of new yorkers at the time i was interested in learning more about islam in the middle east in order to understand the attack that occurred in our backyard to assess the safety of my own family in new york and to evaluate our country should response to what was happening as soon as i learned that ronnie was had grown up in the middle least that she was muslim had studied middle eastern politics i was interested in finding out more about her point of view i invited her to speak to my book club and overtime at the

bus stop she surprised me with stories of connection between islam judaism and christianity was news to me that muslims trace the religious ancestry back to abraham as jews and christians did was news to me that muslims revere jesus as a prophet i would run it told me about her idea of getting this muslim christian and jewish mother together to write a children's book i thought it was a fantastic opportunity to spread a message of peace and connection at a time that our misunderstandings and differences were fueling violence and hatred around the world the only obstacle was that ronnie had already invited another christian into her project slang pressure to cancel that other christian right away that i won again and i could deliver due to cement my position at the beginning of our meetings i confess my knowledge of islam and judaism was meager i thought of islam is a violent religion a religion of mistreating women in an eye for nine justice system i wanted to know how runyon who didn't wear headscarf when you drink wine on occasion reconciled her

modern american life with me that religion of islam my knowledge of judaism was not that much greater i thought of it as an ancient an exclusive faith one built on the trials and survival of one particular people and when that didn't benefit from jesus' message of love and life everlasting oh i was curious to learn how these women practice their faith what they believed i didn't really think that anything that they had to say would really sway my inner conviction that i was in the best place of the three of us i head out already made that difficult decision to leave a catholic church in which i'd grown up with the episcopal church because i personally felt more comfortable in a place where women could be priests were priests could marry without doctrine was open to a wider range of an interpretation and discussions were felt like i've made my journey i was in a comfortable place and i was here to listen to what they had to say plus we got together and started to want to celebrate these connections as rania said it was our differences that came to the fore with surprising speed as i recounted the story of jesus' crucifixion

so worried that i was blaming jews for jesus's death that i might harbor some had an anti semitic feelings when amir said that muslims believed in the gospels i knew they weren't the gospels the way i understood them and when she talked about muhammad's mission on earth i felt she says his position is threatened by follow a profit already we're up to our eyebrows in differences in a spasm of it's a lie suddenly lucky one i was lying at home basically paralyzed with fear after the attacks of nine eleven i got a phone call from cezanne asking me to come in and talk about the three abrahamic religions i never heard the word abrahamic before it didn't take me too long to figure that one out i said sure i figure the whole world was screaming about religion and that maybe would help the three of us set down and talk calmly about these matters little did i know that very century i would be the one to be blowing my top maybe the first one raising my voice unlike cain says it's very seen as a very open minded person i grew up in providence rhode island far from kansas fell

into a time unorthodox he rigged a school my father seventy eight after his father died and he said kurdish twice a year the memorial prayer for jews and became very deeply affected by that and so he sent me my siblings there we studied hebrew and terror and jewish history a little map in english and then in seventh grade you just listening to a quaker girls school with no explanation and i got there the first day and they pulled out a piano and started singing hymns which i still remember and enjoy and i'm at christmas we sang songs to baby jesus and lit candles and nobody excellent find my family what their philosophy was about this neither one of my parents are able to now recount that mean they're no longer able to do that so i would like to think that they sent me an image of a churning early on so i thought i was pretty open minded i was wrong and i'm here to share my stereotypes with here we were writing a book about her three time the legislators says i was riding my jesus ryan him muhammad as rabbi moses and when says anger to the part about the crucifixion i was so you know he's very

comfortable couch of a sudden something happens a sensor radar one often that my i just got very agitated and i'm screaming at her with lovely comfortable couches certain words and dad it may evil men among you who have slain jesus seemed particularly close to the words houses around and i didn't no cezanne didn't know what direction the stories going in that i blurted out to her using the very uncomfortable others talk about jesus and an end and jews in the killing of jesus and this is where the trouble started to increase his image is can't you just leave the crucifixion out as they evolved and my thinking back then and i'm here to show you we were treated with what we really were forced investor to be honest in the very beginning we did not start out in lightened and i'm here i can for some of the more fun little things i said i am suzanne said it as a jury you know this is where the

