A poet once offered that the world can be read into small events. The small event into which I shall read things about our Christian and Jewish Educators Study Group is a moment of awkwardness when, one morning in January, we were asked to describe "the essentials" about God as taught and under-stood by our own traditions. As a Jew, I found it very difficult to frame a satisfying answer, especially one that represents Judaism and that all the Jews in the room could agree on. After all, Judaism allows for a wide variety of ideas about God.

And then it dawned on us . . . Someone noted that we were having difficulty because the question was asked and an-swered by Christians in a very different way, and we Jews were trying, for their sake, to fit our answers into the same kind of format, i.e., into a creed. It didn't work! We think in different categories and idiom.

I raise this scenario as an example of what happens, for me at least, in our meetings. I learn about myself as well as my counterparts. What do I really believe? Who am I? What do my reactions and responses, to Dabru Emet or anything else, tell me about myself? What do I not believe, and who am I not? After four years, a degree of trust and safety has been established. The faces and personalities are familiar; admira-tion and mutual respect are palpable. I would even use the word "intimacy" because we expose and share our gut-level beliefs, responses, values, truths, doubts, wounds, fears, hopes, ideals, and commitments. We, or at least I, can risk venturing an answer to a question, or a question to an answer, not as a theoretical, abstract exercise in an ivory tower but in the spirit of soul-searching exploration, discovery, and identity-building. We do this in the interest of uncovering how religion informs our lives. And, I can listen and take in what others are saying.

This requires a certain kind of container that has been built to hold such thrilling work . . . such real "meeting" between "I" and "Thou." (Work that is loved because it is hard!) It is this container of honesty and searching, of intellectual and spiritual stimulation, to which I gladly return and participate time after time.

The enterprise we are engaged in through this inter-faith study group goes way beyond helping to formulate companion study guides or testing out possible adult education exercises. It seems to me that we are engaged in a much bigger and more meaningful effort. Several poems have articulated and crystallized the larger significance of what we are doing. William Stafford puts it this way:

And there is a wonderful line in Robert Frost's Two Tramps in Mud Time: " . . . As my two eyes make one in sight." This suggests to me that greater insight into the nature of Reality, into God and the workings of the world, can be had by com-paring notes, sharing our partial and tentative "truths" in the interest of Truth.

And one last poetic reference, to Stanley Kunitz, who directs us to "Live in the layers, not on the litter."

I want to commend and thank Rosann and Chris and the ICJS staff, board, and supporters for this part of their work. The Christian and Jewish Educators Study Group is a meaningful and valuable part of my life, and I leave each time delighted to be a part of it. I cherish the colleagues I have met and worked with in our meetings and remain grateful for the opportunity to grow and stretch in this way.

Geoffrey Basik is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, and a former employee of the Center for Jewish Education here in Baltimore.