Years ago I worked with a woman who fasted for one month out of the year. I didn't understand then, why, when our lunch break would come, she would drink a juice or water while I stuffed my face with that days craving. Now I know she was a practicing Muslim keeping Ramadan, the annual month long fast.

Ramadan is August 1 - August 30th. Thirty days of prayer for the Muslim World is a Christian international web based organization that encourages Christians around the world to pray specifically for Muslims to come to know Christ during the 30 day fast. 

Click here to see the 30-days of prayer August 1st prayer guide. 

Nataka is a Muslim woman who I spent a few hours with at her mosque in Cambridge, MA. I stumbled into the Mosque, unannounced and hoping to ask someone there what objections the Muslim faith has to Christianity. At the time, I was taking a class on Islam that helped prepare me for what answers I might hear. I didn't plan for this to happen, but as I was arriving so were a lot of taxis. Taxi drivers got out of their cars and began to greet one another and laugh together as they entered the mosque. I looked at the time and duh; it was time for the noon prayer that day. A little unsure of how I would be treated upon walking up to the main door unannounced and with my frizzy hair flowing down and exposed. It was the Imam who first welcomed me inside. After slipping my shoes off, he directed me to a staircase where a young woman, Nataka, was waiting to greet me.

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Over the weekend I tweeted and updated my facebook status with the simple statement: Muslims killing Christians in Nigeria followed by a simple question: Will we respond like Christ or like humans? It’s always interesting what captures people’s imaginations and provokes response.

After a year of conversations on facebook, I was still amazed at the response the simple status update received. Feel free to check it out here: http://bit.ly/auO0bH

Reflecting on responses, the following points are worth of mentioning:

1) There is no emotion like religious emotion.

Wars over the centuries have demonstrated that religions are frequently front and center in every war. Religious emotion is a product of two things as I see it. First, it is an indicator that people genuinely care. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t get so upset.

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