Transformative Dialogue

I recently read the book Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh: Engaged Spirituality in an Age of Globalization by Robert King. The book focused on Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh’s vision and lived engaged spirituality and interreligious dialogue. Although I read the book for a class it spoke to me personally. Through my internship this semester with interfaith ministry I have been working on interreligious dialogue and developing my own place in interreligious dialogue. It was extremely helpful for me to learn about Merton’s experience with interreligious dialogue. Through my personal experience with interreligious dialogue I have found, like Merton, that our similarities and common desire for prayer brings us together. However, I have been struggling to find a balance between engaging in dialogue and incorporating other religions, particularly Buddhism, into my own spirituality. I have been asking myself: Where do I draw the line between what I can integrate into my spirituality as a Catholic? Merton and the author of this book helped me answer that question by expressing that engaging Buddhism does not mean losing my Catholicism. The author of the book writes that, “without ceasing to be a Christian, I found myself looking at the world more and more through Buddhist eyes. I was for the first time experiencing Buddhism as a living religion” (141). It is comforting to know that even when I’m doing Buddhist meditation or chanting mantras written by Thich Nhat Hanh I am not ceasing to be Catholic. It is freeing to hear that men like Merton, Nhat Hanh, and King all deepened and enhanced their spirituality by their experience of other religions. This semester my work with interfaith has been educational, prayerful, and transformative and I can’t wait to continue my growth through interfaith next semester.

-Elaina Jo

Interfaith Trivia

Last night the interfaith companions hosted an interfaith trivia night. One of the best parts of the event was the preparation that went into it. About a month ago I started doing research to create the questions. It was fun to research and learn about the food, clothes, holidays, important people, sacred cities, and texts of different faith traditions. It is probably the religious studies major in me that ended up spending so much time reading about all these different topics to come up with the trivia questions. I think it really speaks to why I am interning in interfaith ministry, because I am genuinely interested in other religions and want to teach others about them too. It was wonderful to see my work come to life as the students worked through the five rounds of trivia questions I had created. I was proud of the work I had done and excited to be sharing my knowledge of diverse faith traditions with other students. There was a positive atmosphere during the whole event. It was fun and also brought interfaith dialogue alive as students talked about the answers or questions that they learned new things from. It reminded me that I am blessed to go to a university where interfaith programming is valued, and how extremely blessed I am to be a part of it.

-Elaina Jo