Over the weekend I came across a documentary that highlighted the Lakota Indian Nation in South Dakota.  Aside from the beautiful native garments that they wore for various ceremonial dances, I was captivated by the intentions and meaning behind their spiritual dances.  They are so respectful of nature and the animals that are part of their environment, in practicing their own religious beliefs they ensure that everything that they touch in nature is given its proper honor.  They dance to celebrate the "tatanka" or buffalo that roam their land, along with a bounty of other wild animals.  They revere their elders and hold them to the highest levels of respect, which is refreshing to hear compared to the more contrary current western standards.  As I saw their beautiful tapestries and other hand made items with vibrant colors that equaled the colors of the rainbow, it made me feel happy to see that joy and harmony can exist in nature through the examples of these native people.  Although the cameras were filming them, they proceeded with their daily routines and were not affected by any who were visiting and observing.  This made me remember a book that I read in college in a world religions class.  The book focused on Native Americans and how they interpreted religion through all that were living.  It was the first book I ever read that explained this philosophy and I thought it was wonderful way for people to have faith and believe in things that were created by nature and for a specific purpose beyond what we can comprehend.  The experience of the documentary and reminiscing about the world religions class, brought to mind how different we may be from others.  We can be so diverse in how we think along with our varied religions, customs and values, yet we are all bound by the simple fact that at our core we are all human beings.  We should all do a better job to educate ourselves about other people, so that we can all have a better understanding of each other.  Nobody is better than anybody else and if you believe that is true, you just have to wait a bit for nature to catch up with anyone with that philosophy.  Engage in learning and educating yourself about others that are not like you.  Have an open mind along with an open heart so that when your children or grandchildren get older, they can see through you that people are actually a lot more alike than they are different.  Embrace the differences that you see in others and relish in the fact that our world is a better place due to our great diversity.