Source/Credit: The Gainesville Sun
By C. Naseer Ahmad, Oakton, VA | September 13, 2010
Speakers as well as participants of the 6th Annual Unity Walk, in Washington, uniformly condemned the ugly drama that recently unfolded in America. Today, the only faith that mattered was in the decency that is deeply entrenched in the American character. Yes, there were people who might have different ways of praying but it did not matter. And, Maureen Fiedler – Host of Interfaith Voices radio program – bound everyone together.
Sitting besides me on the floor of Washington’s Sikh Temple were fellow members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Love flowed endlessly from Sikh men, women and children stooped to pour delicious food in our plates. While the plates and spoons were made of plastic, their smiles were real. The eyes of each Sikh reflected a sincere desire to welcome and serve.
Today, Muslims prayed at the National Sikh Temple and both Christians and Jews spoke at Washington Islamic Center. E pluribus unum; out of many we walked as one along the different houses of worship on Washington’s beautiful embassy row.
Some of us even stopped for a few minutes in the Khalil Gibran Memorial Park to ponder over the meaning of today. There etched in stone were some beautiful words, “I love you my brother whoever you are whether your worship in your church, kneel in your temple or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, fingers of the loving hand of One Supreme Being, a hand extended to all”.
Walking back to my car parked near Mt. Zion Cemetery, I passed by some graves. I learned that Female Union Band Society, whose members pledged to take care of one another in sickness and in death. purchased the land for this cemetery. As I continued to walk in Georgetown, past experiences came into focus and reminded me that the real beauty in America was not in the fashionable Georgetown residences but in the character of the people. My faith became stronger in the belief that bigotry cannot besmirch Gainsville nor America.
I remembered the day almost a quarter century ago in Gainsville when my life was about to turn upside down. On that day, I found Becky, my sister’s best friend in America sitting in the lobby of University of Florida’s Shands Hospital. She had her bible in her hand and was praying fervently for my sister. But, fate had decidedly differently and the spinal cord operation failed leaving my sister paraplegic for the remaining twenty years of her life. It also left me drained of all my savings, putting my family in peril.
The angel of mercy to show up in my family’s life was a nurse at the Shands Hospital who opened the doors of her house. I had never met her before nor was I to see her later. But, in those days, she let me make long distance calls, provide food for my family as I traveled from the Kennedy Space Center to Gainsville for weeks.
And, the other angels from heaven were my co-workers who helped me cope with this terrible tragedy and even tried to raise funds.
As I tried to remember the faces of the volunteers at the National Sikh Temple, I could only see the face of that kind nurse at Shands Hospital and my co-workers at the Kennedy Space Center. These are the people who make America the beautiful!
C. Naseer Ahmad,
Oakton, VA
Read original post here: C. Naseer Ahmad: Bigotry cannot besmirch Gainsville’s goodness
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