Dialogue is Between Persons

Dialogue is between persons, not between ideologies or factions or religions. This is another conviction driven home by Stephanie Saldaña's article, "On Teachers as Angels" (see my blog of 24 July). She says, "dialogue can only really exist between people; not between faiths." Even if we talk about a dialogue of cultures or of faiths, ultimately it has to be personal. It has to be one that involves the whole person. This is very beautiful.

I think of Msgr. Thomas Menamparampil's peace mediations and peace missions -- peace dialogues -- in the North-East of India. Michael Gleich,  in the website Peace Counts, reports of his interview with Bishop Thomas entitled "God's Rapid Response Team," http://www.peace-counts.org/gods-rapid-response-team/. In it, Bishop Thomas insists on an awareness of one's own shortcomings and strengths. His conviction is that listening to the others without judging has a healing power. This is wonderful. Listening (h)as healing. It is the basic skill that a peace-worker should have. Listening is the best art (and the most difficult one too). How true! The basic attitude on non-judgmental listening also points towards hope. Saldaña says: "To have hope in the midst of conflict is also to believe that every small action will bear fruit in eternity." To deal with conflict situations, one needs hope and a non-judgmental openness, and of course one has to be aware of one's own weaknesses and one's own fragility.

In this encounter of persons, another necessary condition would be a context of friendship. Without friendship, a true dialogue cannot be achieved. Bishop Thomas says that after having given time for expressing anger and other emotions in a conflict-resolving dialogue, the persons should talk and share about on those that we agree. Start with agreements, not the differences. The differences can be a topic of dialogue, but that has to come only later. Stephanie Saldaña's interesting affirmation that her Christian faith was saved precisely because of Muslims made me think a lot. She says, "It would not be an overstatement to say that I discovered my faith, my Christianity, in the midst of Islam—that I was inspired to see that the Sermon on the Mount, and the radical compassion asked for in the gospels, might actually be possible. For the first time, I saw that I had cut myself off from other people, and I realized that to be Christian is only possible in communion with others, something I had lost in the midst of my busy life in America. I experienced my faith profoundly by being a guest in the homes of others, mostly Muslims but also Christians, who took care of me without even knowing who I was, who recognized me and claimed me as their own." God's plans are indeed marvellous, unfathomable.