Dear Mr. Deprado,

Remember when Noah Zilverberg told you he couldn’t come to class the next day because it was Yom Kippur, that he was Jewish and that it was the holiest of Holy Days. I remember Kevin Brewer’s little laugh to the side and the glance back to his friends, the faded swastika etched on his skateboard beneath his desk. I remember that you told him, "of course," and that he understood, but we all thought it was unfair because Noah got Christmas off, too even though he wasn’t a Christian. Fair is fair after all. But you might not have known that I was Jewish too, and I had just assumed that the High Holidays were days off, but I guess Mill Valley, California is a little bit different than P.S.6 in Manhattan where I came from. It seemed to me that everyone in New York was Jewish, and it was just normal for us to honor Jewish Holidays as well as all of the others. In eighth grade, we were just learning about ways to distract the teacher from actually teaching a lesson so we could goof around, but we saw this as a truly golden opportunity to delay an actual lesson, so we started to ask questions about God.

I had never truly understood why my Christian friends believed that a Jewish carpenter, and "not such a good one" according to my Bubby, was perceived as the Son of God. But I did know that I liked the idea of presents under the tree, and candy canes, and Santa Claus. I really liked Christmas TV specials, especially Charlie Brown and Rudolph. I liked going to church with my friends probably more than I liked going to temple. Temple was full of old men who looked like they had been there since Year One, bent over, long beards overflowing the seat-backs, a lot of robes, chains, candles dripping, big books, a lot of them with extra skin dangling from their faces, and always a low, somber humming, a dire song of patience, endurance and utmost faith. Church though...at church there were whole families and children singing loudly, women with their hair tied up really high, squeezing themselves into outfits they should have stopped wearing fifteen years earlier, make-up in layers upon layers on their faces, their husbands swaying back and forth, staring at the floor or listening to the game through earplugs. There was way more for a kid to be entertained by at church, so I preferred it when my friends would take me to church with them.

Yet, even in my laughter, whether at Temple or at Church, part of me always noticed, even in the smallest way, the way that everyone seemed different when they were looking toward God.

The questions in class started out broad, but gradually became more precise:

"Are all religions the same?

"Why can’t we all have tomorrow off?"

"Who is Jehovah?"

"Why can’t Troy have a birthday party?"

"Why can’t Nadia eat hamburgers?"

The truth is some of us knew those answers even then. Adi Berman was an actual eighth-grade, Old Testament scholar.

"You see," she would say, "Jewish people are the children of Abraham who made a covenant with God on top of the mountain. Ever since then, the Jewish people have been persecuted and have had to struggle to make it in this world."

I wondered how many times her Dad made her say that in order to have it memorized. She, however, mesmerized us–probably more by her sudden blossoming into womanhood, her low-cut shirts and "new way of walking" than her words, but still, her words brought us into the next round of questions, and words like "Jesus", "Allah", even "Yahweh" were thrown around in that eighth grade homeroom. I wondered if you, Mr. Deprado just let us talk and talk and talk until we ran out our own batteries–because we did, and then we looked at you finally, exhausted and in need.

"Something happened." You said calmly, "Something happened in and around what human beings call ‘Year One’ to radically change the face of this earth. Something happened beyond just what happened to the Jews generations before. We moved from the predominance of many gods like the gods of Greece and Rome, polytheism, to the worship of one God, monotheism. This shift, more than ever before, was widespread and transforming, and regardless of your religion, having FAITH in One God became real and began to dominate the world, like it or not, "around that time.""

