What Is Dialogue?

A simple enough question; it is more than just talk Pope Francis says, using Thomas Merton as an American example. Thomas Merton, a contemplative monk living in a hermitage in rural Kentucky, never –the- less dialogued with many thinkers world-wide. He dialogued with the farmer living next door, the driver who sometimes drove him to Louisville, the monks of the Orient, the editors of his papers, all types, all levels of education and society.

How is his dialogue more than just talk? In his conversion experience Merton explains. “In Louisville at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I was theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers….There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Next he erected a wagon wheel in front of his hermitage, an image to remind himself of this core belief. It is a rather large wagon wheel with a center space having spokes leading from the center to the rim. The center space is Christ, who is Love; each spoke is the Spirit reaching out to men, breathing out from the center of love, reaching toward all men on the rim who are all connected- connected to the source of love and to each other.

Without the center space and spokes, without love and Spirit, the rim just keeps repeating itself. There is no dialogue- just each person repeating his own theory, own philosophy, own ideas. Self becomes the center; there is no true dialogue, no ears to hear another, no eye to see the center, only one’s own leg to stand upon, only my thoughts, my running commentary. No wonder Jesus said to cut off one’s leg, if it causes you to sin- the sin of not listening to the truth.

Christ’s love is the source- the love He has for each and all of us- all inclusive. In the wagon wheel all are equal in the eyes of the center space; all are equally spaced from each other to make perfect turning, joined with each other perfectly only if we are joined to the center as well as each other. His love is always reaching all men, His love equal to all men, so all men can turn their words, their actions around Him to make the wheel, the world, themselves, run smoothly.

Equally dialogue must be silent; the tongue must be quiet so the ears and hearts of others are opened. The heart and mind attentive, actively, attentively listening to the other, using the eyes, the ears, the mind, the will to dialogue with each other. The heart becomes open- open to the gifts of the Spirit which Christ has placed in another, open to act with justice, open to love tenderly, open to serve one another, to shine with the joy and love of the Lord.

“What about you” challenges Pope Francis? Are you ready to dialogue?