Today’s story in our weekly series takes us both to the Far East—and then back home again into the heart of our American communities. Noelle Sutherland, an educator, writes today’s story out of her experience as an American woman who began to follow a movement within Buddhism that is lesser known in the U.S.—and suddenly found herself navigating the difficult pathway of religious diversity. In the end, Noelle’s appeal is this: Let’s move beyond mere tolerance!

In a recent discussion group discussing the book “Friendship and Faith,” one participant named Noelle’s story as the most important in this new book. Why? “Because she makes the point that ‘tolerance’ just isn’t a good enough goal to set for ourselves anymore,” said a woman in the circle. “Maybe that was our goal once upon a time, when we were just discovering our diversity back in the mid 20th Century and we couldn’t do any better, but it shouldn’t be our goal now.” We’ll let Noelle explain why …

This is Noelle Sutherland’s story …

I have some friends who have been extremely accepting about our religion. They’ve seen how much it has changed my life in positive ways. They’ve asked questions about it, and I’m happy to answer their questions. But mostly these are friends I’ve met more recently—friends who haven’t known me for years. There are old friends who I still haven’t told that I’m now Buddhist.

My husband and I follow Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism, and most of the followers worldwide are Japanese. I’m not. I’m Caucasian. I grew up in the Midwest. My family has lived in Michigan forever. So, this is quite different for people who knew me years ago while I was growing up. I have a master’s degree and I’m a middle-school teacher of science and social studies. I hadn’t really found a religion for myself, but my husband and I—as we met and eventually got married—discovered that we both had this strong connection with Buddhism and the various philosophies and practices within Buddhism. We had both been reading about it, we discovered! My husband had a whole collection of books about Buddhism. While I hadn’t had any religious upbringing, he came from a family that was very strongly Roman Catholic. So, this was new and quite different for both of us—but we both felt this very strong connection to Buddhism.

We had not really acted on that, but when we were married I got pregnant right away. We both realized: We’ve got a family coming—we should go ahead and find someplace to attend. We began trying different churches, and one day we met some people who were practicing Nichiren Buddhism. Very quickly we found that—my gosh—everything about their practice was exactly what we were looking for.

We became Nichiren Buddhist about six years ago. Nichiren Daishonin was a Japanese monk born in Japan in 1222. Basically, we follow the Lotus Sutra, writings of Nichiren Diashonin, and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo daily. Buddhism is a mainstream religion, and Nichiren Buddhism is growing in size, but there aren’t a lot of people who practice this in Michigan.

We practice in our homes, where we also hold meetings. We also attend monthly meetings at a community center. We have potlucks. You might think that my son, growing up in the suburbs, would be getting a steady diet of pizza and hamburgers. But, because most of the people in Nichiren Buddhism are from Asia, my son is growing up eating curry and sushi regularly.

This choice we’ve made has been absolutely wonderful for my husband and our family, but it has been a struggle for me in other ways. We live in a mostly Christian society in this country, and I guess a lot of people don’t realize how important the Asian influence has become. Millions of Americans are practicing yoga, and Asian religious traditions are a growing part of this country’s culture—but some people are not very accepting of our choice.

I’ve had people look at me and say: “You’re an American Caucasian woman—so how can you be a Buddhist?”

Even though we’ve spent years with our religious practice, I still haven’t worked out how to relate to all of my old friends. There are still some who knew me years ago who I haven’t talked with about this. I’m not sure what their reactions would be.

This has been a very good choice for us. People who know me can see that I’ve got a lot more optimism about life now, but there is a fear in some friendships. I’m human. I get afraid. I don’t want to ruin things with friends. I do wonder: Will I be judged by a different standard if this person knows my religious experiences are not the same as most people?

It’s a lot easier for me to form new friendships. When I make new friends, things aren’t so difficult. I just describe who I am. This is all just a part of my life. New friends get to know the person I am today. Buddhism is a large part of my life, and I don’t find that I need to explain myself, only explain what they might not know about my religion.

What I fear is that someone I knew in the past won’t respect the importance of my choices. I don’t want to hear them saying, “Oh, this is just a phase you’re going through.” And, I don’t want to hear them say, “Oh, it’s just a bandwagon she’s jumping on.”

In some ways, I wish I had been born into Buddhism. There’s a phrase, “fortune babies”—for people who were born and grew up in the religion. When you’re born into it, you’ve got all the confidence and all the knowledge of your tradition from so many years of living within it.

