With our times marred by growing fundamentalist violence and hatred, we need to create interfaith communities of spiritual practice characterized by compassion and mutual understanding. My own experience has shown me that it is possible for us to deepen our own spiritual practice and live out our divine inheritance by sharing the Holy silence with people from other faith traditions of the world. During the past three years, a small group of us have discovered that we can participate in a spiritual fellowship of various religions without sacrificing the core beliefs of our own religious identity. We learned that we have more in common at the level of spiritual practice and experience than we have differences.

The invitation to gather came from an Episcopal priest. The members include a Sufi (Muslim) originally from Iran, a Zen Buddhist priest, a Roman Catholic lay person, a Reform Jewish rabbi, and myself as a minister in the United Church of Christ. We are equally divided between women and men. Our interfaith spiritual practice group meets twice a month for ninety minutes in San Rafael.

When we gather we experience spiritual nourishment in the shared silence of meditation and contemplative prayer. As individuals we seek to grow toward our divine inheritance by working to support cultures of peace, justice and healing in the larger world.

In the first ten minutes members gather and check-in with each other. Using a system of rotating leadership, the leader for that day introduces a spiritual practice or reflection from her or his own religious tradition. This is followed by twenty minutes of silence as we do the practice together. During the next fifteen minutes there is a time of reflection and group sharing about our experience of the practice. This is often followed by one of us sharing an event from her or his own spiritual journey. In the last fifteen or twenty minutes there is a time to share our hopes and concerns for ourselves or for the larger world. Sometimes one person requests support for a personal situation. In closing we stand in a circle holding hands in silence for a minute or two and conclude with a prayer for an absent member and/or concern for our wounded world.

During one of the periods of sharing the subject of human suffering came up. The Roman Catholic and the Buddhist were in dialogue about the meaning and acceptance of suffering found in their respective traditions. As the conversation progressed, we all learned how each tradition brings a certain kind of light to this issue. There were similarities and there were differences, but in the dialogue it was possible to see how each tradition, each side of this spiritual issue illuminated and deepened the other side. Following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, it was so helpful for us to discuss the authentic beliefs of Islam with our Sufi member as we struggled to make some sense of this terrible violence.

In this interfaith group we have experienced compassion and mutual understanding that nourishes the soul. It is also a tiny microcosm that supports peacemaking in the larger world at a very deep level.