Dream, Believe, Fly. These three words have a ring, a truth, a purity. As an author of books for teen readers, I gave these three words to one of my characters, and these three words became her mantra. She was sixteen; I am more. The motto works for both of us. My character had those words tattooed onto her skin; I have them tattooed into my soul. Dream. Believe. Fly.

The first step to achieving is to dream. You need to see, you need to dream, you need to believe. Faith and fervor result in the necessary work, and the work gives you wings. The wind beneath those wings is the dream, the belief, the need to achieve.

We are given one life. Some of us live soft; some live hard. Some laugh a lot; some cry. Some are brave; some are not. Some live many years; some live few. At the age of fifty-five, I’ve seen many friends leave this earth, and I’ve learned that we need to seize not only the moment, but our dreams. We need to seize our dreams, grab onto them, and never forget what we hope to accomplish in this world. We need to seize first, then to believe. We need to believe with all of our hearts, with all of our minds, with all of our very beings. We are each instilled with the magic to make things happen. We are resilient and we are strong and we have the power inside, if only we dream and we believe that we can indeed fly.

I’ve wanted to write ever since I can remember. My first memory of elementary school is that of the library, and of a pink Mary Poppins book that I reached up to pull from the shelf. Mary Poppins could fly, and this much I believed: So could I.

It would be many years, though, before I got my wings. There would be hardships and hurt, suffering and struggles. There would be days of hard work, and nights of worry. There would be dark nights when I could not see the stars; days when I tried to believe that life might get easier with time.

“When a man can observe himself suffering and is able, later, to describe what he’s gone through, it means he was born for literature.” A writer named Edouard Bourdet said that in 1927. Many years later, those words still speak to this writer’s soul.

1989 was a rough year. I was 31 years old, and my motto at that time might have been “Hang in there.” I was hit by a drunk driver in July. He left me by the roadside with injuries, a demolished car, and a shattered faith in mankind. He went to jail; I went home to heal.

Two months later, my stepson’s biological mother deposited him on our doorstep. He was six years old, and all he had in the world was a trash bag stuffed with his earthly possessions. He awakened sobbing every night. With my own six-year-old son from a previous marriage, I couldn’t comprehend how a mother’s heart could be so cold.

Two months after my stepson came to us, I unexpectedly became pregnant. I still had no car, and was undergoing treatment for persistent neck and back injuries incurred by the accident. We were poor. My stepson was aching and confused. So was I. Hang in there. Hang in there hang in there hang in there.

In the middle of the pregnancy, I contracted Fifth Disease, a form of the measles. There was an outbreak in the elementary schools of our area, and the medical community was unsure as to the effects of the illness in pregnant women. I was sent for a level two ultrasound, and told by the doctors that I could be “cautiously optimistic” for a healthy baby. However, I’d need a weekly ultrasound. If the fetus contracted the disease or showed signs of anemia, it would be necessary to undergo a blood transfusion in utero. The risks, I was told, were stillbirth and miscarriage. Oh, please, please. Hang in there.

On the day before our baby was due, my husband John came home from work, weeping. It was August of 1990, and the Gulf War and recession had resulted in a permanent lay-off from his longtime construction job. It was the first (and only) time I saw him cry. His heart was broken.

Our son was born: a perfectly healthy and beautiful baby boy. We were ecstatic, despite the fact that John didn’t have a job and we were living in a cramped mobile home with three children: his, mine, and ours.

“Maybe I should get a real job,” I said. “Give up this crazy dream of writing books.” I was an established newspaper and magazine writer, but had been attempting futilely to break into the competitive world of children’s books.

“Keep at it,” John said. “Don’t give up.” Don’t give up. Another three words to grasp onto. So I didn’t. I didn’t give up. I stayed home and wrote, raising our children and grasping tight to my hopes. I prayed for the strength to continue writing despite the obstacles and staggering odds. Don’t give up. Hang in there. Don’t give up.

Several weeks after our son Zach was born, John saw an ad in a local paper: “Old Barn: Free For The Taking-Down.”

John took the barn apart, piece-by-piece, and found that there was a market for the materials. The boards and beams, windows and doors and weather vanes were all sold. The barn would live on for another hundred years, in a hundred different places. It was

the beginning of John’s own business, but we still didn’t have much money. One writer and one self-employed Barn Saver plus three children is an equation that doesn’t always equal promptly-paid bills. Don’t give up. Hang in there.

When Zach was two months old, I began writing a novel for pre-teen children. Working on an ancient and clattering typewriter, I used the kitchen table for my desk. I plugged away on the typewriter as Zach dozed contentedly in his swing. Through the window of our mobile home, I could see the green Welsh Mountain of Pennsylvania. This mountain would be the setting of the book. The main character, Maizie, was a girl who’d been abandoned by her mother. She was hurting. Maizie had lots of wishes, but life was rough. I knew: I’d used bits and pieces of my own. But still, Maizie had hope. Someday, somehow, everything would be okay. Don’t give up. Hang in there.

