When my mother graduated college, she joined the newly formed, though not yet approved by Congress, Peace Corps. She took Kennedy’s proclamation very seriously when he said, “Ask what can you do for your country.” and she wanted to serve.

After several months of training and grueling work, my mother, a young woman from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was sent to a small village in the desert in Turkey to teach English. She knew no one there and was to share a small house with one of her fellow Peace Corps members. As you can imagine, it was a rough transition. She and her fellow teacher spoke some Turkish, but were not fluent in the language. They had to learn how to navigate the local market, cook on a propane stove with very different food, and survive in this very different land with very different customs. There were vast cultural and religious differences, but they were willing to adapt, to sacrifice and make things work. She also had the support of her new community, she loved her students, and began to love this new country.

Things went relatively well until that first December and she began to think of Christmas back home. She began to miss her family. She began to miss the snow and the tree covered mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania. She began to miss the Christmas lights and most of all, she realized there would be no Christmas tree. Being in the desert, it was illegal to cut down a tree as they were relatively scarce and highly valued. To bring one into the house to decorate would have seemed absurd to her Muslim neighbors as they did not celebrate Christmas.

But God was there.

The men and women in the village knew my mother was homesick and wanted to help. So they went out into the desert and gathered the few branches they could cut from the live trees and lashed them together to fashion something resembling a Christmas tree. The women made ornaments out of brightly colored cloth so that my mother and her fellow teacher could decorate it. They presented this to her with their love and appreciation simply because they wanted her to feel loved through her holiday season. They wanted her to feel that they had made space for her and that she belonged.

My mother never forgot that act of kindness. She never stopped holding the Turkish people high in her regard for their generosity and compassion and shared that story often. When she completed her two year service and returned to the US, she was excited to celebrate Christmas again in the snowy tree-filled streets of Scranton. She was surprised to find that she now missed the desert and its quiet, star-filled sky.

We all have the capacity to love those who are not like us. Love is a choice we must make if we are to share this world in peace.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22:37-39

“And God said love your enemy and I obeyed him and loved myself.” — Kahlil Gibran