we have to be committed to questioning what we think we know, and few of us have that bandwidth (some call it a luxury). But how can we inspire and t… - Azza Karam

The Netherlands was the perfect environment for me to learn and eventually to strike out on my own. I didn’t really have a choice about coming to the Netherlands, because my father was posted to the Egyptian Embassy in The Hague. And as a good Muslim daughter, who really didn’t have much say in what happened to her, I was transplanted from Egypt. To be honest, I didn’t want to go at the time, but my family insisted.

Imagine the grace that can happen when you genuinely challenge what you hold to be dear and true. And it’s particularly in times of crisis that we listen even less well, because we are worried.

This is about both the danger to and the opportunity for the very essence of who we think we are, if we were to genuinely listen to one another. It may dramatically challenge us, because we think we know ourselves so well. We think we hear and we listen, but we actually do not. We are constantly walking this very thin line in life and in danger of falling off. If you do fall off, you would completely lose your certainty, but at the same time, imagine what you might find if you fall off.