This week, we welcome Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny with a story about an unlikely friendship she has formed through the years with a Baptist pastor in a historic Detroit church. Their friendship builds on the wisdom they have shared with each other—serving as shepherds. We call today’s story …

The Dreams of Shepherds

By Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny

“Let me deposit something in your spirit.”

I heard these words for the first time when I was visiting a church to celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. The pastor of Greater New Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, the Rev. Ken Flowers, is as much the leader of his congregation as he is a member. He speaks to people as he would his friends with respect and a level of warmth and sincerity that makes the distance between the pulpit and the pews disappear.

He had an abundance of spiritual currency to deposit in the souls of his congregants that day. He spoke about love of God, the importance of working against injustice—and our need to keep an eye on one another to make sure everyone is taken care of and accounted for. One member of his congregation hadn’t been attending services as regularly as she was accustomed to, so someone went to her house to check on her. They found that she had died in her home—she had frozen to death. Before the congregation prayed for her soul to rest in peace, Rev. Flowers told everyone to look to their right, and look to their left. Next week, he urged, make sure those people around you have returned and, if not, pay them a visit, or at least, make a phone call.

Rev. Flowers told about helping a man in his congregation who wanted to work, but said he couldn’t find a job because he didn’t have transportation. Rev Flowers refused to take that as an excuse. He didn’t want to hand the man money, not knowing what he would do with it, but he was happy to buy him a bus pass. So—between his 7:45am service and his 10:45am service—he bought and delivered a bus pass to the man so he could look for a job.

As Rev. Flowers reached the end of his message, he sang and danced with the men and women who gathered with him that morning—including me and three families I brought with me representing our 8^th-grade class. He lifted our hearts and souls to a point I hadn’t reached through worship in a very long time. It was as though he took our spirits on a journey of the spirit. Like Dr. King, who reached the mountaintop and saw the promised land, Rev. Flowers gave us a glimpse of a world that could be filled with mountaintops, if we would hearken to Dr. King’s words.

Like Dr. King before him, Rev Flowers preached justice, humanity, and above all love for your friend, your neighbor—and even your enemy. I left the church that morning feeling inspired, spiritually full, and wrapped in love and light. He definitely deposited quite a bit in the spirits of everyone who was with him that Sunday.

In the Torah, we read about Yitro, Moses’ father in law. (Some pronounce his name Jethro.) He was a priest of Midian, not an Israelite. Yitro is highly regarded in Jewish tradition, praised for his leadership skills, his knowledge, and his great concern for Moses. Our Torah tells us that after leaving Egypt, the people were coming to Moses in droves to have him solve disputes. They were coming to him from sunrise to sunset, and Moses was exhausted—burning out. Yitro suggested that he appoint elders to help him adjudicate disputes between the people, to give him some relief, rest and a modicum of self preservation.

Yitro was a shepherd in Midian. He became a shepherd to Moses as well. It was from Yitro that Moses learned to be a shepherd. Both men tended a flock—meeting their needs, keeping them safe, and caring for the animals like children. It was from Yitro that Moses would learn how to shepherd our people. He would learn how best to meet their ever-changing, ever-increasing needs, how to raise them like children, and how to protect them from enemies from without, and from their own discontent. Moses, the leader of the Israelites, learned leadership from Yitro, a Midianite priest.

Sometimes, we find our shepherds in the most unlikely places. I have known Rev Flowers for about four years now, and I am proud to say that I count myself as one of his flock. We are as unlikely a pair as any. He is a Baptist Minister, serving a congregation in the city of Detroit, and I am a Reform Jew, toiling in the suburbs. But we never cease to learn from each other’s experiences, challenges, and visions. There are many shepherds in my life—some I look to for an example of parenting, others for an example of selfless giving, and even others for examples of strength and perseverance. I look to Reverend Flowers for an example of how to bring people together, how to teach, how to work for peace and how to reach out to those around us in creative ways.

Shepherds might be born. They might be made. They might be a bit of both. But we must always remember to keep our eyes out for such leaders everywhere we look, no matter how unlikely the place or situation. We don’t have to share the same skin color, the same religion, or even the same language. But we must keep our hearts and minds open to recognize who is standing right there before us.

