智慧人生篇章 第3期:求同存異

There is a kind of tribalism in us all which can makeus feel uneasy, even threatened at times bydifference. But our prejudices often tell us moreabout ourselves than we would like to admit. Whenthe Quran says "we have made you into nations andtribes so that you may get to know one another," theverse reads like a divine blessing in our lives butgetting to know one another demands hard work,patience and most of all a generous heart.A senseof confidence and conviction in who you are is agood thing but we must always remain open to theelements of surprise and shock in our lives, those events which jolt us out of our complacencyand encourage us to rethink the faith, the identities and values we thought defined us. I wasrecently speaking to a German theologian who told me that his daughter, a church-goingprotestant, was marrying a Hindu and that although he had found the concept of a mixed faithmarriage difficult at the beginning he had accepted it for his daughter's happiness. I found hishonesty moving but also slightly troubling. I thought if faced with a similar situation as aMuslim, how would I react. Perhaps not as generously as him and right now in my life I amwondering why not?

"我們多少都有種部落歸屬感，我們會因為各自的不同而心懷忐忑，有時甚至于戰(zhàn)戰(zhàn)兢兢。我們的成見比我們愿意承認(rèn)的更能體現(xiàn)出真實的自己?！犊商m經(jīng)》中說 “我們將你們?nèi)谌雵一虿柯?，是為了讓你們能互相了解?rdquo; 這句話讀起來像是對我們生命的美好企盼，但要認(rèn)識了解一個人需要付出很多努力，要耐心細(xì)致，胸懷寬廣。對自己的角色定位有信心并堅定不移是件好事，但是對生活中出現(xiàn)的各種出其不意我們要有個寬容的態(tài)度，盡管這些出其不意會讓我們驚慌失措并刺激我們重新思考那些將我們定位的信仰，身份和價值觀。最近，一位德國的神學(xué)家告訴我，他那經(jīng)常上教堂的新教徒女兒要嫁給印度教徒了，他一開始很難接受這件跨宗教的婚姻，但考慮到女兒的終身幸福，他最后還是接受了。我能感受到他的真誠及輕微的煩惱。我想作為一名穆斯林，如果處于相同境地，我會怎么辦?可能不會如他這般寬容，但是在現(xiàn)今這種情況下，我想不出為什么不能這么寬容。