 of the Lord be with you. It's wonderful to welcome everybody to St. Bartholomew's. My name is Andy Loban. I am the rector of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church and on behalf of the Church, the warmest of welcomes to each and every one of you. This is the third year that we have had the opportunity to participate, whether it was in this space or over at the Muslim Community Center in an interfaith iftar, and it's always such a blessing and such a glorious opportunity. I'm not going to stand up here for very long because we have a wonderful panel of speakers. We have Sister Uzma Fatima Hussaini from the Muslim Community Center. We have the Reverend Harriet Hawkins from the Center for Spiritual Living of Livermore Valley, also known as the Lighthouse, which actually meets here in this space on Sunday mornings. And we have Rabbi Lawrence, Larry Milder of Congregation Beth Emek, which meets over in Pleasant Tenants. So we're going to have three voices, and our theme this year is loving across the difference. And the idea really came out of the solidarity gathering that we, I wish we never had to have, but we had in the aftermath of the shootings at the Christchurch Mosque. And we really thought that this year it would be good to speak in terms of, you know, when we are at our most authentic, of course we seek the places of unity, but we also know that there are many places of true difference. And rather than trying to ignore those or erase those, both of which seem to end up erupting into discordant violence, to rather embrace them, shine the light on them, celebrate them, and ultimately love one another, allowing it to be a bit of a mystery how these differences came about and how how they can be resolved over time. And so that's our theme tonight. And I know our speakers are going to do a wonderful job. Just a couple of practical things. Probably the most important practical thing is should you have a need for the restroom. If you either go all the way outside or through the door to the back left from my perspective and then continue through the kitchen and lounge area, there are men's and women's rooms in the small hallway there. The ladies is on the south and the gentleman is on the north. I think that's all you need in terms of the practicality. So I know we have about a little over an hour before iftar, so I'll invite the speakers up. Can everybody hear me okay? Well, I wanted to first start out by saying happy Mother's Day to everybody. How many of you here are mothers or grandmothers or aunties or happy Mother's Day to all of you? Congratulations. We celebrate you today. There's actually a hadith which is a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, which says that paradise lies at the feet of mothers. So it's important for us to remember all of our mothers and grandmothers and aunties and all those who take on those motherly roles at some time or another. And in commemoration of this very special day, I'd like to remind us all about the origins of Mother's Day. This is something that I actually, it's a handout that I have for my class. In the United States, Mother's Day was originally suggested by poet and social activist, Julia Ward Howe. Could you speak directly into the microphone? Oh, I'm sorry. Is that better? Yeah. I'm actually not a public speaker. I wasn't the person that was supposed to be here was double booked. And so I'm filling in for her. So excuse me, I'm just going to try to do my best here. But please do help me with whatever suggestions that you have. So in 1870, after witnessing the carnage of the American Civil War and the start of the Franco-Prussian War, she wrote the original Mother's Day proclamation calling upon the women of the world to unite for peace. This Mother's Day proclamation would plant the seed for what would eventually become a national holiday. After writing a proclamation, Howe had it translated into many languages and spent the next two years of her life distributing it and speaking to women leaders all over the world. In her book, Reminisances, Howe wrote, Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life of which they long bear and know the cost? She devoted much of the next two years to this cause and began holding annual Mother's Day gatherings in Boston, Massachusetts and elsewhere. In 1907, 37 years after the proclamation was written, women's rights activist Anna Jarvis began campaigning for the establishment of a nationally observed Mother's Day holiday. And in 1914, four years after Howe's death, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day as a national holiday. So just to read you a little bit about Julia Ward Howe, her profile, she was a poet, writer, and activist who fought vigilantly for peace, the abolition of slavery and women's rights. And the years leading up to the Civil War, she co-published The Commonwealth, an abolitionist newspaper with her husband Samuel Gridley Howe. In 1860, she penned the battle hymn of the Republic to inspire Union soldiers fighting in the war. The song became a rallying cry for the Union throughout the war and remains her most famous work. The horrors of the war moved her to campaign tirelessly for peace. She served as president of the American branch of the Women's International Peace Association. And in 1870, she wrote her Mother's Day proclamation. Julia Ward Howe was also instrumental in the women's suffrage movement. She was a co-founder of the American Women's Suffrage Association and served as editor of Women's Journal. Her influence on the movement ranks alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cody