Dialogue: The Change Encounter

“I'm not in the business of converting anybody. Dialogue is not about bringing people around to your side of things. It's about offering them something, and if they don't like it, fine. Dialogue is about being prepared to be changed by the encounter.” - Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong, she of A History of God (published in 1993) and a Charter for Compassion, says something very important in that last sentence above. It is something that I think few people appreciate and even fewer believe. The validity of my contention was upheld in a short chat stream I read recently on Facebook.

Several of my ministry colleagues were bemoaning their experience of younger colleagues who seem to be getting increasingly conservative in their religious thinking and practice. What struck me quite unexpectedly was that the conclusion of many conversations between these folks comes when the seemingly more conservative participants assert that others in the dialogue, who do not agree with 'them', just aren't Christian. Not so!!

It seems to me that in many of these conversations there is at least one party who has come to the dialogue with no expectation of learning anything, of being changed. The sole expectation seems to be to teach the other, to convert them. Perhaps, on some occasions, both parties to the dialogue come with that perspective. The world all around us – all around them and you and me – that world is shouting that openness to learning and change is mandatory – for all of us. To not be open to the possibility is to totally miss the boat! Let me share this very practical, personal example:

Here I am, currently, in Florida at the very exact same place I was last winter for three months. This year, the stay is planned for four months. Same community, same weather, same visitors, same neighbours, nothing has changed. Not so!! The neighbours – who also happen to be the landlord – are in the process of moving to a different home in this community. She is about 75, he is in his early 80s and for the past two months they have been refurbishing a 3-bedroom home into which they are starting to move. They have done a great deal of the work themselves. We do not know who will be living in the other side of our duplex after these folks move out.

The duplex, the community may indeed be similar but it is not the same. And I am certainly not the same. I come to this sojourn in Florida a whole year older, still in the process of recuperating from significant surgery, therefore several pounds lighter, and with a notably different agenda than I had last year. I still plan to do a lot of reading, walking, and bicycling but I also plan to be very intentional about getting better acquainted with this community, meeting people, attending theatre, art, social functions. I am and will be different.

So, any dialogue I participate in over the coming four months will be impacted by a different me and a different situation. I have changed. My world in changing. I had better be open to change in the other – and they in me. I believe I am. I wasn't always as open as I am now. There is hope – for all of us! I believe the best I can do, and would urge others similarly, is to come to dialogue in that hope. And when the conversation is over – however it may conclude, move on!