But there are a lot of Americans like me, who look around for the religion that’s right for them—and who do make changes. Millions of Americans are making new religious choices. I hope that more people will become accepting of these choices.

I know it’s possible. At a wedding, I found myself sitting at a table with a girlfriend from college. She’s a Christian but she is very open to new ideas. We got to talking about what we believe. I told her about my practice—and she was interested in my story. We had a good and very lengthy discussion. She made me feel confident in the way she responded. It was a wonderful experience.

I wish people would stay open-minded, like this friend I met again at the wedding. The key is acceptance. I don’t like the word “tolerate.” As a teacher, I can “tolerate” kids at school, but that’s not enough for strong relationships between friends. We need more than that in our relationships. Acceptance truly helps to make our lives better.

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. (See link upper right.) Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

Six hundred!

That’s the number of friends who showed up in the heart of Detroit to redirect their “9/11” energy toward fixing up venerable old Clark Park—and a whole host of other neighborhood centers throughout Detroit as well. Learn how this was done and you may want to do it yourself next year!

Most of our readers don’t live in Michigan, so here’s a bit of background about this famous setting: A century ago, Clark Park was celebrated as a cultural jewel, bequeathed to Detroit in 1888 by John P. Clark, a successful commercial fisherman, real estate tycoon and Great Lakes ship designer. In its prime, Clark Park boasted meticulously tended flower gardens, a fountain, a children’s center, a pond for toy boats and many other amenities. Detroiters were so proud of the place, they mailed picture postcards to friends to show off their idyllic setting. Today, in sharp contrast, Clark Park barely surves in the midst of a big, diverse community near a vibrant “Mexicantown” commercial center with terrific restaurants—because all those families and restaurants are situated in a city with barely enough money to mow the city-owned grass let alone care for a city-owned park. In some years in recent memory, Clark Park has fallen on such hard times that the city has nearly shut it down due to dangerous, unkempt conditions. Now, imagine the problems found in managing Clark Park peppering dozens of other neighborhood centers throughout this major American city. Yes, there’s a lot of work to be done!

Gail Katz and other community leaders decided to make a difference this autumn. Gail is the co-founder and head of WISDOM, the nonprofit organization that created this “Friendship and Faith” book and this ongoing Internet effort to collect stories from women across the U.S. Today, Gail shares her “9/11” story about friends gathering to help a great, but sadly ailing city—and the success of a program known as “A-OK.”

This is Gail Katz story …

This year, to remember what happened on 9/11/2001, we dedicated ourselves to Acts of Kindness, a national community service initiative. In Metro Detroit, this vision moved organizations from across Metro Detroit to engage volunteers in a variety of community service.

The Acts of Kindness (A-OK) mission is to transform 9/11 from a day of mourning into a day for people to come together and work side by side to make their community a better place to live. With this new approach, 9/11 becomes a day to learn about each other’s interests, families, faith traditions, and a day in which we can find our commonality as human beings. As we work together, we reduce myths and stereotypes about the “other,” and increase respect and understanding.

I heard about this Acts of Kindness initiative from my interfaith sisters in Syracuse, New York. Women Transcending Boundaries decided to spread the word about their plans for A-OK, and their enthusiasm lit a fire in my soul.

I announced this idea to the Education Committee of the InterFaith Leadership Council here in southeast Michigan, and it wasn’t long before we were connected with the Clark Park Coalition, WISDOM, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), City Year, 1 By Youth, Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, the Michigan Community Service Commission, and Leadership Detroit as our main partners, bringing along with us help from the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, among others.

Our partnership got a late start. We came together in June for a September 11th and 12th event. But I was amazed at what was accomplished by working with such a dedicated committee. This was a very diverse committee made up of young and not so young—Muslims, Christians and Jews—men and women—retirees and employees—Black folks and White folks—all of us plowing ahead to make A-OK Detroit a success.

And listen to what happened!

