People of faith everywhere must help close the divisions

I was so inspired by Muhammad Ali’s funeral and all the faiths represented there and realized it was a picture of what our world could look like if we all worked together. He was a wonderful statesman who tried and succeeded very often to bring diversified groups of people together and we are challenged to follow his example.

This is what our country is crying out for more than ever at this critical time in our history. As I was recently reading a daily devotional, words it included shouted out at me more than at other times when I had heard the same words. Those words are “read the words and live the words.”

Almost all faiths have sacred words that talk about loving your neighbor. In the Christian texts, neighbor is more than likely someone different from you instead of like you; perhaps even your enemy. This is a difficult concept to get our collective heads around but it may save us all.

We are in such a divided place today, particularly in the political arena; people who don’t agree with each other lambast the person who thinks differently by calling them terrible names and even wishing harm to come to them.

Through my reading I believe I was given an insight that I’m hoping others of faith will respond to.

If those of us who believe we should love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves cannot agree on the presidential candidates that have risen to the top of the ballots, could we at least see if we might agree on what qualities that person needs to have if we put our faith hats on top of every other hat we wear. If it is too late to add other names to the presidential ballot, then can we fight for these qualities to be in a vice-presidential candidate?

My list, which I ask you to add to, starts as follows.

A presidential or vice-presidential candidate will:

1. Have a strong faith in their God.

2. Have honesty and humility as top personal values.

3. Be a serious student of national and world history and have a deep love of our United States Constitution.

4. Believe in national and world peace and a first-rate national defense and be willing to help countries that desire a democratic way of life.

5. Respect the rights of all people and have a heart for the disenfranchised.

What this means is we have to start talking about what we agree on instead of what we don’t like about each others’ beliefs. We need to try to really listen and not think we always know what is best for everyone. I challenge faith communities to set up interfaith dialogues and see what we can learn from each other.

We could start an interfaith movement before it’s too late rather than just sit back watching reality TV (the news!) to see what happens in the next months.

This was written literally hours before learning of the Orlando massacre, an event that only adds to my conviction that this conversation is needed more urgently than ever.

Read the sacred words and live the sacred words!

This story was originally published June 28, 2016 at 3:43 PM with the headline "People of faith everywhere must help close the divisions."