AUTUMN HARVEST of corn in Peru shows a great diversity of colors. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.This year, many people are welcoming our invitation to express Thanksgiving for diversity! It’s a simple yet powerful idea in our deeply divided America. Across southeast Michigan for Thanksgiving 2010, interfaith networks of men and women are organizing special community-wide interfaith Thanksgiving services. But, most of our online readers don’t live in Michigan—and we are encouraging you to join in this effort wherever you live, this year.
Thanksgiving for diversity!
Most weeks, this Friendship and Faith website publishes stories about friendships that cross cultural boundaries. For a few weeks, in preparation for Thanksgiving 2010, we are going to publish women’s thoughts about why we are personally thankful for diversity. Why are YOU thankful for diversity? Email us at [email protected] with your answer to that question!
Nature loves diversity, write two women: one Jewish; one Muslim
Sheri Terebelo Schiff writes:
Diversity is like a big and tasty fruit salad. Each fruit retains its own texture, color, size, shape, and taste while all blending into a tasty enticing salad. Diversity means that many of us are different from each other in how we live, worship, eat, believe and interact with the world—but in the long run, our similarities are more pronounced than those differences. Without diversity, would we really be all the same? Would the sameness bring boredom? Diversity is the richness of the human spirit and the interaction of those differences to make this world a better place for all of us to live in.
Gigi Salka writes:
Diversity is all around us. Everywhere you look no two apples are the same, no two trees are the same, no two birds are the same. We all live in a diverse world that enlightens and engages us. It is always fun to try a new restaurant or go somewhere new for vacation; it is the excitement of learning something new. The diversity in our communities is just as exciting. I am always delighted to learn about a new religious tradition, or try new food, or learn about someone’s culture. Our differences are not so different, but rather different manifestations of the same. We all love our familes, treasure our friends, and work tirelessly for a better future for our children. Our goals are similar although we may approach them in diverse ways. Diversity strengthens a community, as people from diverse backgrounds come together they create a new and exciting change.
Please help us with Friendship and Faith!
As readers, we welcome you to contribute your own stories of cross-cultural friendship. (NOTE: There are helpful tips under “We’d like to publish your story”)
You can help in many ways! Purchase our book “Friendship and Faith,” which is packed with dozens of stories by women about their real-life experiences with cross-cultural friendships. Bookmark this page—or subscribe via the link in upper right. Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)
(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)
