Typically, when I am teaching, I say to my students, “Leave Jesus, Mohammad, Vishnu, or any other God out of the office”, even though on a personal level, I describe myself as faithful. I honestly don’t think that our systems of belief should be overtly part of social work interventions because of the potential for imposition, leading to harm. My faith, however, is always an implicit aspect of my existence. I do feel the need to explicitly express my faithfulness by practicing Catholicism, which is heavily influenced by my culture, ethnicity, and where I grew up. In saying that, I never believed that we should or even could categorize any religion into right or wrong. The idea that nice people would burn in hell simply for being born into the ‘wrong’ religion, never aligned with how I viewed and continue to view God. To me, faith is a not only a beautiful, but necessary aspect of my life. It has established my moral compass, provided comfort, carried me through the worst, and gives me love profusely even when I am undeserving. Jesus has always been my teacher and a role model that I aim to mimic, and hope to please; however, this is how faith functions for me. And although I am predominantly Christian, Taoism, Buddhism, and the practice of yoga also have significant influences over my faith. I believe in Faith. Faith propels hope. Faith inspires kindness. Faith breathes life. Faith resists temptation. As someone who is faithful, my heart, soul, and spirit shook as if I was struck by an Earthquake after hearing about the past weekend’s terrorist attacks. Time and time again, history has shown that categorizing faith into religious subcategories, can lead to war, greed, abuse of power, and death typically over land disputes. The crusades were not about religion. World War II was not about religion. The Gaza Strip is not about religion. The fighting between different fractions of the Islamic faith are not about religion. This is further evidenced by the fact that Sunni or Shia are all Muslims. The real argument here is about land, power, and money; the same as it has always been. Terrorist attacks, again are not about religion or the preservation of a particular belief system; rather they are attempts at garnering a global presence, power, and control through fear. What type of person can even conceive of a plan to massacre a group of faithful people, while they are praying? This person cannot be someone of faith; no true believer would kill innocents during prayer. The act of praying is sacred, whether those prayers are being heard by a God or not. Buildings that were created for the purposes of prayer are sanctified by love. The earth, within me and below my feet, quaked at hearing that there was a massacre in Egypt because of religion. I cannot categorize any religion as right or wrong, but I can categorize murder, massacre, and mass shootings as wrong. Not only are these acts wrong, they hurt all of us living on this planet, regardless of our religion. I’ve been ruminating on this thought that we should rid ourselves of religious categories and instead live faith without denominations. I thought like John Lennon, “What if there was no religious fractions, and only non-denominational faith?” However, writing this blog has changed my mind. Religious categories are not the culprit; to repeat myself the Sunni and Shia practice the same religion. The culprits are anyone and everyone willing to kill for money and land, while using religion to justify this behavior. My theory has always been that God speaks to us in a language we can understand, which required the creation of many belief systems. There is so much variance between people; one religion simply cannot promote the level of faith that is needed to propel hope, inspire kindness, resist temptation, and breathe life. I felt like everyone who is faithful was attacked over the weekend. The sacred was profaned with the sound of machine guns and screams for help, as floors and walls were painted crimson with the blood. I’m sad. I’m sad for God. I’m sad for Egypt. I’m sad for the faithful. What right have you to murder in a mosque? Who gave anyone the right to murder? No one has that right. Henry David Thoreau wrote in his essay, Civil Disobedience, “The only obligation I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think is right” and “Cost what it may, if I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him although I drown myself.” Cost what it may, the right thing to do is to save someone else, not yourself. This indeed is difficult to fathom, let alone actually carry out; at minimum we should practice the Golden Rule and treat others the way we wanted to be treated. Thoreau also spoke about how a corporation or government can only have a conscience so long as it is filled with conscientious people; then we have a conscientious governing force. What happened to having a conscious? Where did it go and how do we get it back? I have hope that we will find it in our future and that our children will change society for the better. Right now, we need to start preparing youth to fix all of our mistakes through kindness, acceptance, tolerance, and above all love. Right now, is a time for us believers to spread our faith. Right now, we must band together, recognize that what truly divides us is not our differences; rather it’s certain people’s desire to have wealth and power. Let’s name the problem as greed and then attack the problem, not each other. Let us try to believe in faith and show it. Forever Able Inspired Through Hope
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