EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
Who is our 'ohana?

By Reynold Feldman & M. Jan Rumi

The future of the world may depend on how we, collectively, answer this question. Think about it. Two centuries ago Hawai'i was unified when the followers of one king pushed the followers of another off a cliff. All the fighters were Polynesian inhabitants of the same archipelago. Yet they saw themselves as members of two different 'ohana.

When members of the same nation go to war with each other, it's called a civil war. What a bizarre term! Can you think of anything less civil than a bloodbath between two groups of people with ties of language, nationality, culture, even religion? Clearly, the North and the South didn't perceive themselves as belonging to the same 'ohana.

Malay speakers use a more exact term — perang saudara — meaning "a war between cousins." This term harks back to the war between two sets of cousins described in the Indian classics, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita. For those of us who believe in a single divine parentage, we are all related. Consequently, every war is a war of cousins.

Although one of us is Jewish by background and the other Muslim, we would like to refer to three passages in Christian Scripture. Matthew 12:46-50 tells how one time when Jesus was addressing the multitudes, his mother and brothers wanted to have a word with him. He replies to the messenger, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" Then he points to his disciples and says, "Anyone who does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (This and other scriptural quotations used here are from the New Jerusalem Bible.)

Later, from the cross, Jesus sees one of his closest disciples standing near his mother. He calls to his mother (John 19:26-27), "Woman, this is your son." Then, turning to the disciple, he says, "This is your mother." John reports that "from that hour the disciple took her into his home."

Perhaps the most conclusive story in this regard is Jesus' distant curing of the centurion's servant.

In Matthew 8:5-13 we learn that a Roman captain asks Jesus for help. It is important to remember that the Romans in Jesus' day were hated Gentile occupiers of the Holy Land.

Yet the centurion believes in the Jewish wonder worker and asks for the cure. Jesus agrees at once to go, but the centurion demurs.

Just say the word, he responds, and my servant will be cured, for I know how authority works. If I tell my soldiers to do something, they jump to. It is the same, he implies, with Jesus.

The latter is astonished. None of his fellow Jews, he says, has that kind of faith. Who, then, is Jesus' 'ohana?

Today, in our global village, everyone is 'ohana. Or should be; 9-11 has taught us that. We here in Hawai'i learned a similar lesson on Dec. 7, 1941. Making love, not war, has become our way. As of 2000 more than half our marriages cross ethnic and racial lines. You can see the results in class pictures and picnics at the beach.

The Chinese characters for everyone are "big" plus "family." We need to take this insight seriously. If we don't hang together, per the proverb, we will hang separately.

We can have differences, certainly. But we should learn to savor them, like the difference among national cuisines. Or if they concern opinions, let's remember Buddha's words: "If we truly remember that one day we shall die, we will settle all our differences peacefully."

Being family, of course, doesn't guarantee being at peace with each other. Remember how Cain slew his brother Abel in the Hebrew Scripture. Remember domestic abuse and violence. But also remember Ruth. After her Jewish husband died (she was a Gentile), Naomi, her mother-in-law, told her to go back to her mother's house.

Her response (Ruth 1:16) rings down the ages to us:

That's 'ohana.

Reynold Feldman was raised Jewish and Christian, and M. Jan Rumi was raised Muslim. Together, they are are co-authors of the upcoming "Wising Up: A Youth Guide to Good Living."