On Saturday, 9/11/2010, 600 volunteers showed up in Clark Park in southwest Detroit. 600! There were Christian teens from all over Michigan, City Year volunteers galore and folks who had read about this event in the WISDOM newsletter. Some volunteers came from great distances to join us—all the way from Grand Rapids, Brighton and even northern Michigan. We had families come with their sons and daughters, and we had grandparents bringing their grandkids. After the opening ceremonies under beautiful clear skies, we deployed folks to 11 sites in a 4-mile radius of Clark Park in southwest Detroit to mulch and weed, plant flowers, trim bushes, board up decaying buildings, pick up garbage, paint over graffiti, clean up playgrounds for children—the list was so long!

Christian teens from small towns in Michigan got to interact with Muslims and Jews, eat Arabic bread and Latino baked goods for breakfast. They got to see the diversity of southwest Detroit, a mixture of races and ethnic backgrounds. Members from the First Congregational Church of Royal Oak came down, and spread the word among other affiliated churches in Michigan. The Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan put out the word to their communities, and many Muslim families and children joined us. Because Saturday 9/11 was the Jewish Sabbath, it prevented many Jewish families from joining us on this day, but overall A-OK definitely expanded our vision of community!

And from our blue skies of the morning, we experienced the rains of the afternoon. Our big closing ceremonies in Clark Park had to be revised to an indoor sharing of A-OK cake and tacos, along with the good vibes of having made a difference and new friends in southwest Detroit.

Sunday, September 12th was different. From the 600 volunteers of the day before on 9/11, we had about 30 dedicated folks show up for the second day of service. We sent everyone about five miles away to the Mercy Education Project (MEP), which serves a culturally diverse population of more than 100 girls and 140 women from Metro Detroit each year by offering an after-school tutorial program, a summer enrichment program and literacy development and adult basic education for the women.

We were delighted to meet Amy Amador, the Executive Director of MEP and Sister Maureen Mulcrone, the Director of Development and Marketing. They got all the volunteers busy immediately with moving furniture, painting the walls, scrubbing down the pods and chairs—and weeding the outdoor gardens.

It became clear to those of us connected to WISDOM that this was an organization that we, as a women’s interfaith non-profit, could partner with to work towards the empowerment of women in Detroit. And so we WISDOM women celebrated this fact with Amy Amador. What fun!

We returned home very tired but very high after a busy weekend of community service and interfaith and intercultural interaction. We have made a difference in southwest Detroit, but this cannot be just a one-time event. We must maintain our relationships and move forward to break down our cultural and religious segregation. The A-OK committee is working to do just that—getting more people together to talk, break bread together, perform community service together, and find out what we all have in common.

Our hope is that the A-OK idea moves far and wide across the U.S. so that Detroit and Syracuse aren’t the only major hubs of A-OK activity in 2011 and beyond! If you read this story and want to create an A-OK project in your part of the U.S., visit our WISDOM website contact page and tell us what you’re planning! We want to help you spread this idea to touch as many lives as possible.

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. (See link upper right.) Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

This week’s true story of cross-cultural friendship comes from Barbara Mori, a professor of sociology who retired recently from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Throughout her life, she has lived many years in Asia, where she supports educational programs in several countries. When it comes to American pride, you won’t find a prouder neighbor than Barbara. Yet, Barbara has devoted decades of her life to supporting innovative educational programs for people in several Asian countries. She sees herself as an American internationalist.

BARBARA’S STORY … 

I am an American. I’ve lived one sixth of my life outside of the United States, but there has never been any doubt that I am American. I am part of the third generation in a family of immigrants from Germany, England and Wales and, in that tradition, we love our country.

When the planes hit the towers in New York on 9/11, I was visiting a friend in Japan at the time. I came downstairs that morning and she was making breakfast. She said, “Barbara, planes have hit the World Trade Center in New York.”

I said, “It’s too early for jokes.”

She said, “I’m not joking.” We turned the television on and, of course, they were playing it over and over again on Japanese television. I sat down and I cried a long time. Then, I went for a walk and I just kept walking for three or four hours. I did meet some Japanese that day who talked to me in a sympathetic way. I appreciated that. I am an American and I was shaken.

I am not worried about my future, no. I’ve made some wise choices in my life and I can afford to live on retirement pay. I’ve scrolled away some money and I plan to die broke. Until then, I’m going to travel as much as I can.

What gives me hope? One is that I’m a Buddhist and very happily a Buddhist.

And I’m hopeful as an American, too. I’ve lived nine years in Japan, three years in Korea and three years in China. I go back to China every two years. I’m planning a second trip to North Korea next month. I’ve been to Burma four times and I’m going a fifth time in December. I see myself as an internationalist, but I know that when people look at me as I travel, they see me as an American. And I’m proud of that.

