The Many Names of Truth

You told me that you went to church to be saved

but how can you call that “saving” when you don’t

stand up for the Muslims on the other side of the plane?

Saving yourself, maybe

But your religion calls for so much more than that

Why can you only answer the call when it’s easy?
You call them terrorists

Label an entire faith as a bunch of shoe-bombers

But have you ever actually met one?

I have.

And she had the kindest laugh I’ve ever heard

The warmest smile 

I have never felt more safe than sitting across from her

She is stuck.

She is stuck on the other side of the world because 

this world cannot tell the difference between 

hope and hope

when they have two different faces.

When they speak two different languages.

You preach tolerance but you don’t even know what you’re 

supposed to be tolerant of

You have blinded yourself with barriers of cultures and customs 

You have opened your heart to God but not to the world 

And does that make a difference?

Your daughter asks why her soccer teammate wears that thing 

over her head.

You tell her it’s how she was raised. 

She wants to know if she can get one, too. 

It is not that they are the same.

Your daughter may have what she thinks is right 

and her friend may have that too

but she has the right to know why it is that she wears it

and it is right for her to understand that the similarities are there

and the differences are too

but the differences do not make it wrong

they just make us stronger. 

One time, I read that there were more religions in the world 

than there are leaves on a tree

I should know.

When I was younger I spent all my time in the air 

(it is far safer up there than on the ground)

And the trees spoke to me. 

They told me of days past that I will never see

and of days future that I can only look forward to.

And as for the now?

Now, they shade your daughter and her friend 

the trees will speak to them, too. 

The trees whistle with the wind and paint with the sun

They make music for the entire world to hear.

Without the leaves, there is no whistling

no painting

no music.

Without the trees, there is no symphony.

And a quiet world is no world to live in.