Women of four faiths share on suffering

Ihad the opportunity to participate in a symposium hosted by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community women in Surrey, B.C., late last year. The meeting took place in a store-front temple in a strip mall, where we all had to remove our shoes because it had been consecrated as a place of prayer.

I was one of four speakers, each representing a different religion: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. We were each given 15 minutes to answer the question "Why is there human suffering in the world?"

As each of us shared, I was struck by the similarities of our faiths, rather than our differences. We all spoke of the need to take responsibility for our own actions; of surrendering …