TRUE RELIGION

    It’s not what you believe, but how you live
    That indicates the worth of any creed:
    Are you inclined to take and hoard, or give?
    For charity’s superior to greed,

    And charity means caring for another
    With sacrifice and warm solicitude,
    As you should for a sister or a brother
    And others whom you generously include.

    What’s more absurd than a “religions war”
    Between two peoples bound by common error,
    Both faithless to what makes the spirit soar,
    Who’ve sacrificed solicitude to terror?

         It’s not what you believe, but how you live:
         Are you inclined to take and hoard—or give?

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