A Challenge for All Peoples

The following post is from Jordi Perez, my favorite Lay Dominican postulant.

It isn't merely our literacy that separates us from animals, for plenty of unforgivable crimes by bankers, business people, presidents and self-proclaimed religious have been committed by superior minds. It is our morality that gives value to our intelligence, and our trust and love. God is not so fragile as to fear other faiths. Some religions oblige one to live according to Godly mandates, and some add the obligation to preach and convert. Can we can love enough to accept the rejection of our Truth and our Way? If we can realize that conversion may only happen after 30 years of marriage, or 10 years of friendship, or in the split second that one extends a loving hand, then we can also realize that at no point is intolerance ever acceptable, for we would fail in our call to preach.

Why can't we share our faith along with the faith of others and enjoy a banquet of beliefs and ideas that can enrich us... even if we choose to oblige by our Ten Commandments, 613 Mitzvot, Five Pillars, Five Buddhist Precepts or just Dharma?

We have reached an Age where our Faith should have matured enough to take the next step up the Stairway to Heaven. We cannot expect God to use Elementary School lesson plans on College-Level Students. God knows that better than we do. Read, and pray, for they are the only things that make us human, then read and pray together, for our infinite and communal faiths are greater than our finite and solitary needs.

We need not erase religion, because we are religious animals, and we are human, capable of far more than gibbons. As fun as it is to measure ourselves by how hard we hit or how fast we run, those awards will always go to gorillas and gazelles, not humans.

Our measure is one that no animal can surpass. Our measure is in the Image of God.

The God that allowed us to take and eat, even after He warned us not to. That is the experience of every loving parent with their child, and our response must be equally sacrificial and loving.

We live in a violent and difficult age, but it is us who make it violent and difficult. Only us. And it is us who can make it less violent and less difficult. God is waiting.

Christians, you have studied for 2,000 years. Graduate already. Muslims, you are not far behind. Submit to Peace. Jews, find where we can fit in your Sabbath, since we love and respect the same Prophets. Buddhists, Hindus, we too can find common ground under the orange sun. And none of us need change a single color of our convictions.

Surprise God with love. See what it brings.

You shall not kill.

"...from every animal I will demand it, and from a human being, each one for the blood of another, I will demand an accounting for human life." --Bereshit (Genesis) 9:5

If anyone has killed one person it is as if he had killed all mankind --Quran 5:32

Ahimsa.

--My thoughts after Pittsburgh

*Ptttsburgh is reference for the senseless attack on worshippers in a synagogue by a bigotted madman on October 27, 2018. It was a mass shooting that occurred at Tree of Life -- or L'Simcha Congregation, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania while Shabbat morning services were being held.