For a moment, our young minds imagined the world at that time–dark all over with specks of firelight. People everywhere living in and out of straw-thatched roofs, milling around the walls of an ancient keep searching for food and greater meaning. I mean, imagine if you were a homeless person and then suddenly you were transported back in time to year One or Two. You might seem like a degenerate in the modern world, but imagine what a splash you could make in the Roman Empire with your torn Nikes. You would be all the rage. Your ripped jeans faded from the sun would be deemed as some type of lightweight armor, and envision the awe you could spark with your 99-cent lighter. You would be a regular Connecticut Yankee swearing up and down about what you could do, but even beyond these inventions, your simple knowledge and 20^th century experience would seem magical, spiritual, and powerful. You might have aspirin or Advil with you; imagine stopping someone’s pain with tiny tablets like this. What if you gave some dying man CPR or cleaned a wound using antibacterial lotion and then applied a band-aid. Even your global knowledge would seem astounding, probably even crazy when you began to discuss the extent of your knowledge of the Nile Delta, the Philippine Islands, and the Great Wall of China. You would be wise with your scientific knowledge about the movement of the earth, the changing of the temperature, the creatures that live on the land and the sea, and the human reproductive system. You would also be a physician having seen enough sitcoms or nighttime soaps to know how to deliver a baby as well as any midwife: just boil water, get some towels, and "breathe." You might be seen as a sage, a miracle worker, a powerful man or woman and you might be held in high esteem, or you might be crucified. Chances are, because of the circumstance of your life as a homeless person, you might even have the greatest compassion for the way people are living in this time. You might be able to understand what it means to watch as the rich and powerful have feasts and celebrations while the many poor struggle for a morsel of food, for water, for a chance to do good work. But...the same, wise, sage-like person would return to 2003 and find himself or herself utterly intimidated, oppressed by the system, shut off, shut out, and made to "sit down." Yet, don’t the same gifts remain, the same skills and abilities? Or, at least, the desire to share, to help, to teach, to learn? Why does this person suddenly lose relevance?

Until that moment in class, we hadn’t even thought about who might be right or wrong in these issues. We just thought that if you were a Christian, you celebrated Christmas and played piano and sang, and if you were Jewish, your parents were doctors and you wore a kippah, lit menorahs and got eight presents. If you were a Mormon, we were told to stay away from you, and we didn’t even know what a Muslim was then. We felt like these religions always existed, and we never understood the transition between Zeus or Apollo driving his chariot across the sky to worshipping Jesus or Muhammad in the deserts of the Middle East.

We began to ask the questions, "What if Jesus and Allah and Buddha are just the Zeuses and Apollos of today?" What if there is a new truth discovered tomorrow?"

There have been hundreds of new soothsayers, prophets, divinators, terminators, proudfoots, disseminators, and even those who claim to be God, Or at least, the Messiah. For example, in 458, Moses of Crete said that God would part the Mediterranean Sea so that he and his followers could walk from the Island of Crete to Zion, several hundred, maybe even thousands showed their faith by diving off of a towering cliff into the water. In AD 700, Abu Isa’al-Isfahani proclaimed himself Messiah, but Muslim forces wiped out Abu and his followers in the mountains. Abu and a few of his followers disappeared before they were vanquished and left word that they had entered a hole in the side of the mountain and would some day return. I wonder sometimes if he has returned in a different form.

Now it seems like people are just changing the name messiah into whatever seems appropriate for their culture–Fuhrer, Mullah, Reverend, whatever will pull them all in.

You also always talked to us about our "Journey." This would be a journey through mountains tall and wide, valleys cutting deep into the Earth, and every so often we would come to the edge of the water, we would look at it, and we would decide whether or not we were ready to swim. You said that we should always expect to be in wonder of what we experience. When we thought of journeys in eighth grade, they were "[journeys] to the Center of the Earth" or something that Lewis and Clark did. We thought of adventure like Bilbo Baggins, setting out, quite unexpectedly with a crotchety old wizard and a company of dwarves. Journeys were something we read about, and we never stopped to think that we might actually be on one, especially our own.

The world does not disappoint.

