Yes, I am satisfied, more than satisfied, with where I am in life. Ironically, at the same time, I am increasingly frustrated by the global realities and injustices of the 21st century.
I have been extremely fortunate to have had wonderful parents, a loving family, and a wife who has shared her life, love and advice for some 42 years.
Professionally, as an Italian-American and the member of the first generation in my family to go to college, I have been equally blessed/fortunate.
After studying and teaching Catholic theology and then earning a doctorate in religion, with a major in Islamic studies and a minor in Hinduism and Buddhism, I expected to have a quiet, obscure career in the proverbial ivory tower. Instead world events have given me not only a profession but also a vocation and mission which has enabled me to lead a robust life of scholarship, teaching, and activism.
Having never traveled outside the US until I was 31 years old, during the past few decades I have had the joy of learning and traveling internationally, meeting and working with so many remarkable people in the Muslim world and beyond. I have seen the study of World religions, and in my case Islam as well as interreligious dialogue, which were invisible or marginalized, emerge as major fields and to be a part of that process.
If lack of awareness or interest in Islam meant few positions or publishing opportunities when I completed my doctorate in the early 1970s, the explosion of interest in Islam and the Muslim world, starting in the late 1970s, brought possibilities and projects that I never imagined nor had desired.
The opportunity in 1993 to become founding director of Georgetown's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (recently renamed the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, has provided an opportunity to work with colleagues in the Center, university and globally on issues from the role of religion in international affairs to inter-civilizational and inter-religious dialogue.
This work has become especially critical after the fall of the Soviet Union and post 9/11, with critical implications for foreign as well as domestic affairs.
In a world in which global terrorism and anti-Americanism as well as Islamophobia and anti-Semitism have grown, and in which civil liberties are threatened, building bridges of understanding and mutual respect, briefing political, corporate and religious leaders as well as the general public, directing the Center and a variety of publishing and think tank projects has never been more important and more of a challenge.
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