As “Amen!” and “Preach it!” echoed around us in the big Detroit church, it didn’t matter that I don’t pray in Jesus’ name. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t hoping to be touched by the Holy Ghost. What mattered was that we were all praying for peace, for justice, and for the brotherhood and sisterhood of all humanity. What mattered was that we were on the same journey towards the same mountaintop, the same promised land, following the same dream.

I pray that we all find shepherds in our lives and with them, build friendships, build bridges, and realize the dreams of shepherds around the world.

RABBI JENNIFER KALUZNY serves at Temple Israel, a large Reform congregation in West Bloomfield, Michigan. She also serves as a rabbi for the Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy Network. Her congregation hosted the World Sabbath celebration on Sunday, January 30, 2011.Today’s photos illustrate the kind of worship you’ll find in thousands of African American congregations nationwide. If you visit Detroit, the Rev. Ken Flowers and his congregation at Greater New Mount Moriah Baptist Church are, indeed, as welcoming as Rabbi Kaluzny describes.

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

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

“the giddy pen points out resemblances”
Joseph Brodsky

Our book (see the link at right) shares dozens of inspiring stories by women about relationships. Each week, we continue to publish stories in this online continuation of our project. Many of the stories surprise readers with the places friendships form. Other stories surprise readers with the medium of connection. This week, we’re sharing a story about media—in this case poetry—from Mary Liepold, who is Editor in Chief for Peace X Peace. That’s a global network of women working toward peace.

In today’s story, Mary writes about poetry as a universal language. At the center of her story is the late American Poet Laureate Joseph Brodsky, the subject of a new biography. Mary, an American Catholic, found herself connecting with Brodsky, who always described himself as a Russian Jewish poet—in an unexpected way. Here is her story …

Poem Power to the People

By Mary Liepold

In 1992, the year Joseph Brodsky was Poet Laureate, I went to the Library of Congress with two friends to hear him give a reading. He read about 20 poems in English, then paused. He said, “I wrote these next two in Russian, and they have been translated, but they still only sound right in Russian. Please indulge me.”

So he read them in Russian without translating, and though I’ve never learned more than nyet and perestroika, the emotion in his voice was so powerful that I felt as if I understood every word. The hair on my arms stood on end. When I got to the lobby afterwards and tried to tell my friends, we were all talking at once. They both said they’d had exactly the same experience. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before or since.

Brodsky believed passionately that poetry should be for everybody, not just the elite. He wanted to see poetry become the kind of cultural glue that it is in Iran and Afghanistan, where even people who can’t read have memorized huge chunks of classical verse, statues of poets anchor public parks, and no political persuasion occupies as large a share of the blogosphere as poetry.

I saw that amazing data represented on a map by Global Voices at a conference I attended a few years ago. I understood what was happening the moment I saw the chart, because I had already seen what happens to our Peace X Peace blogs when Alaha Ahrar contributes a piece. She’s a brilliant young woman who has earned a huge following in Afghanistan and beyond for her Persian poetry. When Alaha shares a poem or a story on our Voices from the Frontlines―even a simple “what I did last summer,” the number of comments soars way beyond our modest average. The girl is a rock star!

Remember, Persian poetry is the realm of Rumi, Hafiz, Omar Khayaam, and Sa’adi, whose lines beginning “The sons of Adam are limbs of each other” are inscribed over the entrance to the United Nations in New York City. Poetry is the medium of the most memorable passages in the King James Bible, which turns 400 this year. It’s the medium of Will Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. Brodsky understood that power.

What still moves me about Brodsky’s life is that he didn’t just talk about such lofty ideas. He took action. He linked countless lives together with poetry. The same year that I heard Brodsky read, Andrew Carroll also sat in one of Brodsky’s audiences—and had a similarly moving experience. Soon, the two of them sat over coffee in Greenwich Village and cooked up the American Poetry and Literacy Project. They assembled a special little book of poetry, “Songs for the Open Road: Poems of Travel and Adventure,” which contained dozens of works by poets including Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Then, they found sponsors to print the books and freely distribute them. Thousands went into the glove boxes of new Volkswagens, into the hands of Peace Corps volunteers, into the duffel bags of U.S. Navy personnel—and 100,000 copies flew with passengers on American Airlines.

