Seeking a new era of religious dialogue

An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, Anniversary of John Main, WCCM International Newsletter, Winter, 1996. 

Perhaps one of the perplexing dilemmas for traditional Christianity today is the meaning of communicating the gospel in a non-competitive way in the context of relationships with other faiths. For the exclusivist Christian, this is nonsensical. But perhaps the Spirit is trying to teach us something. Perhaps Christianity is learning that if it is truly universal it must find and recognize itself in all forms of human spiritual experience and in every kind of spiritual event. [. . . .]

We [must seek] a new era of religious dialogue, of tolerance, mutual reverence and of learning from each other in a way those before us could never have imagined. Isn’t this so compatible with the personality and example of Jesus? He rejected no-one, tolerated all and saw the mystery of God in all people and in nature. He ate with those he should have despised; he spoke with those he should have avoided. He was as open to others as he was to God.  [. . . .]

In Jesus, time and eternity intersect. But the intersection happens in human poverty of spirit. Poverty is the point where infinite mystery meets concrete existence. Poverty is not only the absence of things but the awareness of our need for others, for God. Human neediness is universal. The riches and the most powerful, like the poorest and most marginalized, are all equally in need. 

Need is simply the strong feeling that arises in response to the fact of interdependence. Wisdom is the recognition of our inter-relatedness, and compassion is the practice of our connectedness. In meditation we dive to a level of reality deeper than our surface, ego-driven minds where we are so often caught in the net of illusion of our independence and isolation. Untangling from that net is the daily work of meditation and it is also the new pattern of the practice of the presence of God in ordinary life.