In These Times…Presence or Absence?

 

Not only do we need to know when to be ‘wise as a serpent and simple as a dove,’ when we are present in these times of ours, we need to decide whether to be present at all.

When we are with those who are so different, so opposite ourselves in belief, in race, in culture, in opinion, we can arrange to be emotionally absent. It’s just safer. I remain aloof. Uninvolved. So my challenge can be to be present at all.

To go as Francis urges, to the periphery, to the frontiers, may just mean to step outside my psychological comfort zone. What might this look like?

When I began to talk with Muslims about twenty-five years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. I rather ‘felt’ my way. We were to meet at Aquinas Institute, so I suggested we discuss the Qur’an, admitting we Catholics knew nothing about it. This seemed to even out the playing field a bit, because the Imam, Dr. Waheed Rana, was coming to unfamiliar ground in a Christian building, and so we Christians would be on unfamiliar ground discussing the Qur’an. We did this, and Dr. Rana soon felt at ease coming to our building, and we became more and more familiar with the Qur’an. Then one day he said to me, “We ought to be discussing your Holy Book too.” He felt at home enough to risk being introduced to the New Testament.

It was then that I discovered that going out to the edges was first of all a matter of the heart. Dr. Rana had experienced that there was room for him in our hearts. That was why he felt comfortable to explore our scripture. We had shown him we could make room for his difference in our hearts and then in our building. We had offered him, so different from us, a hospitality of the heart, a kind of presence. This encounter continued until he died. He knew he could be present to us, and we knew we were accepted warmly to be present to him. He was different, and so were we. But despite that difference we could be really present to each other.

When we say that these next four years we will be focusing on presence, maybe that is where to begin with others who are very different…risking the offering of a hospitality of the heart.