One of the poems Brodsky and Carroll chose for their collection is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “The Tavern.” Its opening lines:

I’ll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill’s crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May set them down and rest.
There shall be plates a-plenty,
And mugs to melt the chill
Of all the grey-eyed people
Who happen up the hill.

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

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

Here’s another terrific idea for making friends that cross cultural chasms: Let children lead a celebration. Today’s story is from WISDOM leader Gail Katz about the World Sabbath of Religious Reconciliation, which she transformed into a hugely popular annual event focused on young people. Each week, this website publishes new stories by women about cross-cultural friendships. (If you’re just joining us in mid-January, here’s a look at our best stories of 2010.)

We know most of our readers don’t live in Michigan, but the Michigan interfaith community is inernationally recognized for its innovations—so we proudly share this idea today. After reading Gail’s story below, visit the World Sabbath website to learn more about this idea that you can use, too.

A SABBATH FOR PEACE THAT INVITES CHILDREN TO LEAD US

BY GAIL KATZ, HEAD OF WISDOM

Children are the heart of the World Sabbath of Religious Reconciliation—all of those third through seventh graders who express so much creativity and joy each year! We call them the Children of Peace as they gather to create their banners on white cotton. Then, we staple their banners onto basswood poles, so they can wave them proudly as they march in the processional that opens our celebration. Eventually, all of those colorful, hopeful banners are sewn into our Children of Peace Quilt.

The mission of the World Sabbath is to teach our diverse population that the work of building a community of justice, equality, respect and peace is a calling that we all share—all of us, no matter what our faith tradition might be. But most important to me is the fact that our children, teens, and young adults not only participate—they lead us!

Most of our Friendship and Faith readers live far beyond our home state of Michigan, but you might have heard about the World Sabbath. The Sabbath grew out of concerns raised by wars around the world that raged in the 1990s and continue to rage today. In the beginning, the Rev. Rod Reinhart, an Episcopal priest now serving a parish near Chicago, decided to underscore the message that God is a God of peace. In spite all of the differences and disagreements among religious groups, the central message of all faiths is love and compassion for humanity. So, Rod created and proclaimed the World Sabbath of Religious Reconciliation—an interfaith holy day of peace and reconciliation among all religions, races, ethnic groups and nations. Soon, the Rev. Ed Mullins at Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, was collaborating with Rod and agreed to host the Michigan celebration at the landmark Cranbrook church in 2000.

These two pioneers carried the idea far and wide. They presented the idea internationally to the Parliament of the World’s Religions and shared the idea so widely that a handful of cities around the world have followed their example over the years.

12^th Annual World Sabbath of Religious Reconciliation

January 30^th is our 12^th World Sabath. In 2004, when Rod moved to Illinois, I took over as chair of the event. Because of my background as an elementary and middle-school teacher and diversity-club sponsor, I felt we needed to move the focus of the World Sabbath from clergy offering diverse appeals for peace—to young people, our future leaders.

Now, we kick off the World Sabbath on the last Sunday afternoon of January with a Jewish young person blowing the shofar, a young Muslim chanting a call to prayer, followed by middle-school, high-school and college-age youth adding more prayers for peace from various religious traditions. Among the many faith groups we’ve welcomed are: Jain, Buddhist, Baha’i,  Zoroastrian, Christian, Hindu, Native American, Sikh, Quaker and Unitarian.

If the heart of the World Sabbath is youth, the soul is music. Choirs, bands, dance groups and various other forms of spiritual expression reflect many languages, cultures and traditions. We have been enchanted by Hindu dancers, Yiddish Klezmer music, Jain songs, Sikh Shabads, Christian dance ensembles, and Arabic elementary-school drummers. 

The World Sabbath has grown! We expanded so much that the large sanctuary at Christ Church Cranbrook, where the first 10 World Sabbath services were held, can no longer hold us. In January 2010 we held the 11th Annual World Sabbath at the Church of the Holy Family in Novi. On January 30, 2011, the World Sabbath will be held at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield—the first time that this event will be held in a Jewish house of worship. 