trouble started haven't ever heard the word crazed killers is as it should never heard the word before and i didn't believe her and isaac money for that word and i went back onto my friends and a couple of them are christian and a woman who teaches catholic schools that may have heard the word progress color size or they maybe this woman harvard some anti semitic feelings that she wasn't an hour not to me and we were all strangers i didn't this is as background here the tale of a stereotype her because she had growing up in the midwest no offense and got all catholic schools and texas christian university i send that arm some of voices and i'd been hearing screaming the loudest about the differences between christians and jews in a tension between them on mice and she harbored some of the same feelings and after it i went home and i talked to some friends about this whole crazed killer notion still suspicious i came in the next to the next meeting and i had very seldom portly drafted a letter of resignation from nothing we were having a conversation and says it was a very open open the door and

i said you know i don't have a conclusion this project i don't love my feelings are invalidated and distances is listening and thank god randy said once you sit down have a cup of cases and it's a very lovely smart intelligent i am sensitive person and she's probably made some changes oh you're just a citizen kane as she read from her story again this time no alarms went off no bells and whistles and she chooses a couple of words and what we learned from that experience was that just a couple of words make a big difference and it depends on who's saying those words and hoosiers those words on second person a stereotyped was writing and i'd never met a muslim person before never met a palestinian woman before and from the very beginning a lot and her apartment i felt very calm and she was so gracious and warm and she certainly as i said the first meeting i was surprised that i'd be a versatile as american as an american jew and talk face to face so common with some of his parents and i had suffered some it's a nineteen forty eight and i had images

of anguish palestinian women in refugee camps and was so delightful that we were able to immediately connect and i am i guess a way to praise her little too often in a one meetings she turned to me and anonymize and they're both very good cooks but it wasn't just about the cook and i said you know i want to make a compliment and she turned to me she said you know do you think you like me for who i am or you think i defy some sort of stereotype you have of muslim women and i was busted because yes i'd stereotyped or another individually though is apologize to our ever ago is jesus because as an american jew quantity reduced so certainly we never learned anything about jesus and even quicker slowly we sang hymns and everything but there was a lot of talk and i never took any of my friends were jesus only have these conversations i came to the table the only jesus was more of a divided many a night or and at the book and a recount an anecdote which i have to share with arrests constantly

and as a mayor in italy on our trip we checked into little pansy on and there is a lovely little simple wooden crucifix hanging from the bed hanging on the wall behind the bed and i said to run ins as they were trying to this too to figure where my feelings about jesus and anti semitism or the roots of them i said i had to take the cross town off the war because i didn't want to sleep under a dead man hanging from across the mat nothing to maine and as rania said he must have meant something to your why would you bother to take down the cross so i reached out to these women thinking that i would have a jewish muslim or at the very least the christian muslim dialogue and they kept going after katrina to the salient points in the judeo christian tradition mark good as i thought talk about feeling like the banisters mile why couldn't it be the judeo christian muslim tradition eventually desolate comes around and asked me a few questions or stereotypes said she had herself and she says to me well you

know you say that your god is our god too but the other day i was at a cocktail party and i am at this quite erudite man who explained to me that the number on there are verses of the mac i am the medina ones and so on so forth well i am here tonight to tell you that nowhere in the koran does it say kale and you shall be rewarded well religion is used as a tactic for a war or to justify violence or to fulfill the promise of the holy land and it is no longer about god's values but very much a human ideology unfortunately islamic is not the only religion to have suffered in this manner but few people would think it while i used to look at the bible as the only source for understanding the violence that was committed in the

name of the crusades as gandhi's that all religions are true but imperfect in as much as they have suffered in the hands of our humanity but people tend to use perhaps a more mature lungs when they're looking at islam and a more liberal ends when they're looking at other faith traditions so one stereotype downed the other one came to me through suzanne and it didn't take her along to say to me you know the day i was driving my son to school and we passed the ninety six street mosque and they're all these men and now women and frankly how can you a woman who considers herself a progressive an enlightened and intelligence helping belong to religion that has had a rather dubious track record when it comes to its treatment of women again i am here tonight to tell you the one point six billion muslims around the world she has to stay within the faith traditions of islam not because that oppresses them presses and discriminates against women but rather because muslims

celebrate and revered the prophet as a man who came to give women of their rights the right to divorce inheritance and property ownership and beyond to oneself first time fundraiser yes they do but that had a lot more to do with the condition of state society laws culture mixed than anything that is particular an endemic to the koran for those of you who remain skeptical islands eleven am i dreamed to strike i'll be reading hovers around he got to have god has and downs you know from that this book which contains non ferrous is that our categorical and basic to the book than others the equivocal but those who are twisted of mind looked for first as equivocal seeking deviation and giving them interpretations of their own but now knows their meaning you saw not accept any information messy their

