When I first began my own faith journey, one of my mentors taught me a simple practice: "When you enter a room, look for the loneliest or most vulnerable person and move toward that person. Make it your goal to help that person feel at home. Don't just look for the most attractive or best connected or whatever," he said: "Jesus would move toward the people at the margins, and you can become a more Christ-like person if you follow his example."

 In our world where there are increasing tensions between religions, cultures, classes, and so on, we can be agents of peace almost every day by following my mentor's advice. For example, if you are a Christian and you see someone in Muslim or Buddhist garb, go meet them and make them feel safe and welcome in your presence. If you are a pierced and tatooed person and you enter a room full of people in business suits, go meet them, or vice versa. Cross barriers to make others feel safe and cared for. If you hear a person speaking another language, or of another socio-economic group, or in any other way "other" than you ... move toward that person in friendship and neighborliness, as agents of the peace of God. 

What if churches (and schools and other organizations) around the world helped build this practice into people? We would become, in my friend Jim Henderson's term, "otherly." Making peace in the world begins, I believe, with otherliness in our daily interactions.