Knowing Our Neighbors: Beginning the Interfaith Journey

Because of what happened in a movie theater in Aurora Colorado, the world changed today. Once again we have that numb feeling of utter shock and disbelief. For me, what is just as devastating is the premeditation and even delight a shooter seemed to take in executing such violence. I shall leave it to wiser minds than I to reflect more deeply on tragic suffering. My heart and prayers go out first to the victims and their families, including those in that theater who escaped unharmed physically - yet forever changed. My thoughts are also with every rescue worker, health care provider, and police officer who must continue to live the tragedy, along with a community who will still be grieving and coping and struggling long after the world turns its attention elsewhere.

Yet there is another reason this tragedy is important to me.

Because of what happened today, what we will do at Seneca Presbyterian Church beginning on Sunday is even more important than it was 24 hours ago. We will try to bridge gaps of ignorance and perhaps fear as we undertake the first steps in a journey of interfaith understanding among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities. We will try to short-circuit divisions in our world that have for centuries been the source of far too much violence and suffering and death. And because of what we will do, I wonder how we will be different a week from today.

• Will we increase our understanding and ease our discomfort with traditions and beliefs that are new to us? 
• Will we be able to ask questions openly, with trust and respect? 
• Will we go beyond learning about in order to learn of and with, putting the face of a brother and a sister in the place of what would have been a stranger? 
• Will we deepen our own faith as we hear of another's journey of faith? 
• Will we end the week better able to short circuit the stereotype or inflammatory remark, thereby somehow diminishing the risk of future violence in a divided world, if only by a whisper? 

If you can, join us beginning Sunday morning and continuing Sunday through Thursday evenings. We will gather at 6:30 p.m.

I pray the world will be different because we do.