Articles

IT'S DARK WHEN I ARRIVE AT THE PENSION where I'll stay while I find a place to live. I speak in halting German to the woman behind the desk.

THE FIRST WEEKEND IN SEPTEMBER, Lebanon hosted a groundbreaking, soul-shaking summit for spiritual activists. Lebanon, Missouri, that is.

Because I knew how to respond to them, or when not to respond, they didn't get as much fun out of bullying me anymore. LAST YEAR TOWARD THE END OF SEVENTH GRADE, a group of boys my age and younger created a rumor about me suggesting I did something very embarrassing in sixth grade.

I WAS AN ARTIST, A POET, A MATHEMATICIAN—AND A GIRL. What made me think I should go to engineering school? Back in the late 1970s, engineering was considered an ironclad, old boys' network.

Reprinted from The Christian Science Monitor There's a lot I'm unsure of, I am sure of this. It wasn't mere chance or good luck that brought Daniel through his famous night of imprisonment.

I grew up a Muslim. In my homeland of Indonesia, Islam constitutes the majority religion.

Jihad. It's a Loaded word, full of negative connotations and—to most of us—pretty scary.

"OPEN HIS EYES" In regard to overcoming fear, I have thought a lot about the story of the prophet Elisha and how he faced the army that surrounded him in Dothan (see II Kings 6:8-23). One morning Elisha's servant woke up and saw that they were surrounded by a hostile Syrian army, come to capture Elisha.

How ironic that the very purpose of religion—to instill in humanity a bond with God and a way to practice in life this godliness—should so often be distorted, becoming a source for strife and warfare instead. History is replete with examples of conflict in the name of religion, for example, the Crusades, Wars of Religion in the late Middle Ages, or the more recent conflict in Northern Ireland.

Tensions among the followers of the three major monotheistic religions are front and center in the news headlines. But history shows that these tensions are nothing new—Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been battling one another for centuries.