fighters i have given a hearing the ice cream the irony for me and my favorite experience that my conversations with a muslim and a jew led me to a new understanding of my own christian faith the surgery started early on romney's to talk about her temple in church and three when we first started getting together at the time she didn't have a harm the muslim community prayer community in which she felt comfortable and i wondered whether my episcopal church could be a sort of foster home for her family soundbite of them to join us for an easter service increased iran accepted my invitation and i was thrilled to share the holy celebration the flowers the music they came the sat next to us and as soon as the trumpets stops blowing and the prayers began i started to feel the discomfort that i hadn't anticipated at all where no words like son of god lamb of god pasch alam body and blood through jesus

christ our lord i just felt like i was hearing them through the filter of muslim here is you're trying to connect over this one guy get here again was something that was viewed differently between the muslims and the christians is there meaning of jesus's life and and death i started to wonder what all this language that i've been hearing since childhood really meant i realized that in order to discuss christian concepts like the trinity the atonement salvation with ronnie and priscilla interface club meetings i needed to come to a deeper understanding of them i certainly one more complex that i was teaching at my first great sunday school class surfers turned to the gospels looking for a jesus who spoke to me and brought verses that to our meetings and read to put solar on your from the sermon on the mount shared things like the beatitudes toward them we talked about jesus and as it began to feel like running for so we're affirming she says as a teacher of god's love as a symbol of their universality

of human suffering my own confidence in jesus' divinity and what that meant started to waver we were talking about heaven and salvation and priscilla said to me what do you think i can come to and i said of course but runyan priscilla reminded me that there were very many christians who didn't believe that was the case who believe that because they hadn't accepted jesus is their personal savior the pearly gates would be locked in part on their entrance that wasn't the way i felt i needed to feel confident that there was a this isn't the gospels to support my more inclusive view of salvation to be able to articulate that and our meetings so i began reading about the early church really more biblical criticism in coming across interpretations of jesus's life and death in the bible the gospels that i hadn't come across before books like misquoting jesus by the scholar bart ehrman opened my eyes to the number of decades that passed from she says life to the writing of the gospels conflicts that exist within the gospels the amount of interpretation that happens and then the writing and hopping of them over time with this going on

in our meetings it began to feel like these symbols and the harm the basis that my favorite been resting on for all these decades starting to crumble underneath me and i reached a real crisis of faith and i was lucky to have access to a fantastic priest in my church who when i went to have reassured me with the words the opposite of faith is not doubt it certainty and eventually i came to embrace my doubt doubt allowed me to question and questioning allowed me to grow that allowed me to want to poke at what i thought i believe then and if that collapsed then i discarded it that allowed me to overcome my fear of what i had lost and to rejoice and reexamine what i what remained but i still had i began to realize that no religion have all the answers that each was a human infallible attempt to understand something than surpassed human understanding something is so important to me in christianity is as simple as the golden rule and i realized

how it surpasses cultural and religious boundaries when jesus was asked what's the most important commandment he answered to love god with all your heart soul mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself i was reading about judaism for face of beatings came across a story of rabbi hillel who did about the same time as she says was a bit older and he's said to have been approached by a pagan who said to him i'll converse if you can teach me the entire torah while standing on one leg and hillel said to him what is hateful to do not do to your fellow man all the rest is commentary going on at six hundred years later muhammad said to his father's you're not a believer anti love your neighbor what you love yourself the cylinder i never seen this truth that i thought about my life as a christian truth and more than one package you'd think that after hours of conversation and

these two women live on my face but i was really hinge on shaky ground i finally admitted that to run and says in a couple of meanings and all my life i had suffered from terrible debilitating terrifying panic attacks from the time i was fifteen years old and every time i had won i felt like i was dying how i prayed to god to this guy that had been put there for me at the hebrew day school but i never talked to anybody about god before i met these women i've had one two minute conversation and my husband about god and i was involved in whether that we should join a tampon intention said he said what you think i said well you know you won he felt that we should belong i said do you believe in god he said i don't know he said you live in that i said i would like to believe in bad analysts can't extend it so i found myself in the midst of these incredibly exhilarating complex painful intense conversations about god mediterranean says and after september eleventh i couldn't even necessarily believe that god did exist i had been so shaken by that day so we started talking about what

