We have reached month-end again, these last few days of October, when autumn is well and truly with us as pavements and gardens are littered with the fall of leaves, when summer greens have become yellow and brown.

 Last week saw the third and final debate between this year’s candidates for the Presidency of the United States . They have been like no other debates since Nixon first faced Kennedy in 1960. Acrimonious, sensational, bad-tempered and spiteful, but in the choice between Clinton and Trump, I would suggest the former Secretary of State wins by a country mile.

 It is not our election, we have no vote, but we will live with the consequences. Our world is a dangerous place without a loose cannon in the White House.

 Most of our life is spent in dialogue of one form or another, sometimes successful, at other times our countless words get us nowhere. We go away, think awhile and come back again for another go. We talk with each other far more than we exchange written words.

 The Church is likewise a group of many people in dialogue, from the small groups that form a parish council all the way through to the great Councils of the Church, with many pausing points on the way. Together we are trying to live the message of the Gospels, asking questions, looking for solutions, experiencing the times we live in.

 Recently one such gathering, was the Synod called by Francis to look at issues affecting the family. It by no means resolved all of our difficulties but it started a discussion, another few steps on the journey.

 Too often we mistakenly use the term ‘dialogue’ when we really mean ’I have got the answers, listen to me!’ and so we get nowhere. If dialogue is to take place then we must prepare the circumstances before hand, taking care with the signals we send prior to discussion, avoiding a confrontational room-setting, bringing to the gathering a sincerity of intention. It is in this light that preparations for the Lutheran 500 year anniversary are being made. Small gestures that offer a hand-hold rather than provocative statements that establish inflexible positions. After all, the first Council called in Jerusalem was no easy matter, but a solution was reached after dialogue had taken place.

 One of the continuous threads in the developing thought of Francis revolves round this need for dialogue between peoples, a patient approach to finding a solution to problems whether secular or religious. Such an activity must run through the Church, from the parish council of a village community, through larger parishes to diocesan level and beyond. Dialogue arises from a need to find resolution. Newman’s plea to his Birmingham bishop, Ullathorne, during the first Council of the Vatican – ‘why can’t the people be left in peace? – was his response to the infallibility proposals. We have a similar phrase in the English language – ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

 The language we use when talking to each other must have a common understanding. Wrapping up a solution with technicalities will only mean that we have to return to the same discussion at a later date to unravel the detail. We would do well to remember the story of the old lady sitting at the back of church after everyone had left. When asked by the priest who had just offered mass, if she was saying her prayers, her response was simple. ‘I sits here and looks at him and he sits there and looks at me’. Deep faith and sound theology indeed.

 It is hard to talk without the invitation to do so, to lay out a position without knowing whether or not there will be the warmth of response or the cold atmosphere of rejection that suggests unwanted interference.

 Sermons often do not attend to the Christian response to current activities and it is easy to see the development of ignorance amongst the people. The teaching church goes way beyond possible attendance at catholic schools, it is at the core of our Christian lives. But how can we respond if the paucity of our knowledge limits our involvement in dialogue?

 We have only a few days left before what has supposedly been presidential dialogue but has often degenerated to the level of insult, is concluded with an election result. It has been an unedifying spectacle to say the least. Let’s hope that the outcome serves to heal a bruised and divided society.  

 We would do well to remember Michelle Obama’s words. ‘When you go low, we go high’

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