“Bismillah Ar Rahman, Ar Rahim” – In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful” – over and over again.

Marvin was always respectful of my mother’s belief, but not above occasionally poking gentle fun at it. This time, however, he closed his eyes, settled deeper into the car seat, and took comfort in the ocean-calm of Muslim prayer.

When Marvin’s Jewish friends visited him in the hospital and whispered prayers in Hebrew, Marvin thanked them. When his Christian friends came by and said they would pray for him, he seemed grateful. And when a Hindu sent food that had been blessed in a ceremony, he ate it carefully, reverently.

Marvin recovered, and is back to reading several newspapers a day and offering his opinion on politics to anyone who will listen. The prayers didn’t make Marvin a believer – that wasn’t the point. But they did bring a community of diverse people together and allowed them to express from the depth of their souls how they felt about one man.

Nobody questioned the validity of another person’s prayer. Nobody rolled their eyes at how someone else offered comfort or where they found refuge. We recognized the purity of each other’s intention, and allowed each person the freedom to express the universal hope for healing in his or her own particular language of prayer.

Thinking back on this incident, I am reminded of a story from the work of the Muslim poet Rumi:

Moses passes a shepherd offering prayers to God. The shepherd says he wants to mend God’s shoes, wash His clothes, comb His hair.

Moses is aghast. He lashes out at the shepherd, calling him an infidel, bellowing that God is not in need of such prayer. The shepherd felt humiliated. He begged forgiveness and slunk away.

God sent a revelation to Moses: “You have parted my servant from me,” God said. “Did you come to unite, or did you come to sever?”

God continued:

“To each I have given a way of acting
To each a way of speaking …
Among Hindus the idiom of Hind is right;
Among Sindhis the idiom of Sindh is right.

I look not to tongue and speech,
Rather to the inward state.
I look into the heart, whether it is humble …”