When I travel around the world, I’m also an educator. I taught at Cal Poly for 23 years, but I’m involved in educational programs in many countries. I’m helping to rebuild an elementary school in the boondocks of Burma, where the government in Burma seems to have no interest in helping that school. In China, I’m helping Chinese women to learn and teach calligraphy. I’ve paid the tuition for several Chinese students to go to college. If you care about the world, I believe you should put your money where your mouth is.

Most important in finding hope for me is that I am an educator. You have to be an optimist to be a teacher. Pessimists don’t make it. They get burned out. If I can’t find hope and meaning in education, then there’s no point to my life.

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. (See link upper right.) Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

Emma Sczesniak arrives early for Canines at Covenant service with Marley and Midnight. Photo: David Crumm.This week’s true story of cross-cultural friendship involves both a very common kind of relationship and a unique religious expression of that friendship. In an earlier ReadTheSpirit story, David Crumm profiled Covenant Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, which launched the nation’s first regular weekly worship services at which members bring their family dogs. Canines are controversial in some world religions. For example, contact with dogs can leave Muslims needing to perform a fresh ablution before the next prayer time. Many other religious sensitivities draw lines against pets in worship. Nevertheless, Covenant church members talk about their friendships with dogs as an essential part of their lives and closely related to their Christian faith. Today, we share two short stories from Covenant members, talking about their experiences.

EMMA SCZESNIAK’S STORY …

My friends are Marley, a terrier-mix who now is one and a half years old, and Midnight, a Lab mix who has been with us for eight years. We rescued both of them from the pound.

I’ve had dogs pretty much all my life, since I was a kid. We’ve had all kinds of dogs and I loved that. When we moved to Westchester in Los Angeles, we didn’t have a dog for quite a few years and I really missed that. We felt we needed that in our home again.

We went to the LA city pound both times and, both times, we rescued dogs that really needed a home. Before we took her home, Midnight had been terribly treated. She was frightened. She was in the pound because she’d just had puppies and someone had dumped her. She was a real mess until we took her home, reassured her and got her back to health and feeling safe again.

Our dogs pretty much rule the house, I’d say. They mean so much to us that when this service started at Covenant, I wanted to bring them with me. We’ve been through so much with Midnight that it was a shock when the vet found a lump on her leg six months ago. He said it was bone cancer and we saw a cancer specialist next, who said Midnight probably had only about two more months.

We prayed for Midnight here at Covenant. We still do and, to this day, she’s doing wonderfully well. Look at her. She gets around just fine and seems happy. These two, Marley and Midnight, are a big part of our lives.

Leslie Evans with M.E. at Canines at Covenant service in Los Angeles.LESLIE EVANS’ STORY …

We rescued M.E. when she was three months old. At that time, 10 years ago, we had three children at home and this was to be their dog. They wanted to call her “Emmy” and they spelled it “M.E.” Now, I’ve only one child left at home for a while longer. M.E. has become a very important part of our family and my own life.

She’s made us laugh. We also have four cats and, when we first got M.E., she thought she was a cat, too. She learned differently when she discovered she couldn’t climb the draperies like the cats. She’s taught us about peacemaking, which she has to do with four cats in the house!

M.E. is gentle when I take her to church, but at home she’s very protective of me. How much does M.E. mean to me? That’s very hard to put into words, but I’ll tell you this: About six months ago, she had a seizure and, oh, suddenly I was so scared for her. We zoomed off to an emergency vet, worrying all the time. She was fine after the seizure passed and the vet thinks she may have eaten some poison put out in the garden for snails. But I did learn just how much M.E. means to me that night.

When we started this service at Covenant, I thought the whole thing seemed very weird. But I tried it and it’s become a nice time that M.E. and I spend together each week. This has become a very important part of our lives now.

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. (See link upper right.) Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

This week’s true story comes from the Rev. Marianne Borg, canon of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. She is married to best-selling author and Bible scholar Marcus Borg and she is the founding director of the Center for Spiritual Development at Trinity. Given the international fame of the Borg name and the top-flight reputation for scholarship at the spirituality center, Marianne responded to the terrorist attacks in 2001 by refocused her center’s considerable resources on healing religious divisions. Some elements within her 2002-2004 program were successful, including occasional weekend guest lectures by visiting teachers, but the core of Marianne’s two-year program … Well, to be honest, it failed. Here, she shares the major lessons she learned through that failure.