god meant to us on what kind of guy do you believe that exists what kind of god do you believe exists who do you pray to while you pray you begin to analyze men say they realize it all my life it had a very selfish notion of who god was probably because i it had been put there from an early age of dvds school and for me god was the god of the hebrew bible sometimes raffle and judgmental very powerful every year yom kippur explain to them you have to go every year the sale all playing and ask for another year of life and confess our sins and plead plead with god for one more here on earth as we're having these conversations in and they were my favorite story that stereotyping conversations were really went at it with each other family fadel a divided us were really own something him or a proud of but the more transcendental ones we talked about and what united s were my favorites critically because life intervene for may and i'm my i was from a cup of kurt weill's my mother ma my life was a very dynamic creative colorful wacky artist

and she was diagnosed with alzheimer's and she began a very slow steady painful descent into a really excruciating disease and journey and i would my sister who was censors escalate a host of autoimmune diseases over and i was diagnosed with breast cancer often come into these meetings with a heavy heart and teary eyed and trying to answer the i'm really difficult question of why some people suffer while their people don't return to runyon says and for help on that and tom we talked a lot about nine eleven and i said gee you know a prize in europe are never go down to that part of new york that i said iranians as any as a right here and only now on the frontline aren't you terrified to live in europe and they said that they weren't as it why not some of what you guys are drinking and it turned out what they were drinking was accepted the faith that i did not have access to i said that all i could see down by the world trade center was a dirty the whole of death says and saw something totally different use all the

love the poor from all around the world and to that site and she solos awash in a sea of love full of people who were connecting with each other and i am showing love and compassion a very powerful way ryan yeah and suzanne both pointed out to me that all around the world are suffering taking place every moment of every day i known that but i didn't really know how to take my own pain and suffering and to put it into context of suffering all around all the globe was so wrapped up in my own thoughts and my own fears finances and to a yom kippur service at that my sin my synagogue and am i really love the memorial prayer service because as it used to death well and eight there something in the prayers it connects me very much my father and out we talked about that a lot about is there an afterlife ridges and we talked about pain and suffering why some people suffer and others don't after this conversation something happened and instead of the crystal and i'm talking

to suzanne became my friend cezanne and run instead the muzzle boston a woman this conversation with became rhine yeah we made each other's families parents and data when i connected with that rhyme his father i remember i'm a lovely anecdote that he was in maxim prayer beads he gave me and he had about him a nice and i can't take them he said no we're not in a valuable in terms of what they're made of what would sell about as i've prayed with them and so i'm gonna give them to you and you will pray with them too and i was home my son is in college and he was having a rough time and one day i was up in his room i saw my prayer beads up in his room and said to him he steals everything in a house for every bit as if we're doing with these and he said i know i like them as he's aware that essay that is pervasive and so richard m i said i got them from around his father and he said i have a message you can have matured his story the man who gave them to me so i told him the story he carries of kirby's with him everywhere i love the image of he said a school called trinity a jewish boy praying with muslim prayer beads

and they're in error is about them after we became friends writing iran will have a series of very intense emotional painful difficult tearful conversations about the israeli palestinian conflict and what i learned most conversations is the we try very hard now not to compare suffering one human being suffering to another as one people suffering to another one nation suffering to another i don't think it serves to bring the conversation to bring the whole experience anywhere productive to just keep upping the ante with suffering who has suffered more an hour to quote running an end in a book that she says that although she's asking for is an announcer the suffering for people and redemption dignity and that's all any of us are asking for life it works for me because we're all asking to be treated with dignity and warner one of the three authors of their faith

along with suzanne oliver and ronnie it'll be i can't deface car describing myself as someone who had faith doesn't quite sure that i had a little so how is it that today i see it as a more confidence more affirmed muslim i have two challenges to overcome the phrase muslim i have hers i could not believe in a god who wish to discriminate or at heart a god who would leave people behind or god would only recognize one true how likely for me there are many many verses with a number on that tell us that indeed if god had wilt he would have made us all of the same color tribe and religion but it is by god intend to design that he made us of different colors and tribes and religions in order that we may know each other and prove ourselves through our actions my favorite search for assistance torah

which contains guidance and light later we send to jesus son of mary confirming the torah which has been sent down before him and gave him the gospels containing guidance and light onto you are mohamed we have revealed the book the koran was truth it confirms the screen scriptures that came before it on to everyone of you we have appointed a different law and if god had will you could surely made you all into one single community professing one day so one challenge down one more to go to second challenge was thirsty exist within islam people come up to me till today is a you know but you don't look the same and i can understand why i myself was vulnerable to the stereotype that would happy to have you believe that perhaps had to wear a veil a certain way eat a certain way or prison way in order to qualify as a true muslim and there's good reason why i would be vulnerable to that stereotype because there're little voices out there that happened to have a lot of all the

