When dialogue is mentioned, most people associate it with talking. Not so for the participants of The East-West Dialogue for Peacemaking, an event held this past June in Amman, Jordan. Thirty participants from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, the United States, and Canada came away associating effective dialogue with good listening. The art of good listening, they learned, is key to effective dialogue and peacemaking.
During the 4-day conference, participants, both Muslims and Christians, spent intensive time together informally and in sessions developing relationships and learning from the rich and diverse experiences of each other.
“When we build friendship we are one step closer to peace,” says Mouhammad Aref El Hassan, from Lebanon who was also at the conference in 2009. “…There are a lot of people out there that want to understand and to be understood.”
One of those people was Sara Anderson who attends Kitchener Mennonite Brethren Church and who recently completed her first year in the Global Studies program at Wilfred Laurier University focusing on Peace and Conflict in the Middle East and Muslim Studies. She was interested in this Dialogue as a way of putting into action some of the lessons she learned in the classroom, and as a way to learn more about what it means to be a Christian in the world. “I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the culture and customs in the Middle East and how I, as a Christian, am to live in a multi-faith world.”
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| Sara Anderson (far right) speaking with three participants from the Middle East |
