Letters

ancestor– to the first human pair about whom we read in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis.

How we got to where we are at this point in history is a long story, far too long to tell in a year’s worth of columns. And while that history is important and while it reveals some significant issues with which we must deal, it can never blind us to the fact that we all have a common ancestor, which means that “we are family.”

To me at least, the implications of those three words are staggering-so staggering that I plan to devote the next two or three columns to exploring what this means; and how it can change the way we interact with people whose countries of origin, backgrounds, customs, cultures and core beliefs differ from our own. As part of the same family, we owe it to ourselves and others to treat everyone we meet with the same dignity and respect we expect to receive from them. We will explore this idea further next week.