Two Faiths, One Table

Cedar Valley News – February 17, 2026
Two Faiths, One Table
By: George Khan
From the fictional town of Cedar Valley, where characters from Quiet Echo continue to respond to real-world events.

Tomorrow morning, two billion people will begin to fast. Half of them are Muslim. The other half are Christian. And in my house, both halves sit at the same table.

Ramadan and Lent begin on the same day this year — Wednesday, February 18. Ash Wednesday for Christians. The first full day of fasting for Muslims. The calendar does not do this often. When it does, I pay attention. So should you.

My name is George Khan. Most of you know me. I run the small engine repair shop on Birch Street. I coach the junior high soccer team. I am Muslim. My wife Aisha is Christian. Our twins, Maryam and Trevor, are ten years old and already asking questions their parents still wrestle with after bedtime.

Last night Maryam asked me why I stop eating when the sun comes up during Ramadan. I told her it is because God asked me to, and when God asks you to do a hard thing, the hard part is the point. Then she asked Aisha why Christians put ashes on their foreheads. Aisha told her it is to remember we come from dust and will return to dust, and the time in between belongs to God.

Maryam looked at both of us and said, “So you both do hard things to remember God?”

She is ten. She understood what the cable news never will.

This is not a column about theology. I am a man who fixes lawnmowers and tries to raise two children in a house where the Quran sits on the same shelf as the Bible. What I know about faith I learned from doing it — from getting up before dawn to pray, from watching my wife kneel beside the bed each night, from listening to my children ask questions I cannot always answer.

Fasting is not popular. Self-denial is not trending. The world outside my door is built on the opposite principle — consume more, want more, fill every empty space with noise and appetite. Ramadan and Lent say no. They say hunger has a purpose. The emptiness you feel when you push the plate away is the space where God speaks.

And while two billion people fast, the world keeps burning. Today in Geneva, American and Iranian diplomats are meeting for a second round of nuclear talks. In the same city, Russia and Ukraine sit across another table trying to end a war. A man came into my shop this morning and asked if I thought there would be a war with Iran. I told him I did not know. But I told him two billion people were about to spend a month asking God for peace, and I have learned not to bet against that kind of prayer.

Tomorrow before dawn I will eat my suhoor — a quiet meal in the dark kitchen while the house sleeps. Aisha will go to the early service at Cedar Valley Community Church and come home with a cross of ash on her forehead. The children will watch both of us and learn the lesson no textbook teaches. Two people can love the same God by different names, walk different roads toward the same mercy, and sit down at the same table when the sun goes down.

Dan Larson stopped by the shop yesterday. He asked me what Ramadan was like — not the rules, the feeling. I told him it is like being hungry on purpose so you remember what matters when you are full. He nodded. Dan is Latter-day Saint. His people fast the first Sunday of every month. He said the first few hours are just hunger. But by afternoon something shifts. The noise in his head quiets down. He starts praying differently — not asking for things, but listening. He said fasting taught him the difference.

That is what it does. It rearranges the furniture in your soul. It shows you what you built your day around, and whether it was worth building around.

Tomorrow is also the Lunar New Year — the Year of the Fire Horse. And today is Mardi Gras. Four ancient traditions landing on the same square of the calendar. Four different ways of saying the same thing. The old year is over. Deny yourself. Begin again.

If you are Christian, begin your Lent with honesty. Give up something real. Not something easy. Give up the thing you reach for when you are trying not to think. Let the empty space remind you who fills it.

If you are Muslim, begin your Ramadan with gratitude. The hunger is a gift. It is God clearing the table so you can see what was always underneath — mercy, patience, the knowledge you are not alone.

And if you are neither, try this. Tomorrow, before your first meal, sit in the quiet for five minutes. Do not reach for your phone. Do not turn on the news. Just sit. Ask yourself what you are hungry for.

Maryam and Trevor will come home from school tomorrow and find their father fasting and their mother wearing ashes. They are learning something the world has mostly forgotten. You do not have to agree on everything to love under the same roof. You just have to agree on what matters.

Two faiths. One table. One God who is patient enough to wait for all of us.

Ramadan Mubarak. And a blessed Lent to you.

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series. While the people and town are fictional, the national events they reflect on are real.

Want to know the full story behind Cedar Valley? Teresa, Caleb, Dan, and the community you’ve come to know in these editorials first came together in Quiet Echo: When Loud Voices Divide, Quiet Ones Bring Together. Discover how a small town found its way from fear to fellowship — one quiet act of courage at a time. Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3ME4nSs

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