Stanton as one of the most important voices of the period. In recognition of her tremendous effect on the American culture and history, Julia Ward Howe was the first woman elected to the American Association of Arts and Letters in 1908. A true American pioneer, she remains one of the most influential figures in history of both civil and women's rights movements. So I wanted to read her proclamation, her Mother's Day proclamation, because it's really beautiful. Arise then, women of this day. Arise, all women who have breasts, whether our baptism be of water or of tears. Say firmly, we will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands will not come to us reeking with carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, disarm, disarm. The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil of the summons of war, let women now leave all that they may all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first as women to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress not of Caesar, but of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general Congress of Women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace. So I think it's really important for us to remember the origins of this very special day. But I think at times like this, I feel that we really need the wisdom of poets because they remind us in the deepest sense about our humanity. When Dr. Martin Luther King was killed, Robert Kennedy had the presence of mind, or I should probably say the presence of heart, to quote Escalus, his favorite poet when he said, he who learns must suffer, and even in our sleep pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until and our own despair against our own will comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. And then Kennedy continued, what we need in the United States is not division, what we need in the United States is not hatred, what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but love and wisdom and compassion towards one another. We've seen so many tragic events in these last few years, it has almost become a weekly headline that someone has shot up a school or a synagogue or a church or a mosque or a temple, and those of us who recognize the madness of this have to do our best to restore sanity to the situation. And the best way that we can do that is not by being silent when these things happen, but by speaking out, by coming together, as you have today, even if it's a candlelight vigil, to light that candle in the midst of darkness is an affirmation that we are more than the sum of our worst members, that humans are something extraordinary, and we can't let the small minority of fanatics in any way to represent us as a species, because at essence we are builders, we are not destroyers, we are people that create families, we don't destroy them or break them down. Our species is a species that shows more mercy than it does wrath or cruelty to that fact. Every teacher that spends that extra hour with the pupil in an effort to help that student understand something is a testimony to that fact. I could go on as their countless testimonies to this truth, and this is a truth that we all have to affirm. Our prophet Muhammad is called a mercy to all the world, and the first saying of his that every Muslim student of knowledge learns from him is this. Those who are merciful will be shown mercy by the merciful, meaning God. Have mercy on those in the earth and the merciful in heaven will have mercy on you. The wording of this saying is manfil alb, which means everyone in the earth. There's no distinction between Muslims or people of other faiths, Jews or Gentiles, Protestant or Catholic, atheists or believer, homosexual or heterosexual, everyone should be shown mercy. I'd like to end this with the words of the poet W.H. When the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, he was inspired to write a poem. He wrote this. All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain on the sensual man in the street, of the sensual man in the street, and the lie of authority whose buildings grope the sky. There is no such thing as the state and no one exists alone. Humber allows no choice to the citizen or the police. We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night, our world in stupor lies, yet dotted everywhere, ironic points of light, flash out wherever the just exchange their messages. May I, composed like them, of eros and of dust, beleaguered by the same, negation and despair, show an affirming flame. Thank you all for coming here today and doing so on the very day that honors those who gave birth to us and raised us with compassion, love and mercy, you are showing that affirming flame. May we all continue to fight negation and despair and to show an affirming flame. Thank you very much. Asalaamu alaikum. Greetings to all from congregation Beth Emek which serves the Jewish community of the Tri Valley. Thank you Munir Safi for the invitation to speak to this community during this holy month of Ramadan. Thank you to Father Andy Loban for the way you continually reach across religious lines to bring us together and for the kind hospitality of Saint Bartholomew's and the Muslim Community Center. I recognize that this is a sacred time on the Muslim calendar and that those of you who practiced the faith of Islam are at this very moment engaged in a spiritual discipline that brings deeper meaning to your lives. Jews are familiar with fasting though our practice is different. We have one major fast on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur