Jordanians + Americans = Friends

Last week Ron and I got the chance to participate in a unique leadership experience. It all got started a few months ago when a couple of friends got talking about how to change the world. They realized that each stereotype, label, or assumption that we have about people who are across the globe from us is an individual brick in a wall of separation that sometimes feels like it reaches to the sky. The only way to start to chip away at this wall that divides and segregates us is to remove stereotypes, one by one, through friendship and open dialogue. As soon as enough bricks are extracted, the wall will collapse under the weight of its own burden, creating free and open space. With this in mind, they formulated a plan:

Get together young leaders from the Middle East and from the US and stick them together for a week. Then, see what happens.

I'm honored to say that Ron and I were invited to be a part of this, as that plan became a reality last week. Ten Jordanian students of college age (18-24, although we had one 16-year-old!) and six Americans of the same range got together in Phoenix and spent a week laughing together, creating friendships, and breaking down lifelong religious, cultural, and political stereotypes that are so often destructive to the chances of peace in the world.

We rolled our eyes together about the glittering images of Hollywood, shared pain over 9/11 and the status of Palestinian refugees, and gained an exponentially greater understanding of the humanity of the people in that part of the world. We learned how very much common ground we share as Muslims and Christians, and how similar our faiths and holy books really are. “They” are really not so different than us at all, and they, their religion and their culture is nothing to fear.

We lament over the extremism in both of our camps: they over Osama bin Laden who would take the world for Muhammed, us over our fundamentalist leaders who try to take the world over for Jesus, both doing so at the expense of the true meaning of their religions’ messages. We then reflected how this actually isn't a very good reflection of the goals of Muhammed and Jesus in the first place, and how we can reject these agendas while still being respectful of each other's faith traditions.

Overall, I think, we spent the week understanding the world as a collection not of "those" people, or "that" group, but as a collection of human souls, each with its own unfolding faith, each with a sense of insecurity of the outside world, and each with a longing to know that there are others of the same.

Teaching my dear, sweet friend Rawan our custom of blowing dandelion fluff in the wind to make a wish come true.