This 12^th World Sabbath will begin with the beautiful Yiddish melodies of Kidz Klez, a band made up of Jewish middle and high school students. Our World Sabbath processional will include children of many faith traditions, proudly waving the peace banners that they decorated themselves. These children will sing the song “We Are Children of Peace” led by Temple Israel’s Teen T’filah Team under the direction of Cantor Smolash. This year, Ben Falik, co-founder of Summer in the City, an initiative that involves our young people as volunteers, will be the 2011 recipient of the World Sabbath Peace Award. Clergy of many faiths have been invited to participate in this year’s service, and all the clergy present will be called up to read the Congregation Pledge together about building a world of tolerance, justice, faithfulness, and peace. 

What a wonderful lesson for our youth—and from our youth! If you live in Michigan: Please join us at Temple Israel for this beautiful coming together of Metro Detroit’s diverse community to champion World Peace and the building of respect and understanding! It is a spiritual high that shouldn’t be missed!

For our many readers around the world: This story is our way of offering one more idea from the FriendshipAndFaith project for building diverse friendships in whatever community you call home.

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

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

These days, the world loves angels in every form we can imagine: TV, movies, music, books, games, decorations for the home, inspirational materials, fine arts and even angel classes. However, the real angels in our religious traditions sometimes depart from our popular culture notions about these supernatural beings. We believe that education is a great way to deepen our friendships, so we’ve scheduled a special program on angels in religious traditions. This might be an idea you could use to gather diverse friends wherever you live in the world.

Each week, this website publishes new stories by women about cross-cultural friendships. Sometimes, we offer our stories as creative ideas you can adapt and use. (If you’re just joining us, here’s a look at our best stories of 2010.)

If you live in southeast Michigan, you’re welcome to attend our January 20 angels program! But, most of our readers don’t live in our home state, so today we’ve asked some of the participants in this program to share their thoughts as they prepare for this group presentation on angels.

MOTOKO FUJISHIRO HUTHWAITE:

Motoko wrote one of the chapters in our book, an unforgettable story set during World War II. (You can find out more about our book via the links at right.) She has had a long career as an educator, scholar and editor. She is currently an active Presbyterian and peace activist.

When I first heard that WISDOM was planning a community forum on the subject of “Angels and Religion,” I was intrigued. At first I thought that our angels in Christianity are the same as the Jewish ones. I remembered that delightful story from the Bible of Balaam and his donkey who could see the angel that Balaam could not see. Then there was that story of the two angels who saved Lot and Abraham. Or that beautiful 91st Psalm where God would command his angels to “guard you in all your ways.”

But then I suddenly remembered that it was an angel who told Joseph in a dream to take Mary and the infant Jesus to Egypt to get away from Herod’s soldiers. I also remembered that it was Angel Gabriel who appeared before Mary and told her that she would bear a son and should name him Jesus. Clearly, angels appear in both the Hebrew scriptures that we call our Old Testament—and in our New Testament as well. Are they the same beings? Or, are there ways they are distinctively different across religious traditions? I can’t wait to find out more about angels.

PADMA KUPPA

Padma also wrote one of the chapters in our book, a story about the tough challenges she faced as she first began reaching out to promote religious diversity. She is active in the Hindu community, writes about her experiences and works with various nonprofit educational groups.

As the non-Abrahamic representative on this panel, I was interested in sharing the concept of angels from the Hindu and other Dharmic traditions. I hope that my sharing will clear some of the common misconceptions about the Hindu tradition, and possibly develop common ground out of our particularities of belief and practices. It is also an opportunity for me to research my own tradition—starting with the translation of the word “angel” into the my mother tongue (Telugu) as well as the language of my scripture (Sanskrit). I am also glad to be part of this program, because in many settings across our country these days interfaith dialogue is construed to be between the Abrahamic faiths. I know that including my bit of Eastern philosophy into our Western understanding of angels will help broaden the focus.

