“Any ritual should have the capacity to deepen your mindfulness,” says University of Virginia professor Vanessa Ochs. It helps you “deal with the chaos of life.”

“They are human beings, and so they have a right to live in peace and security,” says Imam Omar Suleiman, who has made several visits to the refugee camps on the Jordanian-Syrian border. “And if we’re not contributing to the betterment of their situation...are we really the moral standard ...

“God gave Shabbat to humanity,” says Rabbi Nissan Antine of Beth Sholom Congregation in Potomac, Maryland. “It’s about those more interior kinds of things, things about working on your soul, working on your friendships, your relationships. Those are really the important things in life. Those ...

"When people stand together and see the menorah being lit, we're hoping to inspire them to a greater level of commitment and dedication to their own faith and tradition,” says Rabbi Chaim Block, executive director of San Antonio’s Chabad Center for Jewish Life & Learning.

“When it’s time for prayer we say, am I clean?” explains Imam Talib Shareef of the Masjid Muhammad Mosque in Washington, DC. The ritual ablution a Muslim performs before prayer, he says, starts with intentions: “I intend to make the ablution for preparation to stand in obedience before my ...

"Spirituals are, of course, the songs that the enslaved crafted to tell the story of their experience. But more than that, to tell the story of their faith and the understanding of who they were in relationship to God, and who God was in relationship to them, and it became a story of freedom,” ...

“All of nature spoke to Francis,” says Fr James Gardiner of the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, DC. “The more we learn to reverence all of creation, we might learn to reverence and cherish one another better… I think Francis would approve.”

“It is considered the time in the prayer service where we are most open spiritually, and we’re really ready to talk to God,” says Rabbi Shira Stutman, senior rabbi at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.

"What we're saying is yes, God, I'm in my personal relationship with you, but I'm also in a relationship with all these people around me."

At Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, Muslim children sit in tents, pray, throw stones, and make seven circuits around a replica of the Ka'ba as part of a mock hajj, the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca.

“I am an usher because God has given me that talent, and he also has given me a blessing to be a blessing to others,” says Charles J. Brown. a senior usher at the Hemingway Memorial AME Church in District Heights, Maryland.

A growing new spiritual practice combines the breathing techniques of yoga with laughter. Practitioners say it helps them achieve joy and spiritual well-being. At a laughter yoga session at Washington National Cathedral, we talk with instructor Diane Cohen, who says laughter yoga releases “that ...

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia describes the rituals and spiritual significance of Eid al-Fitr, the three-day festival marking the end of the month-long Ramadan fast.

Some mosques use the month of Ramadan as an opportunity to educate friends and neighbors about Islam. The Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia encourages members of its congregation to bring non-Muslim friends to their iftar dinners, the meal that breaks the fast during ...

When the festival of Passover approaches, observant Jews search their homes for any yeast or leaven and then give it away, donate it to charity, burn it, or authorize a rabbi to sell it for them to a non-Jewish buyer. “People who don’t share our faith are helping Jewish people in the observance ...

During Maundy Thursday and Good Friday “pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for life,” says Rev. Kenneth Semon of the Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe. “We’re following our Lord, who goes before us.”

"If I’m hungry I should eat. If I’m thirsty I should drink. But because of a recognition of a greater and higher need, I choose not to," says Abdu’l Karim Ewing-Boyd. We visited him and his family in Washington, DC as they prepared to break the long fast leading up to the Baha'i New Year.

“America is the greatest country in the world because of its great Constitution,” says Hamtramck city councilman Saad Almasmari. “I’m an American. My rule is going to be the US Constitution and the state and the city law.”

Farming is often about homecoming, explains Mary Berry, executive director of the Berry Center. “It doesn’t mean [farmers] have to go to the place they were born,” she says. “The concept of homecoming is simply to take root some place and care about a place, not just for a short amount of ...

A lawsuit alleges that some private yeshivas run by Hasidic Jewish sects are not complying with New York state law by not teaching English, math, and science; an activist, pastor, and preacher says white and black churches must cross the bridge to a new America now; and a church in Baltimore runs a ...