Pluralism Greetings at Grace Seminary

Pluralism Greetings delivered at Grace Seminary Summer Commencement
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Duncanville High School AuditoriumBy Mike Ghouse

Congratulations, as you go out into the real world, you will face a world that is very diverse, completely different than you have been a part of.

God loves us all and through the spiritual masters he has communicated to us, how to have a balance in our life and balance with others.

We have to learn to live with each other with our differences. God has deliberately created diversity and tests us how we fare and how we deal with it. You have your own unique thumb print, your own DNA combination and we have to learn to respect that uniqueness, which is God given and not let that divide us and create chaos. No one is superior or inferior, but just different as God intended. Your role in the society is to become a catalyst for a positive change to maintain social cohesion for peaceful co-existence.Today, I am assigned to share with you the first thing about religious diversity with a common theme. It starts with the greetings. Every society, every tradition and every religion has designed Greetings and it holds three critical components; i) Acknowledgment of the other, ii) Extending a hand of friendship and iii) seek to establish a relationship.

Every greeting seeks to condition each other by using the phrases such as “Namaste” the essence of which invokes the goodness in other to connect with the goodness in me. The Abrahamic faiths actually use the word peace in their greetings; Shalom, Peace and Salaam and all other traditions included similar elements of peace and goodwill. May you be drenched in peace, soaked in peace and talk and act peace; Amen!

I will share a few religious greetings now, you are welcome to repeat after me loudly, quietly or you don’t have to do anything. There are more, but due to the time constraints we will let the nine greetings represent all.

Baha’i faith – Allahabho
Buddhism – Buddha Namo
Christian – Peace to you
Hinduism – Namaste
Islam – Salaam
Jainism – Jai Jinendra
Judaism – Shalom
Sikh – Satsri Akaal
Zoroastrian – Hamazor Hama Asho Bed
Now let’s pray:

Causer of the universe and creator of the cosmos, please accept our gratitude in every name we call upon you; be it Ahura Mazda, Wahe Guru, Ishwar, Buddha, Allah, Yahweh or Jesus Christ.

Guide us to do the right thing every moment of the day.

Guide us to open our hearts and minds to fellow beings.

Guide us to shed the arrogance and bring humility to us

Guide us to learn to respect everywhich way one worships you.

Guide us to become conflict mitigaters

Guide us to become goodwill nurturers

Guide us to say, act and think goodness

Amen.

Mike Ghouse is a speaker on Pluralism and Islam offering pluralistic solutions to the issues of the day, in this case, at least another point of view for us to be fair and human. He is a frequent guest of the Media and his work is encapsulated in 22 Blogs and 3 Websites listed athttp://www.mikeghouse.net/