THIS IS MARIANNE BORG’S STORY …

After 9/11, there were so many misunderstandings between our religious communities. There was a great deal of ignorance about Islam. There was so much bias. People didn’t realize we all are children of the same father in Abraham. So, we planned a major effort that went on for two years called the Abrahamic Initiative. The moment we announced it, we immediately had 100 people sign up and pay the enrollment fee, so we thought it was going to be a great success.

I hoped we would learn to share a common language and I invited experts to talk with us about these traditions. I wanted top academics in Islam, Judaism and Christianity to share basic information with us about revelation and scripture and practice and mysticism, themes I thought could form a common ground for us. My hope was that taking this academic approach would help us to level the playing field for people more easily and, of course, I knew a top academic in Christianity who was available to do this series: Marcus Borg.

Because Marcus regularly speaks from his position in the academy to general audiences, my thought was that we could bring this down to a more personal level for people. But that assumption was a mistake. Very quickly, I Iearned that the other two academics thought that to share anything personal in this classroom setting we had set up was inappropriate. Rather than really engaging the people who had signed up for this, this lack of a personal connection I think actually caused us to lose a lot of people.

I made a lot of mistakes in this process. I also came to see that our hosting of the program was one of those mistakes. Our audience was mostly Christian from the start and it became almost exclusively Christian as our numbers dwindled and dwindled until we were down from 100 to about 20 at the end. This second lesson was a very hard piece of learning for me because, as a Christian, I am firmly committed to the integrity of interfaith dialogue. But here I was in my own sense of hospitality assuming that our cathedral easily could say to everyone including Jews and Muslims: Come to our place and we will host this conversation. We will look for similarities together here at our place.

I soon came to see that in hosting this program there already was a Western Christian bias to my hospitality. As Christians in this country, we have nothing to lose in dialoguing with Muslims and Jews because we are the dominant presence. I don’t perceive myself this way, but I realized the truth of this problem when the Jewish scholar pointed out that the approach we were taking smacked of assimilation and that’s dangerous to Judaism. This hadn’t occurred to me, but when I thought about what he was saying, I realized the bias was there in the way we had structured this. Of course, we were not trying to convert or assimilate anyone, but as Christians we’re the majority in this country. We’re not under any threat for our survival as a minority.

Ultimately, we found that what people really wanted was a sharing of personal stories. What is Islam for you as an individual? What is Judaism for you? Who is my neighbor? What is your story? They were interested in what the academy had to teach and we did have large crowds for some of the special weekend guest speakers, but the academic approach was not enough and over time it was clear the academy wasn’t what would touch people’s lives in an ongoing way.

This really was a stunning learning for me. I was embarrassed by the end of it, discovering that something I thought would raise understanding, in fact, confronted me with some of my own biases. Finally, I concluded the program was a failure.

If we do this again, we will design our program around sharing stories. I am a person who cares about our planet and I began this effort in 2002 in a genuine, sincere and logical way, but we undervalued the many ways people can come to know each other. Our thought was that the academic approach was the most important, but sharing our stories and our lives also is a very important form of learning. We’re in a different time now that calls for a different kind of engagement between people. We must keep trying to bring Jews, Christians and Muslims together, but now is a time for smaller groups in which we can begin by sharing our own stories.

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. (See link upper right.) Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

TODAY’S TRUE STORY comes from Minnesota journalist Louise Mengelkoch, who is married to artist and author Kent Nerburn. Louise is professor of journalism and chair of the Mass Communication Department at Bemidji State University. Here, she tells about a broken friendship, one that she often contemplates, because quite simply she misses her friend. What do you think? Here is Louise’s story …

I am such a Midwesterner. In fact, I am such a Minnesotan that I enjoyed, at first, just how different I found the very lively Latino culture of my friend. Now I wonder if my Midwestern-ness contributed to the break in our friendship after a number of years. I miss my friend, but we’ve not been able to find a way to reconnect. See what you think.

Here’s the story: My husband and I had a couple of different connections in the way we first met her, and then she invited us to her house for a party. She loved to have parties and that was something different for us. People around here don’t have parties like that. She always had lots of good food and loud Latin music. People danced. She would invite anybody. So, it was exciting that you’d never know who was going to be there. If there were other Spanish-speaking people around, they’d be there. If there were foreigners from other places, she’d invited them, too.

