Running Thread: “Curiosity May Have Killed The Cat…But You’ll Be Fine.”

“Curiosity may have killed the cat,” our colleague Tina Grace wrote this week, “but you’ll be fine.”

Tina knows what they’re talking about. As coordinator of one of Interfaith America’s most innovative programs, Bridging the Gap, Tina brings college students of different worldviews together for an activity that seems increasingly rare these days: they listen to one another.

A few days before Thanksgiving we asked Tina and others at Interfaith America to share some tips to help people get through hard conversations at holiday meals. The cat comment above was one of our favorites, and it’s a reminder that we can show curiosity about people, even when we don’t agree. You can read Tina’s advice and more in Interfaith America Magazine’s Top 10 Ideas to Keep the Peace at Your Thanksgiving Table. The advice is good year-round, from workplace lunches to Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah dinners.

Speaking of curiosity, we encourage you to tune in to this week’s episode of  “Interfaith America with Eboo Patel.” Eboo speaks with Shirley V. Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. She’s an advocate for 500,000 students on 188 campuses in the United States and beyond, and she’s also a champion of interfaith engagement. If you’ve never heard an evangelical Christian and a Muslim have a beautiful conversation about what they value and can build together, take time to listen, review and share.

Interfaith America has built deep ties with colleges and universities, secular and religious, public and private. This week, our magazine featured an interview with Frank Sanchez, former president of Rhode Island College and Interfaith America senior fellow, about why religion should be added to the DEI conversation at public universities.

And be sure to set aside time to read the moving essay Dispatch from the Road: The Power of Pilgrimage by Rev. Joseph Morrow, an Interfaith America Sacred Journey fellow. Morrow writes that “a fire shook in my bones” as he walked in the footsteps of formerly enslaved Africans in the South during two pilgrimages last summer.

P.S. Thanks to the generosity of our many partners, Interfaith America supports interfaith leaders working in communities around the country. In honor of Interfaith America’s 20th year and in this season of giving, consider making a gift to support our work across the nation.