Christmas is about harmony

Ugh! The world is in such a mess! The Korean Peninsula is under threat of a resumption of an old war. It doesn’t seem like Obama can pull US troops out of Afghanistan according to his promised schedule. Terrorist bombers are very busy in many parts of Pakistan and lately, even in Sweden, which is about as close as terrorism has gotten to Santa Claus’ North Pole.

Here in these sunny seven thousand islands reputed to be inhabited by some of the world’s happiest people, the headlines aren’t that much hopeful. A good part of our population still lives in hunger and poverty. There is a Christmas truce with the local communists but in Northern Samar, NPA cadres ambushed and killed 10 soldiers and a nine-year old boy anyway. We are supposed to resume peace talks with the secessionist Muslims but it seems, only after their Malaysian nannies say so.

Our judicial system is about to declare corruption and plunder half legal… after the High Court ruled plagiarism is alright and the Hong Kong government so unhappy about our actions on the Luneta carnage they are conducting their own probe. Weirdly enough, our government is happy other governments have revised their warnings about terrorism in the Philippines to one about runaway criminality in the streets.

But it seems our world had always been like this… even during the first Christmas. At that time when our Savior was born, the Holy Land was far from peaceful. They were under occupation by the Romans and at least one minor King was grabbing babies and cutting their heads off but only after he beheaded the prophet who paved the way for Jesus.

The Jews were praying that the promised Savior would come and liberate them from their sorrows. Funny thing with the Jews is that the Savior did come on that Christmas evening … but they refused to believe the Divine promise had been fulfilled… and they went on to crucify Him years later!

The angels were reported to have sung Peace on Earth and Goodwill to men on that Christmas night. But that message of Peace was drowned out by human egotism, greed and disbelief… sadly up to this day. No wonder peace remains illusive in the Holy Land or anywhere else in the civilized world more than two thousand years after.

Worse, we are now all living with more fear in our hearts than we have ever known in recent memory. Our bodies are searched, X-rayed and pawed to the point of personal violation just to ensure the safety of our travels. Religious differences have become lethal in many places leading some to wonder what kind of gods inspires such venom among their brethren.

I get the feeling the fault isn’t with the gods… the fault lies with men. And until we open our minds to the singular message of peace and harmony that the Bible and the Koran teaches, we not only misrepresent our God and Allah but we will continue suffering the bitter fruits that hatred brings. It need not be this way.

The other day, I read an article in the Washington Post about how Muslim students are now a fast growing segment of the student body of American Catholic colleges and universities. Last year, the Post reported, Catholic colleges had an even higher percentage of Muslim students than the average four-year institution in the United States, according to the Higher Education Research Institute.

“Muslim students say they enroll at Catholic schools for many of the same reasons as their classmates: attractive campuses, appealing professors and academic programs that fit their interests. But there is also a spiritual attraction to the values that overlap the two faiths.”

The Post quotes Reef al- Shabnan, a political science major who often covers her head with a pale beige scarf why she enrolled in a Catholic university: “Because it is an overtly religious place, it’s not strange or weird to care about your religion here, to pray and make God a priority. They have the same values we do.”

Indeed, religious Muslims most probably will be more comfortable in Catholic educational institutions than in secular American universities. As the Post observed, Catholic University echoes “Islam’s conservative culture, the school separates men and women in its dorms and imposes visiting hours. The university prohibits sex before marriage. Daily prayer and periodic fasting are common concepts.”

Apparently, the Post reports, Muslims find it less threatening to be immersed in surroundings where “almost every classroom is adorned with a crucifix. Statues of the Virgin Mary and Holy Child dot the campus. Professors often open their classes with an appeal to Jesus. Courses in theology are an undergraduate requirement.” Shabnan recalled to the Post that she found herself buying her first Bible, for a required Old Testament class.

Some Catholic institutions now provide prayer rooms for their growing number of Muslim students. But in those that don’t, Muslim students find empty classrooms where they can kneel, face Mecca and bow before God five times a day. Others do their prayers at chapels with all the Catholic religious icons, the Post reports.

An Iranian, Ali Basiri, an electrical engineering student, told the Post that several times a week, he makes his way past the marble statue of the Virgin Mary at the Caldwell chapel entrance and listens in the pews to Islamic prayers on his MP3 player. “I feel there is something powerful here because people are thinking about God all the time and not just about their own life or studies,” Basiri said.

Basiri said he has forged new ways to connect spiritually at Catholic University in Washington DC. He has struck up friendships with equally fervent Catholic believers. “We do this thing where he teaches me his prayers in Arabic, and I share with him the prayers I say as a Catholic,” one of his friends, Kenny White, 20, told the Post. White, a sophomore from Annapolis said “I’ve learned about God by learning about him and his own faith. It’s been a really important and beautiful part of being here.”

That shouldn’t seem too strange. When I posted the Post article on Facebook, my friend Joe Alejandrino commented: “Christians and Muslims can trace their heritage back to the same father, Abraham, who was a Jew. The father of Christianity, Jesus Christ, was a Jew. We were all created by the same God. There is no reason why we can´t all live together in peace and harmony. Intolerance, prejudices, misunderstanding - these are the result of ignorance. It is Man who has subverted God´s teachings.”

Still another Facebook friend commented: “You don’t have to go far Boo, check out the Notre Dame schools in Mindanao... Muslim students thrive in these Catholic schools...”

And so the Post reports that at Jesuit run Georgetown University, they now have a prayer room, student association and an entire center devoted to Muslim-Christian understanding. The school has also hired a full-time Muslim chaplain in 1999.

At Catholic University, its president told the Post he thinks “there’s a lot of benefits to having students of other faiths here. They bring the grace of many of their own religious traditions.”

Muslim students there say they have benefited as well. Basiri said his Islamic faith has grown and matured in the past four years while studying in buildings named after Catholic leaders, in classrooms adorned with crucifixes, and with classmates often named after saints. “The face of my prophet and my God has changed,” he said. “It is even more beautiful now.”

That my friends, is the message of hope I found this Christmas. Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims may want to slit each other’s throats in the name of their God and Allah. But there are enough believers in all religions who, like Basiri, feel that in the purity of each other’s beliefs lies the message that we can all live in harmony… that peace is possible among all of God’s or Allah’s children in this world… if not now… hopefully soon.

Merry Christmas to all of our readers and friends. May peace and happiness be within our reach in our lifetime.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]