She was different. Everyone around here is so Minesotan. After a while, life just gets to be all the same everywhere you go. Our friendship was different and we wound up becoming very close friends. We visited in each other’s homes. We traveled together. She was a wonderful cook, and we’d cook together. She was always going on about Puerto Rican history and that interested me. I read things she recommended. Learning from her was something I valued about our friendship. She always wanted me to take a trip to Puerto Rico with her, but I never did and, now, I wish I had.

She’s quite a bit younger than I am so perhaps that was part of it. But her life did seem bizarre to me sometimes. She was full of fun and craziness and we liked that. It was part of her charm for us. Yes, it’s a stereotype about Latin-American people, I suppose, and it’s a stereotype of Midwesterners that we’re more reserved. But this was true of both of us and I was more responsible in taking care of the daily business that you just need to tend to in Minnesota.

Even after years of living up here, she seemed to have no conception of what it means to live in a Northern climate. She would go off each winter on a trip to South America or Spain. But, she wouldn’t arrange to have someone plow the snow from her driveway and she had a long driveway. That’s part of our responsibilities up here. And she had a heating system that was fueled by propane and you have to make sure your tanks are filled. If you’re not going to be home for a while, then you have to plan ahead and make sure someone is plowing for you and checking your tank.

The break happened this one winter when she went off on a trip to South America. My husband and I were about to leave for our own family Christmas and we had quite a drive head of us. Now, before she left, she asked if I would check on the plants in her house. So, Christmas Eve morning, I knew we were leaving that afternoon and I went out to check the plants. I had forgotten that she didn’t plan for plowing, so here I was eager to get to my own family’s Christmas and I found myself trudging through her knee-deep snow to get to her door.

When I got inside, I realized: Boy, it’s really cold in this house. I called my husband and asked, “Is it right to have an inside temperature of 38 degrees?”

He said, “No that doesn’t sound too good.” We found her propane tank had gone empty.

Now, she had given me a number to call in South America and I did call, at that point, but the number didn’t work. That was one more frustration. Then, I was able to reach this other friend of hers who somehow was able to make a telephone connection. I got a call back, then, from this mutual friend saying that no arrangements had been made about the propane tank and then this: “She says that, if you could just have the tank filled right now, she’ll pay you back when she gets home.”

I said, “That’s $600 or $700!” That made me mad. Then, we found out it was worse. We had to pay a premium to get a service guy to come out at Christmas time.

Can you see this? Here I am on my cell phone on the way to Christmas for our family, trying to arrange to get this tank filled. I actually did manage to get it all done for her and I did pay the bill, too. Then, when Christmas was over, she never even called me. Nothing. About two months later, she finally did get me a check. But she said she was embarrassed by this. And we just stopped seeing each other.

The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way. It was like my Northern self was coming out. I felt like a Midwesterner. I thought: Damn it! Why don’t you take care of your business? Don’t you know we all have business, we all have responsibilities, we all have things we have to take care of to live up here? I can’t just go off on a trip without any planning. And I didn’t like it that all of this was sounding like my own mother speaking through me.

The bottom line is: I miss her. She never did reached out. I didn’t either. I just have never been able to come to terms with this. The whole thing forces you to look at yourself. I’m not saying that I like everything about being such a Midwesterner, but there are things that I do like about lives. Of course, my husband has no opinion at all that he’ll share. So, it’s all up to me.

And, here’s the final question: What would you do if you were me?

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. (See link upper right.) Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

MORE THAN 1 BILLION MUSLIMS around the world will begin the fast of Ramadan in the second week of August. (The three girls in today’s photograph live in Indonesia.) This week’s true story in Friendship And Faith comes from Rehana Saleem Quereshi, a Muslim woman who writes about her family’s long journey from Asia to America—and her own commitment to cultural diversity. Open arms build the strongest communities, Rehana has found. Enjoy her story and think about the families all around the world prayerfully preparing for the great fast of Ramadan. Did you know that far more Muslims live in Asia than in the Middle East? Here is Rehana’s story …

We moved from India to Pakistan when I was little. We had to make this difficult move with nothing—just the clothes on our backs. When we moved, we were four sisters, then three more sisters were born in Pakistan—so we were seven sisters in all. Through these years, we became a very close family.