money for what you believe that there's only one way and it's theirs their way by as outsiders by accepting their definition of islam as the only legitimate definition we are in fact unwittingly empowering them the truth of the matter is the diversity within the sun is just as available to muslims as it is to orthodox reform and conservative jews or in the many denominations within christianity it may say i think to yourself that poem she wanted a loan muslim of waste and for a long time in the face by may have felt that very same way i felt isolated alone but i'm happy to report to you today that i have a wonderful thriving american muslim community and i know that i am one of many many many and i was i met a wonderfully mom who actually did wonders in ceiling my voice and my confidence of a muslim he shared with me to two important

points the first point is that there is no such thing as a temp world just to the justice that god is at the end of the day the true our church everything the second was on an anecdote in that he shared with me in which the prophet in his day was asked what does it take to be a good muslim and he said to have said well three things that the forest is a belief and got the second as the belief in the message of god the third is to act as if god were with you and your actions once you have fulfilled they speak three conditions you truly have faith and it's only when you have faith in you can use the rituals of your religion to seek closer proximity to god and there you had it once and for all i was liberated from the notion my faith was held hostage to set of rules and rituals and open to the idea that my faith can be serviced by my religion now suzanne oliver the next challenge in my journey was articulated well for me

by a teenager after a borrowing and priscilla to speak to the youth group at my church was a sunday morning they were looking pretty sleepy eyed so we were thrilled when we finished talking and one of them raised to stay and ann asked trail that in order for each of you to believe in your religions that you have to believe that the other two are wrong i told him that i didn't think so even though i've seen plenty of billboards in this great state of kansas say accept jesus christ and be saved or regret it forever i think you're familiar with them that's not the message that i find that when i opened the gospels he's embraced all people his mission reach to women ostracized by the day's patriarchal society lepers set apart in caves gentile samaritans other is considered unclean according to the jewish purity laws of the day he was a jew demonstrating how to move beyond the laws of leviticus and to a life of spirit and selflessness available to all the gospels tell a story of jesus being asked by his followers who would be with them in god's kingdom

his answer was those who fed the hungry gay drink to the thirsty cared for the poor in the imprisoned john explains it another way in his gospel god is love and he who abides in love abides in god and god in him in the acts of the apostles peter the rock upon which jesus said he would build his church was quoted saying truly i perceive the god shows no partially audi but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him now when i worship i don't think of myself as just a christian justice as an episcopalian is part of a worldwide community of believers when we turned to each other in church i wish each other piece i think of muslims and jews and others around the world gathering in communities of prayer with the same wish one of the most important things i have learned from my faith journey is not to judge anyone else's faith that everyone from my ten year old son who insists there's no god to the most area die priest is on a journey toward god and every diet on that journey is sacred since buffet cubs

publication been celebrated in many christian communities i've also been accused by christians of denying the exclusivity of christianity and indeed i do this experience i have learned that when we transcend that human tendency toward exclusivity when we overcome our fear of the other we can encounter the spirit of jesus and when we engage with those of difference we begin to realize our potential as peacemakers as members of humanity things started looking up literally one one evening and my has was in seattle and i was joining him with my sons for a family vacation and a better record airport in the war in iraq had started there were bombs flying the tvs were full of images from horrible images from the war and we made our way to the plane we got i mean we started flying west into this amazing brilliant sunset and it was just extraordinary never flown straight into a sunset before in all kinds of colors really coming alive in the airplane

and then we stir fly west and the pilot announce we had a fight and usually low altitude because of turbulence will always and the flight i looked down below me and i saw these giant flat silver bodies of water in their very still they're reflecting this magnificent sunset down and i said his time in the waves lapping and so sure of butter as was michigan when a victim airline magazines spying over the great lakes at sunset as are thinking about all the conversations that i've had with iranian says enter the past couple years and my yearning to define god for myself and something happened to me in a plane and i have looked at the beauty beliefnet and so low that i began to cry and my teenage son sitting next to me ask you are you crying and i said it's just so beautiful and he went back to his espn magazine but incidental a basketball actually and he didn't trust me any further and we got to the seattle we have a wonderful vacation came back and luckily had my

