Several years ago I went to Tanzania to visit my brother who lived there at the time. One day he had some business to do in the city and so I went with him to look around. Dar Es Salaam is not the most salubrious of places and I was warned not to stray too far. Sadly I have a real rebellious streak and if someone tells me not to do something I usually go right ahead and do it. It wasn’t long before I was completely lost in what I discovered was one of the worst areas of the city and one in which the white population would never venture.

I began to panic particularly as I walked along because on every corner there were huge gangs of youths whose eyes followed me around the road. They would occasionally walk threateningly towards me and then back off laughing. I was not only lost but also felt completely alien in a place where my language, colour and creed weren’t acceptable. I was never more relieved than when I found myself back on the main street.

Judge others on the most superficial criteria

I felt judged by the people I met on those streets in Dar Es Salaam and there’s no doubt that I judged them because they were different than me. Alas the truth is we all judge others and condemn them usually on the most superficial criteria. We judge one another on the colour of our skin, our economic standing, the creed we profess. The categories we use to separate ourselves from others are endless. I’ve often wondered why that is and have come to the conclusion that it’s easier to judge someone else than face our own fear of otherness. That fear threatens to overwhelm us and so we don’t hear the imperative that Matthew gives in his Gospel ‘do not judge.’ Our fear is too great, too strong!

Over the summer I have become very aware of the level of intolerance that we have towards one another and the innate inability to accept difference that seems to lie in all our hearts. It seems as though as individuals, and as nations we have to have someone to blame and point the finger at. I think it’s probably the cause of much of the violence in the world.

My awareness has been increased because of various situations I have found myself in where I have marvelled at some people’s small mindedness. That has made me take a long hard look at myself and I have recognised within myself that I have a need to embrace otherness and not be afraid of it. I have recognised again that I have to experience the conversion that the Word of God calls me too.

Accepting differences with love

Somehow within me that miracle has to take place where I no longer feel the need to divide and separate. Somehow the Spirit has to set me free of my own fear of others and my need to be right and others to be wrong. This is simply a way of building up my own ego. Deep within the spirit has to plant the seed of love that can grow and enlarge my heart.

What does conversion mean if not that our hearts are to become bigger and we are able to accept one another with all our differences in love. That doesn’t mean we have to accept everyone else’s point of view nor does it mean that we have to let go of what we hold to be true but it does mean that we have to be big enough to love people whatever their viewpoint.

It is then that we have the ability to enter into dialogue with people, to share the Gospel with them and enable them to grow a little more. As long as we dig our feet in and use those words that so often fall off our lips ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ then we fight a losing battle and everyone simply remains entrenched where they are.

Fr Chris Thomas heads up the Irenaeus Project. He is a member of the Emmaus Family of Prayer and a priest of the Liverpool Diocese.