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I used to sit on the front porch with my grandmother, otherwise the
gentlest, most unconditionally loving person in my young life, while
she regaled me with stories about what was going on under the dome of
the Roman Catholic cathedral one block away. They're storing guns in
the basement, Grandma assured me, and I imagined that the windows in
the dome were gunports through which "they" planned to fire on the rest
of the city.

(RNS) For this year's Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic holiday that concludes
the holy month of Ramadan, Nakia Jackson received an unusual present
from a Jewish friend: cab fare.

"She doesn't want me taking the bus," said Jackson, of Wichita,
Kan., whose headscarf clearly identifies her as a Muslim. "She recalls
not only violence against black churches during the civil rights era,
but the security that synagogues have needed for decades."