faith but to come back to normal started telling the story and i thought i was now a real member of the clubs as in i was up in the air and i started looking below me and i decided to surrender to a higher power and there was no applause the signal what woody mean i said well you know what you guys and i get it i'm leaving that i was up there at all felt something i finally felt something and that didn't it because this was the fifth of that pushed me and pushed me and the waiter said there are at that time to sell as a midwife to my fate she said to me like a personal would you feel appearances as a what exactly was the feeling that you felt authentic airplane and janis that i guess so was humbled and rightly so that's a very islamic notion because islam means to submit and once you've submitted and it now's your tiny place in the vastness of the universe were able to make connections on the ground and a very powerful intense personal but universal way so i drank ellison when i'm potion and shrink myself that i really really liked my perspective from there all those giant neurotic things

have been swirling around and colliding on in my brain or my city the center worries his sons were silenced and one day ever in the book i was actually going to a local pizzeria pick again if my family and i just the two books about religion across the street in a bookstore owners have never done before and what should the pizza parlor i'm thinking it's just was thinking the conversation we'd had the last conversation all the sudden i've ice savoring about it as small the rich red tomato sauce in a whole new way i felt the warmth escaping from the ovens even the surly counted as looked flowing to may and i said i think i'm born again i think i have a i think i have like a whip all these people line and suzanne but priests any moms and rabbis and ministers in monk's of alben walked around with i think i've found inner peace i went back to my minivan a scribble that as we're keeping journals in the dark and a pencil this epiphany that it had itself pizzeria

mamaroneck and i came back and i announce themselves suddenly that i had to find god for myself but it really you know it it's not so great every day sunday as i walk into cells and i'm better off than other days but generally speaking this experience has been an extraordinary person one for me as well as a m university stands walk around all the time now thinking that i'm praying to god every morning i wake up and i say i found the english translation for the jewish prayer been saying that the bridge is school i wake up every morning and say thank you god returning my soul to my body were never trust a new and imagine people all over the world waking up grateful that their souls are still on their body ready to start any dame i also found a definition of god a really works for me now it works more and more every day or every traveler however many people we meet and connect with it good for martin go over i dedicated the book to my husband and sons martin buber's said that when two people relate to each other authentically and humanly god is electricity that surges between

them the current is still strong sparks to fly and we'd like to get out and i feel healthier energy again rania adobe that is what the faithful this essentially about it as a call to critically think of our religion to push ourselves outside our comfort zones in order for us to really have true ownership of our own religion we had the faith or not for editing our language we are for enlightening our thoughts were not philo teams are not scholars they're not politicians politicians but that is indeed the point where firm believers in the grass or dialogue in the people of dialogue where true change can happen bottom up not the top down likely due to thoughts and phrases to my fellow american citizens who are non muslims go ahead please ask ask the tough questions don't live under the assumptions and misconceptions don't vilify us don't make other of us don't out us

who knows perhaps to discover that you have we have a lot more in common than you thought we get into my fellow muslims i urge you to read it to read in the name of god which is that the first person the first command in the koran and celebrate the fact that his lessons we have access to the full circle have access to the jewish god the god of freedom and that's fast to christian god the god of freedom and got a passion and love and to the muslim garb universal god accessible to all and here's the good news this country was built on the principle of the freedom of worship and therefore it is with utter confidence and sincerity that i share with you today that i believe that my children and your children and the very near she'll be able to speak one day of the greats american judeo christian muslim tradition

thank you you're listening to the office of the faith of money out of the van and five film won this is for all three of you do you think of yourselves as creating a new movement of appreciation and valuing each other's faith isn't a movement we need is a real estate as a whole and how many programs like this have the data it is a movement are agent other set before the book was even major does the moment only catholics each other and where sir what that meant exactly but this is what it means it means that we travel around the country and we've spoken to people like you everywhere and they have poured out in numbers they've been talking before we got there a lot of them there starring fake clubs after really everywhere we go people are hungry for this message people want to come together and not a person who likes to speak publicly

says i am i have no choice but to speak publicly because every time i do i have more faith in the goodness of humanity and more faith that my children will will be part of a world where there is hope the kinds of events that have started to arrange for three women in a retirement home in jacksonville florida staged am play of our production came up to us and it had a big event in jackson said i'm ron unz is an imp or so on and i was in just a week i think gibson is a videotape of a of the plan to it being taught at stanford university university of michigan and brandeis university you weave them all around the country any kind of audience as you can imagine we have a cyber net space a faith and belief that it is the largest religious web said the country where people wiggins and pagans and atheists and buddhists and christians and jews and muslims have come together and have a cyberspace conversation i'm we hope that you're a sense of it here and the people i guess we'll talk about that later

