gapingvoid.com

"We don't have enough ways to care for each other:  that's the moment we're living in.  We need love to solve the problem of education, and I don't know how we're going to solve the health care problem without love." 

Anna Deavere Smith, NYU Law & Tisch School of the Arts about the PBS Documentary,The Mystery of Love from The Countless Varieties of a Single Emotion:  Love in today's New York Times.

One of the stories to be told in this documentary (to air on PBS in mid-December)  is the friendship between Azim Khamisa, a Muslim father whose 20-year-old son Tariq was murdered by 14-year-old gang member Tony Hicks. You can find that story (summarized below) on the PBS website here.

As a Sufi Muslim, he believed that doing good deeds and being compassionate create “spiritual currency” and this can be transferred to departed souls. So he decided that for the sake of his son, he needed to find a way to overcome his sorrow.

Azim came to realize that there were “victims at both ends of the gun.” So, in his heart, he forgave his son’s murderer and connected with the murder’s grandfather, Ples Felix. In the atmosphere of understanding and forgiveness, they decided to work together to educate young people about the terrible effects of violence. In this process, they have become as close as brothers.

Out of tragedy has developed a loving friendship. These men embody the Hindu proverb, “I met 100 men on the road to Dehli, and they were all my brothers