LISA BERMAN

Lisa Berman is an artist, scholar and educator whose presentation will be the centerpiece of our program. Trained at the University of Michigan, Lisa is a sculptor who often has worked in metal and has been involved in a variety of public art installations. In the program, she will talk about angels in relation to her own spiritual and artistic journey. For our story today, Lisa shared these words:

Growing up in a Reform Jewish household during the ‘60’s, there wasn’t too much emphasis placed on angels. I associated them more with religions other than mine. I would see angels represented in museum art or as figurines in stores, however, I didn’t relate to them in a personal way. When I started working with a local sculptor on his public commission for a life-size bronze angel, at first I felt somewhat surprised at my growing connection to it. As “she” began to come to “life” in our hands, I found myself curiously drawn to the mystical and spiritual aspect of what the sculpture was depicting. I knew of a few passages about angels in the Torah (the opening portion of the Bible for Christians) and I decided to research further. Little did I know how much “Angel” would actually affect my own life journey.

NOTE ON THE PHOTOS TODAY: The street sign, above, was set up near an art gallery in New Zealand. The angel, above at right, stands atop a cemetery in Spain.

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

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

Welcome to the Best of Friendship and Faith 2010! As each New Year rolls around, magazines love to sum up their highlights. Of course, we’re proud of every single story in our book! (Psst! Please make a New Year’s Resolution to purchase a copy of that book, via the Amazon link at right, which will help us in our ongoing work.) In addition to the book, we also have published dozens of new stories from women of many different backgrounds in this webpage—and we’re proud of all of them, too!

So, today, we’re not claiming that any of the women in our book—or in this online collection of stories—ranks as “best.” But we are following that time-honored custom of summing up, and celebrating a bit, at the dawn of a New Year. Today, we hope you will enjoy these highlights of our debut year along with us.

Our First Story About Two Little Girls Trapped in a Cultural Bind

A sweet shop in Iran today.Azir Alizadeh is fourth generation Baha’i. She has been an American citizen for many years and is a television personality, hosting a regional talk show about cultural diversity. However, she grew up in Iran and, as a little girl, she experienced Iran’s infamous intolerance of Baha’is. This story by Azir, which opens our book and also opened this website in early 2010, tells the true story of how Azir confronted this intolerance. The story ends with a surprising twist as two little girls figure out a solution to their cultural bind. (The story involves a neighborhood sweetshop the two girls loved to visit, perhaps a bit like the one at right.)

Our First NEW Story, Shared with You Directly on Our Web Page

Jewish writer Judith Goren had the distinction of writing our first “new” story, published directly to our website and expanding our project beyond the collection in our book. Our goal in the next few years is to collect and share many stories about boundary-crossing friendships. (Perhaps you have such a story to share with us?) Like Azir’s story, Judith’s story spans the globe and wrestles with the challenge of overcoming historic wounds.

We Love True Stories from Ordinary Lives (but We Welcome the Famous, Too)

At the heart of our project is the belief that everyone can experience diverse friendships—and eventually everyone can share stories of crossing boundaries. So, our best stories usually involve “ordinary” people—you know, people like us. But we have attracted the interest of some famous women, too. Here’s a story contributed by Mpho Tutu, the daughter of Desmond Tutu. In her story, Mpho talked about an unlikely learning experience she discovered in a new friendship—with … well, read the story to find out that detail.

You’re Not Too Old!
You’re Not Too Young!

We want to hear your story! And we’ve made a commitment to share stories from all ages. Here are simple instructions to help you write and send us your story.

You may think, based on the first three highlights today, that we’re focused mainly on mature women who have had long and successful careers. On the contrary! We’re eager to cooperate with educators and students to encourage fresh stories from high school and college students as well. Our first story from a high school student published in this website came from 17-year-old Lynn Tofil, “Opening Our Eyes to Friends from India.”

Sometimes, We Pause to Say ‘Thank You!’

We’re expressing our thanks today to all the women invovled in this enormous project in 2010. We also expressed thanks during November as we prepared for the American Thanksgiving Day.

Visit Us Each Week for Inspiration—and Great Ideas!

We sometimes devote our weekly stories to sharing a great idea for making new friends. This autumn, for example, we reported on our experience with walking a labyrinth together.

It’s Easy to Navigate Our Online Stories

You’ll find easy-navigation links at the top of each story that will move you step by step through all of the stories we have published so far. Enjoy!