tynan with that question is another one as a jew i feel frightened by the fundamentalist christians in this country and their beliefs suggestions for me regarding my fear and how to talk to them people have used our book actually to start conversations and a woman who lose jewish friends wouldn't speak to her anymore after she took a job at al jazeera center the book so that they could start a dialogue there are lots of interfaith families who are sharing the book with each other as a way to introduce to break the ice and we will bring up some of the tough subjects you don't necessarily have to be so afraid to do it yourself as opposed the dining room table and there is a woman in florida who had heard was in a school conservative christians and she emailed me and ask for some particular bible quotes that i had used in our presentation and one thing is for as many quotes that say one thing you can find quotes that say the opposite i think that its never very productive to end up in that

kind of a conversation what is useful is to get to know the other person as a human being the fact that ronnie and priscilla found god in the same place as i did and the relationships within their family and kindness is that people bestow upon other people in god's creation was a way of harm breaking down barriers and certainly one than knowing that if you love someone who is different how could god not love that sam someone could you be happy in heaven without that person will then how can it be heaven if that person is is damned because they didn't believe the same thing you do these are suppose different ways that i've heard people discuss the issue and now but the bible quoting back and forth we've been stuck and radio shows actually with those kind of people and it's never very pleasant i think the whole notion of syrian on a year jewish person said have to fear that i totally relate to that and a lot of fear throughout the course

of the book inequality and the book tour of what the war going to think of me and i'm i think that you know somebody out of a jewish community center in manhattan said they really wanted to talk to a muslim woman she's desperate to talk to muslim an initiative dubbed a little bit and she will what you know if i meet a muslim person what should i say and i say well if you're the supermarket you might start with this that teach look right to you so i would say you know as a jew was scared to death for a large portion of my life i would say not to be frightened anymore because the worst that can happen is that somebody will see you as a human being with all of your frailty his insecurities your lack of knowledge frankly about your own religion and scripture and if you can come together and reinitz says is a human dialogue it's not necessarily simply a religious dialogue this is a question for a runner i don't believe the prejudice against muslims is directed against

beautiful women who pass it's against those with different dress a narrower abuse subordinate to their husbands or separatists and faith culture does the faith club need a more traditional typical muslim to really make the dialogue work that's a great question i liked that question i'm festival well surprise most muslim women look like the majority of muslim women remain on the ballot and i go that's a visit from a georgetown professor not that being unveiled wouldn't necessarily make this dialogue any difference i mean i myself have that stereotype as i went out into the world on speaking engagements i thought perhaps you know a more traditional woman with a veil who chooses to worship or seek her proximity to god in her own way might think that i'm not quite the authentic authentic was lamar or what have you and i've had a few stereotypes

myself lost it as some would say i've had nothing that embraces and warmth in celebration of these women coming up to me saying my goodness you are our voice you represent us answer the stereotype is such that just because a woman wears a veil does not mean that she is necessarily oppressed oppressed or arms somehow inferior to her husband on it just means that she has over more orthodox perhaps to its ways in terms of her i wasn't of god and something that we can understand as americans and the choice of perhaps you know orthodox women are jewish women who have chosen that path and maybe not a choice that i would make for me and i can also as an american respect that choice and that diversity of choice for them on as long as they live in peace and don't go unharmed me as their neighbor then there's nothing that i can really this not going to pick their end and we have a rich tradition and not raise

the amateur the arm orthodox jewish communities who are frankly separate the bike upright and their cultural perhaps traditions and so there is there is a precedent here and also it is also very important to remember that the veil does not mean one thing there is not no such thing as one muslim veil then they'll means many many different things i feel can be a traditional veil and expression of highest worship or conservative orientation and bill can be a political reaction as in the veil and france with the french girls taking up the veil as an expression of a sense of pride in their identity and their reaction to a sense of their being ostracized and made to feel like they're inferior a bit like a can to the jewish experience for centuries before that in france and that they can be a veil that is extreme and more politicized extreme fail and which perhaps a woman is completely set of you

