“American exceptionalism, which I’ve been critical of for years, could be made true if we become a majority of minorities who learn to live together justly, and fairly, and respectfully,” says author and activist Jim Wallis.

“A headscarf isn’t meant to hurt you; it’s what’s meant to protect you. You’re modest in the sense of God looking at you, but you’re modest to other people as well,” says Umand Weerasinghe, a young Buddhist woman in Maryland whose Muslim friend Sofia Amir loaned her a scarf to wear for ...

Watch two more women, one a Muslim and one a non-Muslim, participate in World Hijab Day, and see what their experiences are like. Say Muslim Yasmine Ison: “Wearing the hijab [gives] me this whole other freedom that I never had. I started to notice this control I had of myself.”

"What we were looking for is an organ that sings, an organ that has a warm, mellow sound that accompanies singing,” says Rev. William Bradley Roberts, professor of church music and director of chapel music at Virginia Theological Seminary.

"We'll find as many opportunities as we can to light the menorah because, after all, it's about bringing as much light as we can into our world."

"We’re tapping into all of this long history of practices that have gone before us honoring this season of Hallowtide in the church,” says Terri Lynn Simpson, former assistant director and program coordinator at Washington National Cathedral’s Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage.

"We really wanted to create a prayer book that is inclusive of the full range of who is in our community today," says Rabbi Hara Person, executive editor of the Reform movement’s new holiday prayer book.

“We come every year. We sit in these pews, and yet every year our lives have changed, and we can really reflect on that change from year to year. Who is with us this year? Who was with us last year who’s not with us this year? Who’s going to be with us next year?”

Watch more of our interview with Rabbi Andrew Busch of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation about Reform Judaism’s new prayer book for the High Holy Days.

We visited a Hindu religious coming-of-age ceremony for nine-year-old Rushil Ramakrishnan at the Hindu Temple in Adelphi, Maryland.

More than 2,200 candle-lit paper lanterns with individually written messages of peace were set afloat onto a large reflecting pool in New York City in honor of people who have dedicated their lives to the cause of peace.

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot, says Rabbi Shira Stutman, is a time of “rejoicing in the harvest, rejoicing in this gift of Torah that God has given us, and rejoicing in the ability to learn from Torah in each and every generation.”

"The story of the seder, the story of freedom and justice, is a universal story. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that just about everything we do stems from this story—this idea that we were slaves, and we were freed, and now it’s our responsibility to work for freedom for people ...

"The fast is a time for me to remind myself, to reclaim myself, to be in charge of my body and not simply respond to random physical promptings. This is just something that I look forward to more and more every year and it gives me more time to recognize my strength in prayer."

Rev. Phillip Heinze says when he realized that for some people the most difficult thing is walking through the doors of a church, he decided to “try a new church in a place that’s not so scary."

Sharing a special meal and performing rituals of spiritual cleansing help Tibetan Buddhists get ready for the upcoming new year.

For many Christians, celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany means marking the appearance of Jesus. In Western churches, the holiday emphasizes the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus. But Eastern Orthodox churches focus on Jesus’ baptism.

"I’ve been singing the Messiah for a long time, so it’s very familiar music to me. We do our rehearsals, and we also then reflect ourselves individually about what the music means to us," says Kenneth E. Chadwick, a member of the Fairlington United Methodist Church choir. "The singing ...

For the young Jewish professionals he works with in Washington, DC, “social justice is their faith,” says Rabbi Scott Perlo of Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. “If someone needs help from me, I really have to give it, because they are worth, in God’s eyes, just the same as I am.”

Yom Kippur “was thinking, sitting, and praying,” says Rabbi James Michaels of the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington. “Sukkot is just the opposite.” It is, he observes, “something that really gives us a very nice feeling of being alive.”