The book Maizie would be published five years later, in 1995. In the meanwhile, I wrote a picture book based on John’s work of dismantling and recycling old barns. The book – Barn Savers – was published in 1999 and was honored by the American Library Association’s Booklist Journal by being named Top Of The List, Best Picture Book of 1999. It was also lauded as a Notable Book in the Language Arts by the National Council of Teachers of English, as well as short-listed for the Bill Martin Jr. Picture Book Award in Kansas and the Keystone State Reading award. A mention of the book appeared in the pages of People Magazine.

Since then, I’ve written about twenty more books. I went back to college at the age of fifty, and earned an MFA in Writing. I got to travel to Italy, because of my writing. I taught on cruise ships, and I taught in a medieval castle on a hilltop in Tuscany. I was honored in England in 2012 with a short story prize, and I got to travel to the U.K. for the first time, staying in the dorms of Oxford University. Dream, Believe, Fly.

Somewhere around the time that I changed from forty-nine to fifty, somewhere around the time that I applied to Vermont College and was accepted, that was the time that I changed my motto for life. I still believe in “Hang In There” and “Don’t Give Up.” But those words never held the power, the faith, the magic that my new motto does.

I had to get a student loan in order to go to school, and that was scary. I kept repeating my motto, though, as I waded through the mounds of paperwork and forms and red tape. “Dream. Believe. Fly. You are Linda Oatman High and you love to write. Dream, believe, fly. You only get one life. Now is the time. Dreambelievefly.”

Our youngest son went through some struggles in his teenage years. We got through them. He’s still finding his path in life, at the age of 23. As long as he dreams, as long as he believes … he will indeed fly.

The kids are now grown, and I’m on my way to growing old. I’m fifty-five. I love my life. It’s hard at times; it’s fun at others. But it’s always mine, and we only get one life.

I’m now a grandmother, and I hope to instill the things that I’ve learned in my grandchildren. I hope that they find the strength and the courage and the faith to dream. I pray that they believe.

And I know, I know, I know in my soul … they will fly.

Linda Oatman High is an author/playwright/poet/journalist (www.lindaoatmanhigh.com) who lives in Lancaster County, PA and teaches everywhere.

FAITH AND WORKS

To receive the favor of Allah, faith and works are crucial. The Prophet Muhammad stated that faith is required to enter Paradise (Muslim 1:96), and the Apostle Paul wrote that, “the righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17). In both religions faith goes hand in hand with good deeds and requires them to perfect it (Qur’an 2:177; James 2:22). Indeed, Jesus says that only those who do God’s will can enter heaven (Matthew 7:21). 

LOVE

Just as faith without works is dead (James 2:17), so, too, is it dead without love. 

Love of one’s neighbor

Muhammad affirmed: “You will not believe as long as you do not love one another” (Muslim 1: 96) and “No man is a true believer unless he wants for his brother that which he wants for himself” (Bukhari 1:12). Concurring, Jesus said that to love your neighbor as yourself was like loving God (Matthew 23:37-39).

Although the word “love” appears less frequently in the Qur’an than in the Bible, the notion of love permeates it. True love consists of right action towards one’s neighbor, of taking care of others, of and helping those in need. In verse after verse, the Qur’an enjoins believers to be charitable to orphans, widows, travelers, and the poor. According to one hadith: “The best Islam is that you feed the hungry and spread peace among people you know and those you do not know.” Similarly, Jesus tied Peter’s loving him to taking care of his disciples (John 21:15-17), and John asserts that those who do not help a brother in need when they are able to do so do not have the love of God in them (1 John 3:17).

Love of God

Love of neighbors is a cornerstone of both Islam and Christianity, but love of God is the foundation. Such love is expressed in many ways, but let’s look at four: prayer, repentance, contentment, and surrender to God.

People desire to be with and talk with those they love. Thus, Christians and Muslims who love God “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and “remember Allah much” (Qur’an 33:21). Prayer is a cleansing activity, partially because engaging in it allows people to see God’s greatness and their own unworthiness. Such understanding brings repentance, which is essential to receiving God’s approval and forgiveness (Qur’an 20:82; Muslim 2:1142; Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15; Luke 5:32; 15:7).

Through cycles of prayer, repentance, and forgiveness, the believers’ love of God grows. This gradually results in a weakening of the desires for worldly things, the cause of discontent. Becoming content with what God has allotted them, they “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), whether good or bad. Such believers are loved by people and by God, as one hadith says: “Desire not the world, and God will love you; and desire not what men have, and they will love you.”

To be fully content means to be surrendered to Allah, a key concept in Islam. Indeed, the word “Islam” is understood to mean surrender, as it says in the Qur’an (3:19): “The religion before Allah is Islam.” Christianity believes the same, for as Jesus said, the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). In other words, give your entire being to God.

Those who completely devote themselves to God are, naturally, are the closest to Him. Yet God is near all believers. Christians believe that God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, lives within them (1 Corinthians 6:19). For Islam, the indwelling concept is not prevalent, but God is nearer to the believer than his jugular veins (Qur’an 50:16) and says: “When my servants ask you about me, tell them I am near, I hear the prayer of the one who calls upon Me” (Qur’an 2:186).