Education is so important in life. My parents raised us in a home with Shakespeare and National Geographic Magazine. We read about new things in publications my father ordered from England. I remember my sisters and I would sit down together and read articles about how to do new things, like knitting, sewing and cooking new foods.

Eventually, my family decided to move to the U.S. and, over a period of about 10 years, relatives helped one another to migrate. I came in 1973. I got married and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. I studied to become a medical technologist and, for 22 years, I worked at the Detroit Medical Center in the microbiology department.

I am a moderate person. I’m very open to friends of different faiths and cultures. I worked in the medical community, so I have Christian, Jewish and Hindu friends and I know that we are all the same as people. We all have families and we all face problems in life—often in very much the same ways, whatever faith we may be.

As parents, my husband and I put a high value on education and carefully selected schools for our daughter. When our daughter was young, we chose a day care center called Kinderkirk, where she got along very well with children from other cultural and religious backgrounds. As I was growing up, I attended Catholic schools through my college years. It was a good education and I found the nuns to be very dedicated. They helped to mold my character into the woman that I am today. But I was growing up in a Muslim community, in a Muslim country. My daughter was growing up in a country where most people are not Muslim. It is important to learn about your own faith. So, my husband and I—together with many friends—began to work on establishing a Muslim center in Canton, a town west of Detroit, where we live.

In the beginning, we would rent a hall when we got together or sometimes we met in someone’s basement. Twenty-five or 30 families would gather for potlucks. We organized ourselves and worked on establishing our own place. The women helped to raise the money to build our school and community hall. This was difficult, but we knew that we were laying the foundation of our faith for our children, so we worked hard. One year we raised $80,000 by catering for all kinds of occasions like weddings and other events. The families that helped were Muslim, but they also were diverse—from many different places. Some were Pakistani and Indian, some were Egyptian, others were Libyan. They were from many places.

My daughter studied for a number of years in a Muslim school, and she was a good student. Then, after eighth grade, we moved her to a Catholic school. She’s quite athletic and, at her new school, she joined the track team and the ski team. Today, she continues those passions by running marathons and designing soccer shoes for a living. I am glad that she had this mix in her schooling. The Islamic schools helped her to hold onto values that come from our religion—like not drinking. With friends now, she often is the designated driver, because people know that she doesn’t drink.

Some people have this idea that Islam is such a strict religion that its members can’t even talk with people of other faiths; and that might be the case for some Muslims, but I am very broad-minded, and I feel that people must interact with one another outside of their own little boxes. If we don’t do this, it is easy to become afraid.

When my Muslim community began building up the Muslim center in Canton, there was some community opposition around us from non-Muslims who wondered what this place was going to become. If we had stayed inside our Muslim box, we would have grown anxious, afraid. Instead, we held Open Houses. We invited people to come inside. We welcomed so many people that I remember going into a drug store one day and being surprised to find that a woman working behind the counter knew me already! The woman had come to one of our Open Houses and had enjoyed it so much that she greeted me in the store. I know that not everyone is as open as I am, but I do think that this is the way to make the world a safer place for all of us. We need education. We need relationships with people from different countries and cultures.

Once we make friends with people, they aren’t just Muslims or Hindus or Christians—they become our friends. Life is short. I’m 60 now. I look in the mirror and say: Oh, my! It’s like I blinked my eyes and suddenly I am now this old. But even at my age, there is still work to do. God wants to strengthen us all in this way—through drawing us closer to one another. There is too much violence in the world today because of the ignorance between people. Every time I pick up a newspaper, I wonder: Where is all of this taking us?

In recent years, I joined this new group of educated women, WISDOM, so that I could learn more about other religious traditions. For example: Baha’is. I didn’t know much about Baha’is before I joined WISDOM. And do you know what happened to me? This new group made me go deeper into my own religion! Now, I am always wanting to learn more so that I can talk intelligently to other people about Islam. I know there are other women like me. Perhaps if more of us pursue learning and friendships that cross our many traditions, we actually can make a difference where we are living. And after that? Perhaps we can reach out beyond our own cubbyhole and make a difference across the country. And someday? We might be able to make a difference in the wider world.these.

 

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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. (See link upper right.) Share these stories with friends. (See links below.)

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)