Which Dress Do You Like Best

Which Dress Do You Like Best? The following memory I will outline may seem an excessively informal anecdote for a paper as such but it reveals truth in the point I will be presenting. When I was a senior in high school and prom season arrived it was a common practice among me and two other friends to go shopping for our dress on Saturdays. The drill consisted of trying on several dresses and asking the two other friends their opinion, when we found a dress that all three agreed on (given the price was reasonable) we would settle for the dress. I recall a particular dress, trying that dress on and asking my two friends what they thought. One of them absolutely approved, she said the dress fit my style and my way of being, such as the color reflecting my personality and fitting my usual style of doing things. I never really understood her affinity for the dress, but somehow for her the dress was very “Anabella”. On the contrary my other friend did not like that dress on me, and not because I looked bad but because somehow for her the dress did not fit who I was. Did that mean for me some sort of personality disorder or discord in my way of being? No, not at all! Rather it reflected that they saw different aspects of who I was reflected in different dresses and different styled. I think this is relevant for the human experience of God. God wears different dresses in different religious traditions, and even among the same traditions. And we as humans dress Her in the attire we like best, the attire that is more “God” to us; in the same manner my friend saw “Anabella” in that dress. I found in Thomas Merton’s life and in the position delivered by Pope Paul VI in Nostra Aetate, an extremely inclusive and integrated view of other religions. I find it almost healthy and necessary for our own spiritual journey to understand the path other great religious traditions have taken and why they see God as God in that dress. In the document delivered on October 28th, 1965