You probably wouldn’t struggle to believe, Mr. Deprado, that my journey led me across an entire landmass of mountains and valleys only then to be faced with an immense ocean. I knew I could turn back; I could walk along the beach until the ground got hard and sure again, but I also knew that there was another choice. To listen, to dream, to embrace the next step, instead of fearing it, to step into the water. We come to these places in or journeys time and again, and I know that many times I turned away from the water. Sometimes it’s simple, like in High School, during my first year on the varsity football team. My friend and I were the second string defensive tackles, we had both been stars in junior varsity, but now we waited on the sidelines and watched Mike, the starter, knock heads in. Then one night, Mike went down with a sprained ankle. Coach ‘O’ walked up to us and said, "okay, I need one of you guys to take over." There I was, at the edge of the ocean, I could have jumped and yelled "Me, ME! I am ready coach!" but instead of diving in, I remained silent, and I watched as my friend went in the game and started the rest of the season.

You knew then that we would all undertake journeys, and I see now why you wanted us to write you Mr. Deprado, to tell you our adventures: there are those stories about the times when we dive in headfirst because we realize that the land holds nothing more for us.

I wonder if you know now that even though I am Jewish, it doesn’t end there for me. I believe that God came to Earth in the form of man, Jesus, so that we could see firsthand and understand what He was trying to tell us, and I actually believe that the only way we can possibly survive in this world is to live the kind of life Jesus lived. Crazy huh? Along my journey, I have experienced the truth and love of God, otherwise I wouldn’t believe in it, and I guess I have to spend the rest of my life understanding how unbelievable it is (even for me) to have faith in something you can’t own, you can’t buy, you can’t even reason for using traditional logic. It drives every academic and philosopher crazy because it makes the most rational man seem irrational at the same time. I think of Einstein who was, as all of us are, overwhelmed by the order and organization of the universe and believed this demonstrated that there was a Creator. It’s like what C.S. Lewis says, "I believe Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because through it I see everything else."

I can see you now, dropping this letter on the desk, thinking to yourself, what is he saying, what is he talking about? But maybe not. I remember you saying, more than once, that we are all children of Abraham. I remember saying to myself, Abraham Lincoln? I didn’t know anything about religion then. But since that time, I have seen what religion, when perverted, can become.

But regardless of all of the mix-ups and the absolutely detestable rules and regulations of organized religion, the stringent dogma, and the even more detestable people who will tell you that "you have to, you must, you shall, you better or you will die, in order to be this you must do this." Why do we listen this? Even though some of us are good at hiding it, each of us has faith inside of us, something that tells us that no matter what happens in the newspaper, or on FOX news or what scientists discover, or which priests are arrested, or if Bin Laden blows up a city, or if he is blown up, or if the next time you are about to do something horrible to another person you rationalize that it’s okay, or if you do something kind beyond even your expectation, or swim in the ocean, or hike to the mountain top, get a first kiss, try Nutella for the first time, or super size your French fries. Besides the downfalls of all this impossible religion, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Holocaust, September 11, modern wars, regime changes, and whatever happens next– no matter what little or big things change, we know deep inside (some deeper than others) there is a better way, something more important than ourselves.

Across all of our boundaries is faith. Faith is very real, and most of the world is trying desperately to be faithful to what has been threaded into our souls since before we were born. Maybe we are just a little too busy trying to memorize the prayers, learn all the rituals, search out our holy wars, and take in all the lies we are told every day, to pay attention to the real fruits of faith, to the quiet whisper of hope.

There is a spot I go to at my college where I work. It’s a long patio on the roof of the cafeteria. There is a random garden in the center of long concrete benches. I can sit there, sun-drenched, and take a minute out of a busy day to think and reflect, eat lunch, or just stare at the San Diego skyline and the harbor below it. Every time I go there, I thank God for the serenity, the provision, and the time. And every time I go there, there are four or five students there with me. I know them–they are my students past and present–they are here from Somalia, Ethiopia, Iran, and Detroit. Even as I begin to pray for my small meal, they are, at the same time, singing and dropping to their knees towards Mecca, praying to Allah asking for forgiveness, guidance, love, understanding, a greater purpose. These are the same things I am asking Jesus for, all of us bound up together by faith. All of us there, on that sunlit roof, hoping the best for one another, looking for truth.

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