"God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in their hearts." Koran 13:11

I ran across this quote from the Koran a few weeks ago in something I was reading. It is always good for me to be reminded that the world religions have more in common than most of us claim on a daily basis. It seems it is so much easier to talk about our differences than it is to lift up all the many ways we believe, honor, bless in the similar ways. For some reason, as humans, we need to create an 'other' to be able to more fully define our unique place in the world. This practice has not served us well.

It seems the heart and the many attributes we ascribe to it carries across cultures, across religions, across faith traditions. The idea of 'changing our hearts' is found so often in the Christian scriptures as well as the Hebrew texts of our ancestors. We often speak of someone who has changed their behavior for the better by saying 'they must have had a change of heart.'

Now we know that in reality we cannot literally change our hearts except in the instance of a heart transplant. But we often do have a transformation so deep in us that it seems the core of who we are, our heart, has been changed. This organ that keeps us alive as it beats and courses blood through our bodies, that can be broken, that can seem to ache when we are in or out of love, is both real and metaphor to us.

Last week my eyes caught sight of the bumper of the car in front of me on the freeway. "Loving Kindness is my Religion." I smiled and my heart warmed. I glanced quickly at the woman driving. She seemed calm and serene to me…..it could have been my imagination….and she became a prophet for me. It felt good to know that she was headed out into the world to spread loving kindness, acting on 'her religion'. I prayed she had others in her holy club. I prayed I might become on of them.

As I sat down at a table where I would participate in several meetings, one after the other, I wrote on the tablet of paper in front of me: Loving kindness is my religion.  At different times in the meetings, when conversations were difficult, when decisions needed to be made, I glanced down at the words of my freeway teacher.

I felt my heart change. It was a good feeling. I hope my actions followed closely behind. I pray they continue to do so.