Every morning I go running. I start from my house in a largely Hispanic working-class community, pass under the window of my elderly neighborhood sentry surveying the world from his second-story post, return the salute of a column of homeless guys guarding the church steps, exchange greetings with young, upwardly-mobile types walking their dogs, wave to a multi-national assemblage of workers constructing a building, maneuver through the obstacle course of wayward tourists chattering in various foreign tongues, exchange grunts with reluctant executives trudging to work, and dodge a plethora of panhandlers reciting their desperate mantras. Then I turn around and head home. In one hour's time each day I bid good morning to old people, young people, men, women, laborers, office workers, and executives -- representatives of every continent, with the possible exception of Antarctica.

While my sunrise salutations may exaggerate the norm, they are certainly not an anomaly. City dwellers brush shoulders every day with people who remain anonymous and whose stories are unknown. To live in the city provides a kaleido-scopic view of humanity in all its color and vibrancy. I thrive on it. It's the reason I choose city life. It can also be perplexing, however, as I doze off many a night to a caco-phony of sirens screaming and helicopters hovering. I'm baffled when the same adolescents who cheerfully hold the door for me at the 7-11 in the morning defiantly harass me at the bookstore where I work at night.

Unwilling to join the exodus to the suburbs, I continually search for ways to find order in the chaos. Very few forums address the contradictions. Media reports magnify the turmoil by their focus on conflict rather than resolution.

Last spring, through my work with the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies (ICJS), I was invited to work on an initiative that promises to untangle some of the twisted threads. With Baltimore as the "test site," the ICJS is developing a pilot project that invites individuals from different faiths and cultural backgrounds to share their unique personal histories in an effort to open communication and foster understanding. The stimulus for these conversations is the viewing of tapes from Bill Moyers' series, Genesis: A Living Conversation.

With the Genesis series, Moyers takes the leap from creative, provocative entertainment to a serious attempt at catalyzing positive change. Moyers produced the series out of a deep conviction that the book of Genesis -- sacred across three faiths and familiar to a large segment of our society -- could serve as a tool for interaction among the various and diverse members of a community. In his own words, "The capacity of biblical stories to ... help make sense of the world and live honorably in it, is undiminished ... The important thing is to ask, 'What does [the Bible] mean to us, now, in our lives, nearing the end of the 20th century? How does it help us to make sense of the world today?'"

For six weeks this fall, some 300 persons from twenty-seven religious congregations around Baltimore are meeting in dia-logue groups to investigate the stories of Genesis. Each group includes representatives from African-American Christian, Jewish, and white Christian congregations. The Genesis stories serve as a common ground where participants are welcome to gather and express hopes, concerns, and observations about their personal lives and their shared struggles.

Baltimoreans are primed for this type of interaction. The leader of one congregation, fearing it might be difficult to recruit the requested ten participants for the project, solicited volun-teers. He was forced to close registration when almost thirty people signed up. This eager response characterizes all of the congregations involved. One young African-American woman expressed her hope for the project and observed, "I pass Jewish people on the street every day, but we never talk ... " Another participant suggested that these dialogues would help "put faces on the issues."

The Genesis project provides a refreshing opportunity for Balti-more, this community of unsettling discord and infinite promise. With the success of this project and its subsequent replication in urban centers across the nation, Baltimore will claim its rightful identity as a city that deals creatively with its diversity.

While the dialogues may not eliminate our urban woes, they may open a few doors and forge a few friendships. Undoubted-ly, they will make living here a richer and more meaningful experience, as the threads of our city's multi-cultural, inter-faith tapestry are examined and appreciated, each for its own brilliant hue.