As an American Muslim, I have often been frustrated by the general lack of influence of enlightened thinkers like Tariq Ramadan, Khaled Abou El-Fadl and others on the global community of Muslims. While these thinkers give us intellectual pleasure and inspire deeper insights into our sacred text, their impact is strangely marginal. Ramadan's take on the French situation is incisive, as are his comments on the various ills that plague Muslims today, but as a call to action, they rarely pack a punch. In contrast, any Muslim extremist can drive his followers into a frenzy with a few words like jihad and martyrdom. Unless we moderate Muslims act on our conviction, the extremists will continue to marginalize us and we will continue to play catch-up with them.

I read “Desert Solitaire” almost two decades ago and it transformed me into a nature lover. Until I read Edward Abbey, I didn’t know words could be so evocative of a time and a place, and that nature could be so therapeutic. I read his other books, “Beyond the Wall,” “One Life at a Time, Please,” “Down the River” and others and was hooked. Abbey remains unique and irreplaceable. When he passed away at a relatively early age, I felt his loss for days. His insight and preternatural ability to discern the genuine from the fake is something we sorely miss. In “Down the River with Henry Thoreau,” Abbey wrote, “Henry, thou should be with us now. I look for his name in the water, his face in the airy foam. He must be here. Wherever there are deer and hawks, wherever there is liberty and danger, wherever there is wilderness, wherever there is a living river, Henry Thoreau will find his eternal home.”

So true also of Edward Abbey!

Ali spoke truth to power long before politicians turned the phrase into a platitude. "I have seen the light and I am crowing" and "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong" are only two examples of Ali continuing the legacy of Thoreau and civil disobedience. Sure Ali is a flawed human being like the rest of us but how he lifted our spirits and gave the downtrodden the courage to fight the good fight! He saw the glass as always being three-quarters full even in the wake of his defeats in the ring. When he lost, we lost; when he won, we won. Time may ravage legends but it is likely that Ali's legend will survive, the only boxer with a legitimate claim to have made the sweet science sweeter during his reign. Long live, Ali!

I have enough self-assurance as an American Muslim to acknowledge that there are Muslims extremists among us (a minority) who would like to see a Caliphate in this country based on their extremist tendencies. They will never succeed because we will not let them. I also know of many Americans who believe that it is the extremists who represent "true" Islam because they interpret the Quran as it should be, and that moderate Muslims are the aberrations. Paul Barrett has done an admirable job in steering a middle path and showing how Muslims of different backgrounds can sustain conflicts and contradictiosn within themselves and yet lead pious and noble lives. We are not a monolith; in our diversity lies our humanity and our capacity for greatness.

I am so happy that Bill McKibben has dedicated the book to Wendell Berry! In books like "The Unsettling of America," "A Continuous Harmony," "What Are People For," "The Way of Ignorance," and "Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community," Berry has been passionately drawing our attention to the disaster of unrestrained consumption and unchecked loyalty to the bottom line. We live in vast wastelands made even more desolate by rising affluence and shrinking communities. Hospitals are indistinguishable from malls and places of worship no different from convention halls. It's not a plateau that we hit after reaching a certain level of acquistion but the law of diminishing return, leading ultimately to broken spirits and a brooding sense of fatalism. Yet there is hope. We are paying more attention to what we eat and where our food comes from. Home-schooling is on the rise, thanks to the reach of the Web, and people are beginning to trade high-salaried sressful jobs for more satisfying pursuits. When we learn to do more with less, we will perhaps also regain our sense of mystery and wonder, and treat the earth for what it is, the only home we will ever know.

Many theologians find in the theory of evolution evidence of a Creator's magnificent self-disclosure, and the research of many scientists (one of many examples: Nobel Physicist Charles Townes) lead them to ask the deeper questions of life, why are we here, why do we suffer, what makes our life meaningful, and so on, that lie outside the realm of science.

The overlapping region between religion and science beckons people with open minds seeking spiritual and scientific truths. Is it not possible that wildflowers of insight will bloom on it if nurtured with humor and humility?