Living with Others in Peace and Harmony

As many of you know I am active in the LDS church. One of my Sunday classes I attend is called Elders Quorum. For many men this is an infamous hour of forced dialogue. Teaching a lesson in Elders Quorum can be challenging. Most men are happy to give short answers, not willing to expound or share too much insight. For that would show spiritual aptitude, which is darn near close to being in touch with one's feelings.

However, last Sunday was actually exciting. The lesson, chapter 29 highlighted examples of how Joseph Smith followed the teachings of the Savior Jesus Christ in being a peacemaker, trying to cultivate harmony and respect with other faiths and people who persecuted him and the general population of the Church.

A question that challenged some people's assumptions, ideologies, and mortal thinking was, what about Muslims? What I came away with was a greater insight about my relationships with people. I cannot allow my negative past experiences or relationships with people belonging to a certain group to take away potential positive experiences or relationships with people belonging to that same group. (I don't have negative experiences with Muslims, but some people in the group did. Therefor, it was difficult for them not to group all Muslims in the same awful group based on their lenses.)

Some thoughts:

• Muslims want everyone else to be Muslim. Guess what? Christians want everyone else to be Christian. Well, and generally each Christian group wants everyone else to be that specific Christan group. People do some pretty insane stuff in the name of Christianity. I'm not a history buff, but what about Holy Wars? Was that really very Christian? So, I think we are more the same than we are different. Do I want to be seen as being the same as those wacky, violent Christians? No!
• It takes a sound and in-depth understanding of who you are and what you stand for to be a peacemaker and respect opposing views, especially when those views seek to harm or destroy you.
• The Atonement can heal pejudice
• Bringing it back home: I cannot allow my negative past experiences or relationships with rednecks to take away potential positive experiences or relationships with people belonging to that same group.