Dr. Robert E. Steinke Sharing His Experience with the Gulen Movement in Turkey

 I am Dr. Robert Steinke. I am spiritual director at a Hospital in United States and teacher of medical ethics, bioethics. I had no idea, really, what I was going into when I came to Turkey. I would like to also publicly thank the Rumi Forum and those involved in the Gulen movement for making this trip possible. It was a good friend of mine emailed me, Yahya Hendi in the United States who told me about the Rumi Forum initially. I am also the host and moderator of a television program that does interfaith dialogue on a regional basis. The trip has been beyond my expectations. On the touring part, it was arduous, in it there was too much to see in a short period of time; also the quantity of the food that is consumed during any given day exceeded all my expectations, and it was very good.

But the most important, I think one of the most important meaningful aspects of the trip was what we did here tonight. Because, once we met the people from Turkey and had a genuine discourse of communication that is how found out who Turkey really is. Tonight was really a culminating experience in that we had an excellent dialogue with one another with the professors here at the university. It is this kind of exchange that really demonstrates that truly we are no different. We have our diversity but it was God himself that created that diversity, and there had to be a good reason for that. We would be much better served to seek out the good reason that God created us in unique ways than should be threatened by those uniqueness and diversity. So we can come together in a sense of harmony, and being the stewards that I believe God intends all of us to do the world which He entrusted to us, as well as the relationships He entrusts to us. I have made some very deep heart connections with some of the people that were involved in the organization of the trip as well as couple of the people that will remain here in Turkey that are here. For that I will always hold in my heart, and those are the memories that I wanna hold in my heart, and those are the memories that I wanna share with the people when I get back home.