our fast goes from sundown to sundown, actually a little longer because one must finish the evening meal and get the synagogue before sundown. A lot of Christians wonder about these rituals of fasting. Isn't it difficult to ask? I will say that I believe the discipline required of Muslims goes way beyond the effort that we Jews make that one day of the year. But I don't know about you. I don't find fasting all that difficult and that's because on Yom Kippur we Jews are engaged in prayer for that entire day. It's spiritual immersion. You're going to a different place. Food is like an anchor keeping you from the zone you want to get to, luring you back to your physical self, your sense of I need, I need. When most of the time what is really true is nothing more than I want, I want. Prayer is liberating and food is in so many ways a security blanket we hold on to in order to protect ourselves from a deep confrontation with the self. So that's common ground. Christians have lent. Catholics used to have fish on Fridays. We all understand the intertwining of our spiritual lives with letting go of the physical. Personally I grew up a little naive in my understanding of other faiths. In elementary school Fridays were always the best lunch because that's when they serve fish sticks. I was Jewish. I had no idea that they did that out of religious sensitivity. So we all get this. All of us, all of our religions, we get this idea of letting go. It is meant to ennoble our lives, to set us on the right path, to raise our sights, to envision a world infused with holiness, kindness, forgiveness. And in that sense, we all have a spiritual common ground. Let's acknowledge that truth because without it we can't appreciate the differences. Now I will admit that whenever someone tells me, and it's usually a fellow Jew, that all religions basically teach the same thing, I bristle. In my head I'm thinking you really don't know that much about Judaism and you probably don't know that much about their religion either. What people are usually referring to in this highly reductionist view of religion is ethics. You know, love your neighbor as yourself is a good rule and it is shared by most religions. But Immanuel Kant said the same thing and you don't have to be particularly religious to adopt that point of view. Even if religion were just ethics with some nice colorful rituals mixed in, a principle that I reject, we would still be stuck with the question, do we all really teach the same ethics? Sooner or later, if our religious beliefs are indeed tied to an ethical outlook, an honest comparison is going to reveal differences. For example, shall I turn the other cheek? That might be the Christian thing to do, but I don't think that is the Jewish way. Let alone when we consider politically charged ethical questions, like abortion, questions that are rooted in religious beliefs about life and personhood, any thoughtful student of religion will sooner or later recognize that with regard to ethics, we don't all teach the same thing. Religion, though, isn't just ethics. It is the life of the spirit, something that Ramadan and the Jewish High Holy Days and Christian Holy Week all point toward. And it is in regard to spiritual questions that we reach the more fundamental differences between our faiths. Ironically, I think it is often clergy who have the easiest time accepting religious differences. We are so at home in our own spiritual traditions that encountering another tradition is like visiting someone else's home. Isn't it beautiful, we think? Now, I would never decorate my house that way, but what care and creativity they have exercised. This is how I feel, say, going to the Hindu temple here in Livermore. I marvel at the faith expressed there, even though it is a far removed from Judaism's an iconic approach. You could say, well, we are all really pointing to the same one God, the same Akman Brahmin. And that may be true, but somehow it misses the point of Hinduism. The same way that saying that the Trinity isn't really what's important about God entirely misses the point of Christianity. You want to know Christianity? You've really got to go deep into that Trinity thing, not gloss over it. You want to know Judaism? We are really into that God has no form thing, not invisible, no form beyond nature to say that God is a being, is itself a kind of form. Judaism requires this tremendous leap of faith that the transcendent is real and exists beyond any physical dimension. I was fortunate to go to the Mormon temple in Oakland this week. Some of you went on the field trip. If you are not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you are not allowed into their temples, though you can go to a local chapel, say, here in Livermore. But the temple, the one in Oakland, is holy ground. It represents the way things should be, but only the faithful are permitted to enter. Fortunately, for those of us from other faiths, they've been renovating the temple in Oakland, so it is in a kind of decommissioned spiritual state and visitors are allowed in. Now that renovations are complete, up until the time that they sanctify the temple again. When everything was foreign to me, the architecture of sacred space, the rituals that form the Mormon faith, the belief system which is represented in that space, it strikes me as being as far removed from Judaism as you can get. And yet, you know what? The LDS Church sees itself as intrinsically related to Judaism. It understands itself as a direct outgrowth of Judaism, and represents that understanding in its art and