(Originally published in www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

Many of the weekly stories we share on our Friendship And Faith website are new—and we encourage women to send us new stories about cross-cultural friendships. You can learn more about that at the end of today’s story—or you can click on the “How to share your story” link at right.

Sometimes, we share a chapter from our book. For the Christmas holiday, we’re sharing a story written by Elaine Greenberg, an active member of her Jewish community—and also a professional musician, cancer survivor and activist for greater compassion in health care. It may seem odd to hear from a Jewish writer at Christmas, but that’s the kind of daring cross-cultural reflections we encourage. Sometimes our most important experiences with neighbors come in packages we might never expect to unwrap!

HERE IS ELAINE’S STORY:

When I was a young girl, Hanukkah was not a big holiday, and gift-giving was not what it is today, so our family—my uncles, aunts, grandmother—put our names in a container, and everyone picked out one name and that was the person they were to buy a gift for. My Uncle Hy had my name one year and bought the complete score (on 78 records) of Walt Disney’s Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. I still have that album. When my children were small, my family still wasn’t making a big deal about Hanukah, but one year we decided to give the children eight gifts—one for each night of the holiday. I tried to be very clever, and on the last night, each one of our children—ages 4 to 10 (well, maybe not the 4-year-old)—got a key to the house. They thought that was fabulous! How times have changed!

But my favorite story of all is from the earlier years of my life. This goes all the way back to 1944, when I was just about to turn 9 years old and my mother and father finally saved enough money to buy us our very own home. Such excitement! The house was everything my parents could have asked for, with the exception of the outer color of the house, which was dark red, almost brown, and the ceiling in the kitchen, which was a blinding, bright red.

We had a fireplace, although it wasn’t lit too terribly often. To my father’s delight, we even had a screened-in porch that ran the entire width of the house. My father spent many a hot summer night sleeping on that porch and, since there was no such thing as air conditioning, we all spent many summer days and nights on that front porch. In the corner of the kitchen, there was a small shelf about chest-high that served as a telephone shelf. On the white walls surrounding that telephone shelf were a ton of telephone numbers. You see, my father would call Information (no charge in those days) and didn’t have paper readily available, so he wrote the numbers on the kitchen walls. I do believe, when we sold that house, the numbers were still on the walls.

On one side of this house, we had what was called a four-flat where four separate families lived. But on the other side of our house, there was a single-family dwelling that was somewhat smaller than ours. The husband and wife who lived there were Frank and Marie Honel. Unfortunately, our first encounter with the Honels was not a pleasant one. It involved a lamp that had come with our new home—one of those things the previous owners had left behind.

When Mrs. Honel paid us her very first visit, we found out that she and her husband had come from Germany in 1938. When we moved into our home in 1944, the war was still going on in Europe, so here we had a Jewish family and a German family living next door to each other. In itself, this could have caused problems.

But the lamp touched off the conflict. Mrs. Honel came to visit us because she insisted that the previous owners were aware of her affection for this particular lamp—and had promised that it would be given to her in the transition. When the lamp never made it to Mrs. Honel’s house, she apparently decided she would come over and claim it from the home’s new occupants. My mother knew nothing about this supposed arrangement. In fact, she rather liked that lamp. You can imagine the altercation that followed! It ended with our neighbor walking out of our house in a huff, mumbling something about “Jews.” We didn’t speak to them for quite a while. I don’t know how long.

But, eventually, a kind of peace settled in between the two families. When our neighbors emigrated from Germany, they brought with them a household full of furniture. Their house was cozy and comfortable with antiques and all kinds of other interesting stuff they brought with them from their homeland. Among their belongings were beautiful Christmas decorations, including heirloom tree ornaments that they used every year.

Mr. and Mrs. Honel had no children. As I recall it, Mrs. Honel seemed almost reluctant one winter when she surprised me by asking if I would like to trim their Christmas tree with them. Their ornaments were beautiful, and I wanted to help. I had to ask for my parents’ permission, of course. They were Orthodox Jews, but my mother still gave her permission. And we hit it off! From then on, the Honel tree wasn’t trimmed until “their girl”—and that was me—was there to help them.