PARADISE

Both Christianity and Islam teach that those who love God, believe in God, and do good deeds will receive rewards (Matthew 5:5-11, 6:1-6 10:41-42, 16:27, 1 Corinthians 3:14, 9:17, Ephesians 6:8, Qur’an 2:62, 3:144,145,148). The best reward, of course, is eternal life in Paradise.

Who gets this reward? In both religions, the answer is quite controversial. There are those who say that only adherents to of their own religion-whether Christianity or Islam-go to Heaven. Many Christians confidently assert that only those who believe in Jesus will have eternal life (John 3:18, 11:25-26), and many Muslims affirm just as strongly affirm that only those who believe in Allah and accept Muhammad as His Messenger will enter Paradise.

In both religions, however, others disagree. Some Christians claim that it is necessary only that one has to believe in God and try to do good (Matthew 7:21, 10:42, 25:31-46). Likewise, some Muslims who agree with this view cite the Qur’an (2:62): “Believers, Jews, Sabaeans, or Christians-whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does what is right-shall have nothing to fear or to regret.”

Adherents to both religions concur, though, that eternal life is a gift of God and based completely upon His mercy (Romans 9:15-16, Qur’an 3:74, 10:99-100; Bukhari 7:577). Nevertheless, God does not reject anyone who comes to Him: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8), and “He who loves to meet Allah, Allah also loves to meet him. . .” (Muslim 2:1120).

MISUNDERSTANDING

As the Bible and the Qur’an agree on many things, why then do Muslims and Christians perceive each other so differently and so often misunderstand each other? Such a question, of course, deserves an in-depth, multi-faceted answer; however, we will look at just one of those facets: a difference of emphasis and vocabulary.

Muslims tend to emphasize right action, while Christians tend to focus on right belief. Consequently, when Christians hear Muslims say that they are earning merit through their good deeds, they jump to the conclusion that Islam is a religion of works, not faith, and that Muslims are trying to earn their salvation, which no one can do. Also, Christians, disturbed by Muslims’ emphasis on imitating the prophet Prophet Muhammad, perceive Muslims as legalistic and fixed on externals rather than on such transforming internals like as love. They not realize that for Muslims, good deeds earn merit only if one has faith, and that it is love of the Prophet that leads them to follow his example.

In turn, when Muslims hear Christians talking about freedom and love, they believe that Christians can sin as much as they want and still enter Paradise, a perception bolstered by the immorality of not only ordinary people but also of the highly visible religious and political leaders in the West. Muslims fail to understand that the love of God prevents pious Christians from sinning. And there are other similar vocabulary problems resulting in misunderstanding and misperception that are exacerbated by the natural belief that theirs is the true and final religion. This misguided attitude causes both Muslims and Christians to exaggerate any potential difference to its worst extreme, and to forget that their own religions have the same concepts, albeit sometimes de-emphasized or expressed differently.

MAIN DIFFERENCES

Not all differences are a matter of misperception; a few are even fundamental. The most important one concerns the nature of God. Both Christianity and Islam agree that God is the Creator of the universe, the source of truth, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, full of compassion and mercy, but also the One who dispenses justice. Despite this agreement, however, Christians believe in a Trinity, three persons in one Godhead: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. In contrast, Muslims (and Jews) assert that Jesus is not God, but and that God is one without any has no partners (Qur’an 37:4; Deuteronomy 6:4).

A second major difference is the concept of atonement. Christians believe that Jesus died as a sacrifice for everyone’s sins (Hebrews 9:26; 1 Peter 1:2, 19; 1 John 2:2), which becomes effective for the individual upon his or her confession of belief to those who believe in Jesus (John 3:15-18; Romans 1:16). In Islam, though, sacrifices do not atone for sin but represent one’s devotion to Allah. Consequently, no sacrificial intercessor is necessary or possible (Qur’an 2:256). Instead, God forgives those who sincerely repent and make right correct their previous wrongs.

CONCLUSION

Although the disagreement on the nature of God and on the atonement of Jesus seems unresolvable, most differences are more a matter of emphasis rather than of disagreement.

Christianity stresses right belief and faith, but no Christian would deny that they should do good deeds and have good behavior. On the contrary, they “work” hard to please God because of their faith. Muslims, on the other hand, assuming that faith is necessary, prefer to emphasize the practical side of perfecting their faith via good works. Christians and Muslims agree that faith is necessary and that good works are important.

In reality, if one were simply to watch the outward behavior of pious Muslims and Christians in their daily lives, it would be quite difficult to know who was a Muslim and who was a Christian-for the pious of both religions who love their God and who have surrendered their lives to Him pray much, help the needy, and are kind towards their neighbors and their families. Due to its shortness, this article will necessarily make broad generalizations that have many exceptions.

All hadiths not given a source come from the book The Sayings of Muhammad by Allama Sir Abdullah Alal-Ma’mun Alal-Suhrawardy, who affirmed their authenticity (p. 18).