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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." *
Blunt Dialogue12/02/2005 08:49:45I've complained about this before, and so has anyone who bothers: the sort of watered-down talk that religious people sometimes use when engaging in "dialogue" (as it is always called) with people from other traditions. Outright conflict is always avoided because we pretend that there is no reason for it to exist. And believe me, I'm to blame. I've been known to say, "Can't we just focus on what we have in common?" But the other night the Catholic Community here at Brown brought in a wonderful speaker, a Fr. James from St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Mass, a Trappist house, to talk about contemplative prayer. At first, he was surprised to see that there were Jews in the audience, and then who knows who else, that not everybody was coming from the womb of the Church. But anyhow (and humbly) he said from the outset that he was only really going to talk about Christianity because that's what he knows and he hoped they would understand. And then also that of course this God he's talking about is the God of Abraham and all of us etc., so what could be not universal? And that's exactly what he did. For about forty-five minutes James discoursed in patchwork fashion on the love God has for us and the calling and example of the person of Jesus, the Lord who rescues us. He did so with tremendous humor and warmth, a gentleness and a big smile, and slang words that make it clear he's been in hibernation since the seventies. He talked about Bernard, the Song of Songs, and Augustine, but really all that in passing: the main deal was earnestly speaking about the love of God and its reality in the monastery and out. It was the closest thing to actual evangelism I think I've ever seen in my life. Nobody got up and dove into the baptismal font, and nobody's soul was perhaps changed by it except mine. But at least he demonstrated, as Paul did with all of his being as he traveled, this is what a Christian looks like, and with it came a human presence, an honest and funny one, saying, whatever this is, it is a reality of human experience and the universe as real as you see me before you now. And one can't help but want to be this man's friend. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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