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And this brings me to what I believe.

I believe that life is a spiritual struggle.

I believe in being gracious to others.

I believe in the power of science fiction.

I believe in singing badly.

I believe that god lives in the space between people.

I believe in so much more than freedom of speech, and I believe that it’s time that we all took a stand.

This I believe.

Many compelling stories began with a stranger coming to town. This I believe essayist, Madhukar Rao, follow that plot line twice as a child. First his family moved from India to Massachusetts when he was a toddler. Then about a dozen years later, he moved again, to New Jersey. Rao found that crossing state lines was harder than crossing oceans. And he arrived in town, a stranger with fresh eyes, no prejudices and a simple question.

I believe in the power of simple questions.

Back in 1974, when I was 16, my family moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey when my father changed jobs. It was a difficult transition for me: I was a junior in high school and had to leave the friends and community I’d known well to get used to new surroundings and attend a school where I was a stranger.

I remember how lonely I felt that first day of school. I was among the first students in the cafeteria at lunchtime, and sat at a table in one corner of the large room. As more people filtered in, I noticed all the students sitting near me were black, and all the white students were sitting on the other side of the room. I found this very strange — as if an invisible dividing line stretched across the cafeteria. This voluntary segregation was new to me, but I stayed where I was.

Some of the black students gave me odd looks as I sat alone, quietly eating my lunch. Part way through the lunch period, a tall, muscular, black student, whom I’ll call Jake, walked over and stood across from me. He put his hands on the table and leaned forward. With his face close to mine, he firmly said, “Aren’t you sitting with the wrong kind of people?”

Immediately, my fight-or-flight response kicked into high gear. What should I do? Should I defend myself? Should I let him intimidate me and undermine my self-respect? The other students suddenly became quiet, waiting for my response.

Jake had laid down the gauntlet, but I decided not to take the bait. I looked at him and innocently asked, “What do you mean, the wrong kind of people?”

He was dumbfounded. He stared at me for a few seconds, shook his head, then walked away. My simple question had disarmed him. I had neither compromised my beliefs, nor validated his racism. I slowly calmed down, and ate the rest of my lunch without incident.

This experience taught me that simple questions like “what do you mean?” hold tremendous power. They signal a desire to understand and a willingness to listen. My simple question met intolerance with tolerance. I could have argued my right to remain where I sat, or told Jake to leave me alone. But becoming defensive probably would have lead to a lot of shouting — and I would have been lucky if it had ended there. Instead, I had invited him into a dialogue.

I like to think my question challenged Jake to confront his racism, but I’ll never know for sure. I do know that when I would see him in the cafeteria for the rest of that year, he would look at me and nod as he passed. Although he never smiled at me, I took his acknowledgments as a sign that we had made a small connection.

I believe in the power of simple questions. Simple questions signal humility and an openness to listen non-judgmentally. They also serve as powerful weapons against intolerance.

Madhukar Rao is a chemical engineer and serves on the Board of Volunteers of America of Pennsylvania. His essay was produced by John Gregory and Dan Gediman. Next week we'll hear a story of addiction and recovery. If you'd like to write an essay about the core belief that guides your life and submit it to our series, go to the website thisibelieve.org.