The Nourishment We Choose: Finding Common Ground Across Spiritual Traditions

“No single tradition holds the whole of truth but each carries a thread of what it means to be human. When we honor the threads, we begin to remember the weave.” - Mary Coughlin

There are moments in the year when humanity seems to remember something… together.

This weekend, many are celebrating Easter and Passover. Others are completing Ramadan and preparing for Eid al-Fitr. Still others have recently marked Holi, Nowruz, or Vaisakhi.

Different stories. Different rituals. Different names for what is sacred. And yet…A shared remembering.

The Season Beneath the Stories

Across traditions—across continents, languages, and histories—this time of year carries something remarkably consistent:

• Life emerging from what once felt barren.

• Light returning after darkness.

• Freedom rising from constraint.

• A quiet but persistent invitation to begin again.

This is not coincidence.

It is humanity responding to the same rhythms of existence—winter to spring, grief to meaning, separation to belonging.

Before doctrine… before division…there was simply the human experience of living, losing, hoping, and renewing.

Nourishment for the Soul

I sometimes think of religion as nourishment for the soul and just as our bodies are shaped by culture, geography, and family traditions in what we eat…so too are our spirits shaped by the stories, practices, and beliefs we inherit.

Some are drawn to ritual.
Some to stillness.
Some to song.
Some to story.
Some to community.
Some to solitude.

None of these are wrong.

They are expressions of how we make meaning, how we metabolize the complexity of being human. No one cuisine holds all nourishment. No one tradition holds all truth.

When Nourishment Becomes Division

And yet, somewhere along the way, we began to confuse familiarity with superiority. To believe that what nourishes us must be the only thing that can nourish anyone.That belief—quiet or overt—has shaped centuries of harm.

It has justified colonization.
It has fueled persecution.
It has allowed entire groups of people to be diminished, dismissed, or erased… all in the name of certainty.

But this is not reverence.This is fear.

Fear, dressed as righteousness.
Fear, cloaked in moral authority.
Fear, speaking the language of “truth” while abandoning the humility that truth requires.

When Fear Shapes What We Believe

And if we are honest…this is not as simple as telling people to “just be more tolerant.” Because intolerance rarely begins as cruelty. It often begins as fear.

• Fear of losing what feels certain.

• Fear of being wrong.

• Fear of the unfamiliar.

• Fear that if my way is not the right way… then what does that mean about everything I’ve been taught, everything I’ve built my life upon?

And that fear does not emerge in isolation. It is shaped—often quietly, often invisibly—by generations that came before us.

By histories of survival.
By inherited beliefs.
By wounds that were never named, never tended, never healed.

Trauma—personal, collective, historical—has a way of narrowing our field of vision.

It pulls us toward certainty when what we most need is curiosity.
It tightens our grip when what we most need is connection.
It convinces us that difference is dangerous… rather than an invitation.

So when we encounter intolerance, what we are often seeing is not simply ignorance but protection.

Protection of identity.
Protection of belonging.
Protection of meaning.

The Common Thread

If we pause, truly pause, we can see something else. Beneath the differences…beneath the rituals, the language, the names…There is a shared longing:

To belong.
To be free.
To be held in something larger than ourselves.
To believe that life has meaning—even when it hurts.
To trust that renewal is possible.

This is the common denominator. Not sameness but connection.

A Different Invitation

Perhaps the invitation of this season is not to prove whose story is right.

Perhaps it is to become curious, courageously curious, about how many ways there are to tell the story of being human.

To recognize that diversity in spiritual expression is no different than diversity in nourishment—it reflects the richness of culture, history, and lived experience.

And to meet fear not with dismissal… but with understanding.

This does not mean we accept harm. It does not mean we stay silent in the face of injustice. It means we choose a different posture.

One rooted in respect. In deep listening. In the willingness to understand before we seek to correct. It means we advocate—for belonging. For dignity. For a way of being that does not require anyone to shrink in order for another to feel secure.

And perhaps most importantly…It means we learn to gather the frightened parts—
in ourselves and in each other—not to shame them, not to exile them, but to gently, courageously lead them toward something more expansive.

Toward connection. Toward truth. Toward light.

Not just the light of day—but the light of spirit.

A Quiet Blessing

May you find nourishment in whatever form speaks to your soul.

May you have the courage to become curious, especially when something feels unfamiliar or uncertain.

May you extend understanding where fear once lived. Forgiveness where pain has lingered. Equanimity in the face of complexity. And respect for the many ways we come to know what is sacred.

And may we, together, learn to create spaces of belonging wide enough to hold both the open-hearted… and the still-becoming.

Because in the end, it is not the form of nourishment that defines us—but our willingness to honor the humanity in how it is received.

Take care and care well, Mary