architecture. A person of faith has humility, enough humility to know that the answer to such claims is not, no, you are wrong. They get to own their interpretations. Okay, so that comes to question. Aren't there then any boundaries? How do we uphold the integrity of our own? Yes, there is a line, and that is respect for the right of the religious community to define itself. If someone tells me that Judaism requires being a Christian, I would maintain that they have not understood Judaism, and that it is not their place to tell me what a Jew must believe. To be any less than honest about this is to not be willing to stand up for one's own faith. Part of being Jewish is learning to accept being a minority faith, learning to hear the truth as others see it, and still be proud of who we are and what we believe. My faith is richer because of my encounter with other traditions. Indeed, sometimes that encounter affects what I believe. I remain open to that. A deeply spiritual life has some fluidity to it. It is not rigid. At the same time, it values integrity, a willingness to stake oneself spiritually. Seeing Judaism as simply a flavor of some universal truth deprives it of its authenticity. It reduces my particularism to a subordinate position beneath universal values. My particularism, however, is not secondary to being human. It is the way I am human, and therefore has ultimate value. Just as I seek to find the beautiful and meaningful in other faiths, I believe that appreciating one another's traditions means recognizing that they too have absolute value. We don't all believe the same thing, and the world is a richer place because of that. I feel a little nervous after those two amazing talks. Thank you so much. Wasn't that inspiring? Thank you. Thank you, Maneer, for inviting me. Thank you, Reverend Andy. You're so welcoming. I'm so honored to be here. I was contemplating the theme, loving across the differences, and I think many of our favorite Sufi poet, Rumi, one of a quote from one of his poems came to me, out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field, and I will meet you there. It seems to me when we start with the field, we are in a place of love that is all inclusive. I hope you indulge me. I'm going to share a little bit of my own journey because it has been a journey of loving across the differences. I was raised in a liberal Protestant Christian church, United Church of Christ. My parents were atheists and agnostic. They wanted me to go, and my three older brothers, to go to a church to introduce us to Judeo-Christian values, but then they wanted us to think and feel for ourselves, so I went there until I was sixth grade every week. I also went to a Jewish Montessori school for two years from nursery school and for kindergarten, where we had Shabbat every Friday. We learned a little Hebrew and holidays, and I loved it. My brothers did not care for church. I loved church, and I loved the Judaism. I was learning my best friend was Jewish, so I asked my parents when I was in third grade if I could be both Jewish and Christian because I didn't see any conflict because what I was hearing it from the child perspective was there about love, and that's what I loved about church. I came from a very academic family, and emotional life was not talked about very much, so I was so grateful to be at church to hear about love and to be able to talk about love and express love. It went to my heart, and one Christmas morning or Christmas season, I was in the living room and I was singing Christmas carols and I was imagining baby Jesus, and I started to feel my smallness next to my three older brothers who seemed very big and brave and strong. I felt very small and weak and not very important, and I just finally just stopped my dancing and realized how small I felt. But in that moment, I remembered those lessons I learned that we're always loved, that this divine presence, this infinite love intelligence of the universe always, always loves without condition. It does not matter who we are, and in that moment I got it, I knew, and in that moment it was focused on this idea of baby Jesus, and I focused my attention of just so much gratitude for this love, and as I did that, there became this extraordinary light and in the mystics call it uncreated light. It's not electrical light, it's not light from the moon or the stars, it is of another dimension, and this light just grew and grew and it came and it immersed me in this extraordinary, vast, unconditional love beyond anything we can ever describe humanly. It was transcendent as a little one who had three older brothers, like so many younger siblings. I adored and worshiped my brothers, I loved my parents, and yet I remember so clearly while I was in this state of love how small my human love is and was that it was nothing compared to this God love. And my life was changed forever from that moment because that was something that I could not find in this world, I could not exist, but I knew as my mentor teacher said it was more real than the chair on which I was sitting. There wasn't a question of is this a hallucination? Is it a dream? When we know that we know that we know, I had come in direct contact with this infinite love and there were no walls, there were no borders. As one teacher said, as his definition of spirituality is, is that it's when our hearts are open to infinity and there are no boundaries, there are no limits, there's no place where we constrict because God's love has no boundaries, it has no limits, it just simply is in through and as all time and space, including all