Other Customs

   One of the things that I like about working in a community pharmacy (as opposed to hospital or mail order pharmacy) is the diverse customers that I meet and sometimes get to know better. I've met a man who fought in World War II, a woman who came over from Germany with her husband and a woman who came from Great Britain either before or just after World War II (I can't remember exactly.)
  I like listening to the stories that some of my customers tell me about themselves. One of my customers is a woman a little bit older than me. I ask after her children and family. We sometimes talk about other things too. Occasionally  we talk a little about our respective faiths. She is Jewish and I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She came in recently and I mentioned that I thought she had finished celebrating a holiday. I had heard from the internet that Rosh Hashanah, which is known as the Jewish new year celebration was earlier in the month. She confirmed that I was correct and now it was time to prepare for the next holiday. As I am not familiar with any Jewish holiday except Hanukkah, I was hoping she'd say more.
  She didn't mention the name of the next holiday, but told me what they did on it and to prepare for it. The holiday is associated with forgiveness and atonement. She told me that for the next ten days they would think about what they had done over the past year and how they would try to be better people in the next year. It is customary to go to those who have been wronged and ask forgiveness. It is also a time to ask for forgiveness from God. There is also a day long fast with prayers throughout the day.
  She then asked me if we were going to be celebrating any holidays soon. Although I don't consider it a holiday, I told her that the we fast on the first Sunday of every month. The fast starts the evening before and is supposed to continue for two meals. We take the money saved from those two meals and put it in a special fund that helps the needy. I didn't mention that like her upcoming holiday, the fast is accompanied by prayer. It is strongly encouraged that the fast begin with some statement of purpose. Once at a Sacrament Meeting (which is the LDS term for the worship service), someone giving a talk on fasting held up an unsharpened pencil. They said that fasting without prayer is like the pencil, it has no point. Another thing I didn't mention is that the Fast Sunday worship service is different from other Sundays. The Sacrament is blessed and passed as usual. Instead of having designated speakers give talks, people can come to the front and share their testimonies and spiritual experiences. It can be a very moving.
  Somehow my customer must have known some of this. She mentioned to me that she found it interesting that our customs were similar. One of the things her family would do over the holiday is to collect food to take to a local food shelf. We said goodbye and she left.
   This may be rather naïve of me, but I have always thought that some of the issues we have between races, cultures and faiths could be helped if people would simply attempt to get to know each other. To me, fear of differences is the seed of much of the discord we see today. Becoming familiar takes this fear away. You may also find out, as I did with my customer, that there are also some similarities.