"An Unlikely Connection" "Evangelism From Another Side" Paperclip movie
From my library (an annotated list of Dialogue resources)
What happens when a Bible-believing Christian, and a cultural Jew whose “bibles” are The Little Prince and Winnie the Pooh, get to be the closest of friends?
Neither my friend nor I ever expected to learn the answer to that question!. But, it seems, God had a little surprise for both of us! In the summer of 2001, He brought us together for the first time—Ethel, the Bible-believing Christian from California and Ellen, the cultural Jew from New York.
Each of us believed then, as we do today, in the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule. And we both believe in God, though possibly the way we each see him in our mind’s eye, differs slightly. That being the case, and because we have always shared these things, we also share a basic value system.
Beyond that, we are as far apart as the two coasts on which we live. The contrasting worlds we grew up in provided for us a series of boxes—some meant to protect, some meant to stifle—and all of which restricted our view of the worlds outside our own.
But when we met, something clicked between us. Virtually instantly we found ourselves sitting on the rim of our boxes exchanging stories, ideas, thoughts—then, soon enough, even feelings--and finding inroads through the walls that had kept us from seeing each other’s worlds rightly. 
We have now filled tens of thousands of e-mail pages with honest opinions, questions, researched ideas, dredged up histories, and incredible metaphors and epiphanies--not to mention the aforementioned ideas, thoughts and feelings. Our goal is to pass these on, in order to help Christians, Jews, religious and non-religious folks of a thousand different varieties break down barriers, learn to communicate—and have a great time doing it.
If we can just begin looking each other in the eye and talking without worrying about concealed weapons, then what might happen? How much might we learn? How much might we grow? How many barriers might topple? And what might we discover about the power of genuine love, caring and tolerance to change the world?
Look for e&E on the following URL's. Two
magazine articles about Dialogue and what
we are learning from the experience~
"An Unlikely Connection" By Ethel Herr and Ellen Cohen
Excerpts from an on-going e-mail conversation between friends of different faiths teaches important lessons about mutual respect and honesty — at the heart of true friendship.
http://www.freemethodistchurch.org/Magazine/Articles/May-
June%202003/M-J_2003_HerrCohen.htm
" Evangelism From Another Side" By Ethel Herr (with Ellen Cohen)
A short essay on putting away the sword and learning to listen to our friends, learn from them and mostly to love
as we have been loved by God.
http://www.intouch.org/site/c.dhKHIXPKIuE/b.2406769/
apps/s/content.asp?ct=3404893
A Lesson in Communication
A Sample of Our Dialogue
before now i never had a friend who could or would challenge me... and I'M LOVING IT! my brain is bouncing all over my cranium
I think I can pretty much say the same thing. By the time we get through with our dialogue ~ no, better yet and more plausible (because I doubt we shall ever finish it) after a few months of this dialogue, I will know far more what it is I believe than I did when we began. Even as we cannot fully know good until we know evil (remember when you told me this recently?), neither can we know what we believe until we know how the person who disagrees with us believes or thinks.
Look what's coming * * * * Watch for them here! We'll let you know as soon as they are available.!
We're working on several projects which we hope to have ready for your purchase in the near future:
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Conversations From the Rim of the Box: Adventures In Theological Spelunking
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