With the transitional voice of my adolescence, the following lyrics vibrated outward from deep in my gut:

I wonder if the light
from the lighthouse
would shine…

The rest of the robe-clad singers joined my section, and resounded:

…would shine on me?

Our director, an art teacher with a gift for playing complex piano arrangements by ear, led us through the waves and eddies of the song. We were met by the raucous cheering of the congregants at the large church on the south side of Chicago. I could make out two tiers of balcony seats floating above the ground, and people waving their arms like a plane was set to land. My parents knew little about the black church but a lot about emotion in worship. I could sense empathy in their disposition as they quietly arrived at the end of the concert to pick up their singing boy.

My first substantive engagement with religious pluralism was becoming the first and likely only Muslim member of the Gospel Choir during my senior year at The Latin School of Chicago. I recall my family’s reaction: a mixture of support and confusion. My parents encouraged artistic endeavors, but were puzzled about my desire to join a group of people singing about Jesus as Lord and Savior. My fellow singers also wondered, amongst themselves, what could have possessed a quiet Pakistani-American Muslim to sing about the Kingdom of God. The explanation that remains with me was that of the director, Russell Harris.

The first time I approached him about my interest in joining up, he responded with unabashed enthusiasm. Singing in fellowship with others was as deep a form of worship to him as it became for me. The aspects of hope, glorifying God, and celebrating blessings that lay within Gospel music bore strong resemblance to what I had learned about in the Islamic tradition. Russell was one of the first people in my life to offer me a vision for respecting theological differences while engaging them. The following school year was full of performances, intimate gatherings, and traveling to Christian communities – black and white – that readily embraced me as we recalled biblical narratives (many shared with the Qur’an) and shared in musical thanksgiving.

Rehearsals, concerts, and conversations from that time are one of many sets of experiences that led to my work with The Pluralism Project. Kathryn Lohre referred to her own experience of pluralism as a engagement with the theology of different religious groups who have come to live in the United States. I continue to gain momentum from the idea that “pluralism is the encounter of commitments.” Crossing boundaries in congregational life, in service, and in music are all ways that I have arrived at these encounters.

What further opportunities and spaces are there for the interreligious encounter that lives with difference? What are the obstacles to coming together with our vulnerability and faiths?

Abbas Jaffer is a research associate at the Pluralism Project, and Masters Candidate in Islamic Studies at Harvard Divinity School.