How well I remember those figures under their tree that depicted the birth of Jesus. Of course, I didn’t know that one day I would visit Israel and, as part of my trip, I would visit Bethlehem and see where Jesus was born. We even exchanged gifts. The Honels got Christmas gifts from us. We got Hanukah gifts from them.

I treasure those memories of sitting in their home, a young girl sharing with this elderly couple. In their wonderful kitchen, I would talk with Mrs. Honel as I helped her bake goodies in an old-fashioned wood-burning stove.

Why do I cherish this memory? Because of the love I felt in that connection with the Honels—and the forgiveness that allowed us finally to cross over all that had separated us and finally share that love.

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

(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)

This time of year, with darkness descending across the Northern Hemisphere, finding the light and warmth of community is a challenge for everyone. This week’s new Friendship and Faith story involves two women: Zen Buddhist monk Geri Larkin in the Pacific Northwest and Jane Knuth, the Midwest author of a new memoir, “Thrift Store Saints.” The two women have never met. They’ve never emailed or spoken. But they share today’s story.

Jane published her story, thanks to Loyola Press, this autumn. At first glance, Jane’s story looks specifically Catholic. Her publisher is a Jesuit ministry. Her book’s subtitle is “Meeting Jesus 25 Cents at a Time” and the cover of her book includes a rosary, a Catholic string of prayer beads with a crucifix at the end.

But, not so fast! Jane’s book is about her decades of work with customers at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store. As it turns out, these stores often open for the day with informal prayer. Throughout each day, they welcome everyone, regardless of their flavor of faith in a spirit of compassionate friendship. We tend to think of “interfaith prayer” as an occasion for a conference, a big public gathering or an educational event. Day after day, though, little corners of America like these thrift stores practice spiritual renewal with whomever walks through the front door.

GERI LARKIN’S STORY:

I go to the north Eugene, Oregon, St. Vincent de Paul store at least once a week. It took me a while to realize that I was partly going for the good cheer that always greeted me. Then I figured out that I was in a church of sorts because every single visit someone, staff and customers alike, was showing me a better way to be kind, or compassionate, or just plain honest. When I read Jane Knuth’s book, “Thrift Store Saints,” I found a soul sister, someone who was seeing what I was seeing, and then some. Jane is her own saint of course—compassionate, energetic, kind and humble. For this holiday season my hope is that the rest of us recognize the Jane Knuths among us, and thank them for their huge hearts and great effort. They keep the world spinning.

JANE KNUTH’S STORY:

I am Catholic and my book does include some basic Catholic teachings, but in my daily life I’m not into theology. I don’t have time for it and, to me, it just seems like a way to get people arguing. We do pray in our store, when we open the doors. Sometimes people who come through the doors get into the circle with us. We’re from all different denominatoins and some of us aren’t Christians. No one is trying to hide their faith here, but we keep our prayers basic so that everyone can share in them.

I remember one woman telling me, “I’ll never forget the first day I walked into your store with a friend and you invited me to hold hands with other people and pray. I so needed a prayer that day!”

One day, a woman came in and she shopped for a while. Then she said, “Aren’t you folks going to pray today?”

I said, “We already did that today—but we can pray again.”

Then, she said, “My cat died today and I didn’t know what else to do. I just felt if I came here today, I could help somebody.” And we prayed together. We helped her; she helped others.

A woman came in on the anniversary of her son’s death. She doesn’t go to church; she just needed to share that experience with someone else.

It’s very powerful to be so open to others. It’s all about being there in the community—being in the neighborhood with your doors open, unlocked. People can come and talk to us. We don’t even have a place to sit; we don’t have a pot of coffee going. What do we have? We share ourselves.

Care to read more about Geri Larkin?

Geri Larkin has been an occasional guest at ReadTheSpirit, most recently in a story about coping with our fears. Or, here is a 2008 story in which Geri talks about her own book, “Plant Seed, Pull Weed.”

Care to read more about Jane Knuth?

Jane Knuth talked with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm about her new memoir, “Thrift Store Saints,” and her work with people in the community surrounding her shop.

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(Originally published at www.FriendshipAndFaith.com)