Having twelve parents in a town of 600 was erratic and eye-opening. My six parents in childhood were products of divorce and remarriage, the six foster parents in adolescence the consequence of unsuccessful remarriages. While dialogues of dysfunction usually accompany this kind of tale, mine was one of fluid counterbalance. The various homes that welcomed me, often last-minute with my sleeping bag in hand, revealed to me a supple sense of diversity. The one constant in [my Midwestern town], however, was ignorance of the outside—geographically, politically, and religiously. The homogeneous farming community—and [my state] generally afforded little opportunity to explore or appreciate uniqueness. I suppose this “small town mentality” is best exemplified by the evening in spring 2003 when American bombs ignited Baghdad. The dormitory dining hall’s eyes gaped at the television, while the hall’s ears heard rapid whispers equating ‘terrorists’ with ‘Saddam’ and ‘Muslims’ with ‘Osama’. Knowing my military stepmother was headed to the center of the conflict, I ignored the broadcast with defiant ignorance. As the bombs flattened, so did my budding global perspective; simply put, not knowing the details of the struggle seemed better than trying to understand a multifaceted conflict.
I studied in Oslo later that year, still trying to overlook the Middle Eastern and Islamic world. Ironically, my best friends in Norway were Moroccan, Israeli, and French-Afghani. I also taught at the Oslo International School, with the student populace representing over 40 countries. My companions and students abroad, who ultimately became my teachers, were touchstones of a world that I had embarrassingly dismissed, avoided, and even rejected.
Long fascinated by literature and religious studies, I began to grasp religious scholar Karen Armstrong’s idea that “Theology and literature both teach one to connect the like with the unlike and to see