Indeed, there is evidence of communal fasting prior to recorded history. Fasting has long been considered a healing force, a way to connect one's spirit to the sacred. It is also a way to connect the members of a community to one another. The Lenten sacrifices of my Christian childhood, and the Yom Kippur fasting of my Jewish friends, brought families and communities together in common devotion, seeking to understand our role in the world and to glimpse the divine.

Or, multiply those five dollars by 30 days in the month, and America could end world hunger. Imagine the change in geopolitics if a huge American interfaith fast each year wiped hunger off the face of the earth.

The faith divide threatens to be the most divisive and dangerous issue of our times.  All around the country, fundamental questions regarding citizenship and religious freedom are being reconsidered, in ways that resonate differently with Americans since September 11, 2001. Now, more than ever, we need to reaffirm the common ideals of our American democratic way of life. We need to look for the practices and rituals that give meaning and purpose to our lives, and to celebrate those traditions we share with those of other faiths. We need to demonstrate that the world's melting pot is stronger and more generous than ever, precisely because of our ethnic and religious diversity.

True understanding comes from shared experience. This year during Ramadan, let's consider reaffirming our common spiritual heritage by embracing the discipline and the spiritual concentration that skipping a lunch, or 30 lunches, would require. This shared experience with the Muslim community, here and abroad, could go a longer way toward ending our serious, and often violent, interfaith struggles than any effort to date. And maybe we could begin to eliminate world hunger along the way.