The suffering in Gaza and the West Bank poses an uncomfortable question for people of faith: do principles of justice, mercy and compassion apply equally when our deepest loyalties are tested?

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith lately and how much of what we learn as children stays with us, even as we grow older, question what we were taught and lose some of the certainty we once had. As a child, I looked up at priests and nuns with something close to awe. There was a power in the rituals of Mass – the smell, the clothing, the prayers, the silence and, for a long time, the Latin I didn’t understand but somehow knew mattered. I believed in limbo, purgatory and hell, and I had that innocent childhood understanding that there was a right and wrong way to behave and that our choices mattered.

As I grew older, something changed. The Latin gave way to English and suddenly I understood what was being said: lessons about kindness, forgiveness and justice, about how we treat others and what we owe those who are suffering. I didn’t know it then, but somewhere in those stories, those ideas were taking root, quietly becoming part of the moral framework through which I would come to understand the world.

I think that’s why, as I have thought about the violence in Gaza and around the world, I have found myself thinking not only about Christianity, but Judaism and Islam as well. I want to be careful here: these are three distinct faiths, with different histories, traditions, beliefs and understandings of divinity, not simply different versions of the same religion.

However, when you step back from those differences and listen to what the Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an ask of human beings, something is difficult for me to ignore. Again and again, the same teachings emerge about justice, forgiveness,........

© Pearls and Irritations