life and yet transcends all of it. The challenge of this experience was that I wanted more of it. I hungered and thirsted to have more of it and I couldn't find it so often when I would go and I tried different Christian churches because I was trying to find this experience again and so much of it was based around Bible study and I just, it wasn't it. I'm just like no, this is too small, it's not, it's not it. So the one thing I grasped on to was when Jesus said, worship me in spirit and I decided that was the way to go because form was not doing it for me so I had this constant conversation and less with Jesus, just more with God. I just had this running conversation with the divine presence and I explored. When I went off to college, I started learning, taking classes on the world's religions and I love learning all these different perspectives and ways of understanding this divine love intelligence of the universe and trying to fit myself. I remember just lying in my bed and trying to see what it would be like to see the divine from this religious perspective and see, it's expanding. And then several years later, this is after I was in college, I had a vision dream and this divine voice in which I've been talking with most of my life in which I trusted with my entire being. It presented me with two teachers in front of me and it said something that was very important to me, it said, you can trust them. The teacher in front of me was Paramahansa Yogananda, who is a Hindu teacher who came over from India in the early 1900s and behind him was Juna Suzuki, who was a Zen teacher who came over to the United States in the 19, well he came over in 1959 but in the 1960s he landed in Haight Ashbury. Wonderful time for a Buddhist to land in Haight Ashbury. I wanted to know who these teachers were, this presence that I trusted with my whole being so I could trust them. So I read autobiography of a yogi, which was Paramahansa Yogananda's primary way of expressing in the world. Many people have read his book and then I started taking his lessons and there, I don't know if anyone has been, there's a lakeshine temple in Pacific Palisades in the LA area. If you ever go it's beautiful, it's a lake and around the lake there's statues to all the world's religions. There's even a place with Gandhi's ashes there and this was the temple that one of the temples that Yogananda created built and so I would go to the meditations there. There was two or three hour meditations Friday and Sunday night but as I went something started to bother me. When I noticed he was inviting me from the other side of the veil but just this energy of teaching to love him, to learn more of what he was teaching by loving him and what I recognized is I felt like I was betraying my roots, that I was turning my back or there was a there was a competition between Paramahansa Yogananda and Jesus and intellectually it was one thing. I love studying the world's religions but my heart to give my heart to something else was really hard and so I prayed about it and talked about it and just trying to understand it and as I continued this this revelation unfolded which is that is just a human idea. We have all these ideas of separation of otherness but in the divine that does not exist. Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Krishna, Buddha they are all serving the same energy in the same source. There's only one power. There are not multiple powers there's only one and it is infinite and it transcends all creation and so we arise when we find the truth of that being within ourselves the Allah that we experience that you experience the Yahweh or that which has no name God the ground of all being the way it is the same those all concepts those are all forms but spirit itself is beyond all form it is beyond all concepts and that's the place where we start that's the place of our home is to discover this infinite love intelligence the way I look at it itself is like a wheel there's the hub of the wheel and this one is the source is the source of all creation and the all the different spokes or the different religions and races and cultures and sexual orientations and and we all know even within our own faiths there's so much diversity I believe there's as many paths to this hub to the knowing the oneness within us as there are people just as there we each have our own unique thumb print seven billion people we each have our own thumb print we each have our own own soul print and our journey is discovering that we discover it within our religious faiths within our cultures within our families those are all paths to find that oneness what I noted about my teachers Yogananda and Shinra Suzuki is when Yogananda came over he was not interested in teaching Hinduism what he was interested in was teaching people how to know the divine presence to have direct contact he used techniques that he learned from his hindu tradition and it came through but that was not his purpose was to convert people to hinduism his intention was for people to experience the divine presence within them he called itself big self not galaxies upon galaxies billions and billions of stars and here's what's extraordinary what I think spirit is so evidently revealing to all of us is that it absolutely delights in diversity if we look at nature itself how diverse is this extraordinary planet and the galaxies and the stars it is constantly creating when I see I follow planet nation or earth focus on social media because I love seeing all the diversity of this earth and how beautiful it is there's there's there's the desert