In March 2003, we found ourselves at war. Even as our troops entered another's land to bring about stability, our hopes for a peaceful resolution resonated in every house of worship throughout this great land. We prayed for life and for a peace that would endure. But we remained shaken and concerned.

Just at that time, I boarded a train to Baltimore to begin a journey that would be, in many ways, the greatest test I have yet encountered.

God tells Abraham to leave his home, the place he was raised, the place he knows, and travel to another land (Genesis 12:1). Our tradition remarks that we need to move if we are going to grow. We need to challenge ourselves if we are to mature spiritually. I arrived at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center for the Congregational Clergy Consultation of the Insti-tute for Christian & Jewish Studies, and the expedition began.

For two days I sat alongside rabbis, priests, ministers, and pastors, from many denominations of Christianity and Judaism. We opened the sacred books of our faiths and unpacked the lessons of our traditions. We gained insight and we grew. At times the debate waged, while at other times the revelations flowed more serenely. And we learned all the while. We learned new vocabulary so we could speak to each other, and the hours flew by. Like a child, I thirsted for every word, trying to absorb every detail. I began to walk in another world, another country, on a landscape that was unfamiliar. It was a new land, with a new language.

In time, I began to gain a confidence I had not known before. I became more confident in my people, my rituals, and my customs. Most of all, I gained confidence in our survival. Con-fronted by another religion's commentary on my own, I thought I would be more defensive, more distant. Yet in the dialogue, so deeply grounded in respect, a door was opened to an honesty that was conforting.

Now I sit in my office and study again. However, the texts are more alive, more demanding, and more immediate than before. The urgency of uncovering greater meaning in my sacred literary past breathes new excitement. Like a child learning to read, my appetite is as ravenous as when I discovered these texts for the first time. I stand ready now to continue the dis-cussion and begin new ones.