There is nothing more inspiring to me than when people of good faith, serious about their religious traditions and full of good will, meet to share their visions of what is right, what is holy and what is sufficient to establish peace.
So it was with a sense of joy and gratitude that I welcomed to our sanctuary on May 12 members and representatives of the Islamic Center of Bowling Green.
The event was billed as an interfaith colloquium, an opportunity, primarily, for local Muslims to present the tenets of their faith to a room full of people hungry for more knowledge and full of pressing questions. As a seminary-trained minister, of course, I have had some training in Islam and other world religions, but even I learned quite a bit from the evening.
There is a danger that any of us may be so devoted to our particular religious tradition that we might fail to honor the value that other traditions bring to the lives of their adherents. And it may be that too literal an interpretation of whatever may be our Scriptures may blind us to the poetry that is in them. An evening such as this helps us see the beauty that may lie in the traditions of others.
