I took this photo of a brazier outside a Middle Eastern restaurant in East Dearborn, Michigan after sunset on Thursday, October 11. Inside, families were celebrating the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, a high holiday in the Islamic religion. When I'd had my dinner at a restaurant down the street at 6:30 p.m., I was practically the only customer there. But at 7:05 p.m., seven minutes before sunset, people started streaming in. After fasting from sun-up to sun-down for a month, can you imagine how delicious that meal would taste?
May the flames of love burn away all that divides us. From those ashes may a new world arise, a world where we recognize and celebrate our oneness as sisters and brothers who share one home, planet Earth. May war become obsolete and peace be all our children's children will ever know. May each of us help to make it so.