know with lessons on and that's not something that harks back to it and taking up the bill because it was the that they'll is something that happened at the time of providence in a century that is very much a modern fail it as a reactionary fail it is very much a function and a product of its environment and its very modern conditions i just say that ryan has unveiled the someone hasn't exactly easy and sitting beside her or a lot of very difficult questions had been thrown your way that no but i'm just saying it's not just if she were veiled it's not like she would have a tougher time she gets a lot of very difficult questions as a modern american muslim woman period whatever or just she's wearing how's she's expressing her religious beliefs if love your neighbor as yourself is our common bond what do we do about all the killing in the name of religion particularly in the middle east what more powerful than to invoke the name of god and in the name of it

for your cost power of ideology on mice that's right side and got some eyesight and that's not something that muslims have invented snark the christians nor the jews now perhaps the camels it you know it's it's it's happening everywhere but again it's very important that we understand the distinction between on religion and between politics and there and away closely tied because you know about these two governments are promising but i think that i remain an optimist ie remain a firm believer in the past it and high capacity as nationals in the end and as people i don't believe that we are always and i really think that deep down inside where all decent folk we all can be much understand that we all are striving for the same thing but life is tough world trying to make ends meet are all trying to have families and feed them and thrived then and not just because i have a different color skin a different way for a set or that i pray on my knees as opposed to on the seat does not make me that foreigner

that if an alien i'm not out to get you in the west and the reason i say this because it's incredible even today as we're sitting waiting for our flight and the terminal we came across a man who just come from a trip to a pilgrimage to israel and he on now is getting himself and as he began to share the details of his trip and he said a few things which basically indicated that you know he said what is the message a slap in the face that they went ahead and they build that mosque in and jerusalem right where the temple was and the truth of the matter is believe it or not that could be the choice of the site by muslims in the eighth century i ate what is because is because they wanted to rescue it from being done which it was at the time under hellenistic role christian will and that they'd be feared the judaism and that site so they wanted just to two two to clean it up and to build a beautiful place of worship that would celebrate the connections between the three fates so that it's an ironic image

and then he said to me very nervous that he's had you know fifty percent of muslims of the world are out to get us to hate the jews and christians and so this is that the fact that a lot of people unfortunately belief that you know the muslims are out there to get them ann and i am and again i've been out of the question because of a rambling on for too long at least these meaning that the dealer can solve it all hinge on that but the other day we cannot demonized a whole culture a whole people for religion that's how we got into the holocaust in the first place and we can take one face someone culture and one tradition replace it but another because that's just not the way that's just not the way as humans as americans as decent people i thought this will be our last question you find that your faith core embodies the faith of your co authors yes i mean

absolutely you know i think that's perhaps the biggest gift that i take away from this place to talk about being self conscious walking into church and armed and he entered my ring disdain lies view from my home and i'm thinking you know i might not quite muslim enough if i am and i think that my face court today because it's like any other relationship and life the more secure you are and who you are in the more comfortable in your skin the more generous and giving an exception you can be of others an end whether it's about whether you get sick in your role as a husband or wife or mothers and i think it's just isn't a couple in your relationship with your god because of this dialogue that i have had i am more secure and more confident in the sun on second walk into a house of worship be a temple or church as i do until last night one entry as sacred or had a temple or a buddhist temple and now that i am in the house of god and therefore my core faith house to that degree and become more secure as a

muslim ironically through night interfaith dialogue going to just rephrase it a little differently and just found mention what are the things that i have admired so much about judaism and islam and how they have maybe affected my own fate in judaism i like very much but a couple things that are just mentioned the commentaries the fact that the higher the bible isn't dead that it is re thought over and over again and that thinking is preserved you to read the passage and you read the way the number of tiger how it's been interpreted over the ages sometimes i feel like we get stuck in the gospels existed so long ago and to have interpretation alive i think is important to allow us to question and it ties into in an s on monday's talks about there is no an intermediary between the person and got there isn't some unduly reinterpreting for you on that town and i like that very much that we can have our own relationship with their holy

book feel free to to think about it not to and it a bummer but i think i think a lot of my mortality these days my father died eighteen years ago my mother's has essentially disappeared it's not the person she once was so i knew a lot of strength to get through the day and take your every can get it in the conversations that i had with finances and have affirmed for me that really got is electricity that surge is between us and that energy is something that continues after we're gone and just the experience has given me a feeling of mortality and you've just heard chris' a lawyer suzanne oliver and run yet it'll

be the co authors of the faith club a muslim or christian led to the re women's search for understanding they spoke at woodruff auditorium in the kansas memorial union on april seventh two thousand for more information about the fate of clubs including a reading group died and information on how to start your own faith club their website is that you'd bet you debbie you got the faith club dot com i'm kate mcintyre kbr presence is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas no ma'am