Today was the fourth day we stayed in Baltimore. We had nice weather compared to the first day – there was a snowstorm. Today’s plan was to volunteer at the Maryland Food Bank this morning and visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore. I was very excited to go to the Maryland Food Bank because I will pack food bags for children. As a student majoring in Education and doing student teaching, I can relate to many food struggles children are facing. Due to the remodeling of the Maryland Food Bank, only half of our group had the opportunity to visit the food bank. I’m impressed by how big the storage was and how much food we packed while visiting. While packing hamburger buns in individual bags, a thought popped up in my mind; we are all humans, but we eat different food. I was wondering if I were volunteering in another country, what kind of food I would pack. Then one staff came over to us and brought water for us. My light bulb turned on. Yes! Water! We would eat different food, but we will drink water no matter where you are. This thought still stayed in my mind through the rest of the day.
Around 3pm, we arrived at the Islamic Society of Baltimore. I had never been to an Islamic Mosque. So, I was curious to learn about this religion. I also had some confusion about this community, and I knew today was going to be a good time to have all my questions answered. The hosts were very knowledgeable about Islam and willing to share their personal experience with us. One of the hosts is a seventeen-year-old girl, she shared many of her perspectives on Islam which answered many of my questions about Muslims, such as why Muslim men and women are separated for prayer, why Muslim women wear hijabs and full-body garments, why Muslims have to pray five times a day, etc. After hearing from three hosts, I noticed that we are alike in many ways. For example, we all eat food, we all have struggles in life, we all have faith, we all have times that we doubted our faith, we all value education, we all want everyone to have enough food, etc. If we have to sit down to count all of the similarities we share, we probably have to list it for days. While thinking about it, I started to wonder why people have unequal access to food, education, and jobs if they share so many similarities. What causes these issues?
Even in Beth EI Congregation – a Jewish synagogue where we visited yesterday, and the Pleasant Hope Baptist Church where we visited the first two days, the Cantor and the Pastor also mentioned that all religions share similarities. We do things differently, but we have the same purpose and goals. On the first day we discussed at the Pleasant Hope Baptist Church – what is racism? The core of racism is the difference between people of different race. It seems like we are fighting against people who are different from us, but why can’t we see the similarities we share? We share much more similarities than differences, but we often only see the difference. It stands out easily that our skin color is different, our hair color is different, our eye color is different, and our culture is different. We want to stay in the comfort zone we grew up with, the routine we used to, and the language we spoke. However, have you thought about learning those differences from others also helps us to grow as a human being and assists us to become a better world member. As Pastor Brown from Pleasant Hope Baptist Church suggested, we should turn our ‘criticism’ into ‘wonder’. When we start to wonder about people who are different from us, we will notice that we are different, but we are still alike in many ways.