there's the tropical forest the the arctic and we don't say one should be the other one is made the other one wrong we don't see an extraordinary bird that I've never seen before and go well that's not a pigeon so that's not a real bird we delight in the diversity we laugh we enjoy uniqueness and I my experience is most people enjoy the diversity in every area except in humanity so I was thinking about what is that in the diversity of humanity that makes us uncomfortable I don't really know but I'm speculating I think perhaps one of the things we might fear is if I believe this and you believe something different that makes me wrong and that makes that's threatening to me that's uncomfortable and so because I'm so uncomfortable with feeling like I'm being made wrong I'm going to force you to try to believe what I believe to make me right and that's where so much I believe the conflict can come from that conflict happens when we're talking looking at the hub with the spokes the more identified we are with the spoke then the hub then the thing itself and the divine presence within us the greater the conflict but if we put it in the right order to love the Lord our God with all our whole our whole heart body mind and soul to seek the field out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing to seek first the kingdom of God and all things shall be added when we start with first things first with the divine presence that is within through and as all life when we are connecting to that spiritual essence that brings all of us alive when we know that we know that is what we are made in the image and likeness of including the divine mother the mother father God when we recognize and feel that we effortlessly join with spirit to delight in all the diversity it does stops becoming a threat because we know that we're one and absolutely unique it's the idea that we're separate and there's no oneness that scares us but when we know that we're one when we feel that connection and pure unlimited love then we know that you are me and I am you that there is no separation that there is no other there's nothing else happening in this room right now but this infinite unconditional love every one of us is an extraordinary unique expression of that unique love of that one love everyone has a way to express the only challenge is when we try to hurt other people or limit other people's expressions but as we allow everyone to fully express mystics are known to be quite strange because what they find is the closer we get to that spiritual presence we actually become more unique we don't become more similar we actually show up in completely radical ways I don't know if you know mystics in your traditions but they are unusual people oneness is not saying this oneness is inherent uniqueness but oneness always is where we begin I believe that this love intelligence this transcendent state is right here and right now it is always already there's no more love in the past than there is right now there's no more love in the future than there is right now all that the divine presence it is worthless it is deathless it is always already it is fully holy completely itself and it is alive and awake as we recognize it in this room right here and right now as we recognize this field that's out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing that field is where we are meeting and I'm so grateful to have met you there blessings I believe what we just heard was the perfect object lesson in tonight's theme because we heard three gloriously different speakers with three gloriously different messages and yet a spirit of oneness and love pervaded everything we just heard so thank you three very much now is the time before we have iftar and begin the meal for you two participate so if there are questions that you wish to ask of an individual speaker or perhaps something that you would like the whole panel to weigh in on please go right ahead the mics are wired so I think I might ask you to shout out your question then I'll repeat it on the microphone so it was about the last two messages whether they were sort of the unified whole or on a continuum with each other or in you said at odds in dialogue with each other so maybe Reverend Hawkins and Rabbi Milder would like to address that the way I look at it I have a teacher who says that spirit is infinite and it's infinite perspectives and that we are closer to spirit when we can take all those different perspectives so I think Rabbi Larry and I were approaching a topic from different perspectives and they're both absolutely valuable and essential to all of us and it's not about either or it's about both end and maybe have the heart to open ourselves to all of it the question is whether circumstances in today's world are stopping us from entering this field where we love each other and accept each other as it is that's a good question I actually think the opposite is true I think oftentimes I mean just from what we saw recently what happened in New Zealand I mean there was just so much the reaction was so beautiful all these New Zealanders going to mosques and a lot of the women wearing hijabs or scars in unity with the with the Muslim women I think when when we see people who try to bring disunity and disharmony a lot of times the response is just so beautiful it's it's more overwhelming than those people that try to diminish from it and it's just a real affirmation of our humanity and our belief and in love and compassion and mercy that I think all of the world's religions share I'm not sure if that answers your question