Thiruvalla, India. On the morning of 9 September, a group of URI leaders from India, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and the United States, with a group of new URI friends from Australia, climbed on a bus and drove to Thiruvalla, a lush town in the lush countryside of Kerala state in southern India.

Our large bus navigated a maze of narrow lanes – populated with small dwellings, each unique and surrounded by the rich variety of trees and flowering plants that are everywhere here – and seemed to be taking us deeper and deeper into the heart of this part of India.

When low power lines over the road made it impossible for us to go any farther, we climbed out of the bus into the moist, rich, warm, but not overly hot air.  We began walking down the tree-lined lane - the trees providing shade we didn’t need on this heavily overcast day. As we walked, we greeted the people who watched us file past. Always, our greeting was returned with warmth and smiles.

After a few minutes walking, we turned right onto a lane that ran slightly downhill. About a block below us, the lane was filled with red plastic chairs filled with men, women and children who were gathered to inaugurate the first URI Peace Center in India!

The vision of the center came about when a local resident, Joseph Chaco, generously donated a small plot of land. A grant of $2500 from URI’s global budget was enough to build a modest building that will be a center for activities designed to make Thiruvalla a more peaceful community through interfaith cooperation and to address a growing intra-Christian conflict in Kerala that threatens to erupt in violence.

I wish everyone in the URI community around the world could have joined us for this inauguration. Could have experienced the surge of joy when the ribbon was cut and people poured into this small and already sacred and safe space. Could have experienced the warm, loving, grateful greetings, first by the local people and then by members of the URI community around the world. Could have looked into the beautiful, shining faces. Could have sat in the green stillness and felt the energy of divine love. Could have shared the simple, gracious hospitality. Could have witnessed the unveiling of the plaque embedded in the wall of the Peace Centre that identifies it as a project of the URI. Could have felt the potent connection this center has already forged between people in this small village and the URI global community.

On behalf of URI’s global community, we presented the Peace Center with a framed certificate that read:

The moment had an air of sacred hope. As he offered his greetings, one guest from Australia recalled the Christian nativity story. Jesus was born in humble circumstances in a small town, and yet, from that humble beginning, the whole course of human history was changed. Our Australian guest said he felt the same sense of the birth of something humble but powerful enough to change the world in the dedication of this peace center.

Another colleague from Australia, who has been active in interfaith work for over 30 years, commented, “URI has shown me something today I’ve never seen before.”

We might have lingered long in the magic of that moment, but we were gently hurried back to our bus for a short ride to the Mar Thoma University where we were welcomed by Metropolitan Philipose Mar Chrysostom, Swami Samagramanada of the Ramakrishna Ashram and Imam Aliyar Maulavi Alkhasimi. All three leaders shone with a gracious, joyful hospitality – great spirits with open hearts and minds.

Bishop Mar Chrysostom, who is head of the Mar Thoma Church, is 90 years young. He has been a bishop for 54 years, two years less than the entire span of my life. He spoke with sparkling eyes and a gentle, playful passion and clarity, asserting that no single tradition holds all the truth about God. The nature of the Ultimate is beyond all of our understandings, and this is an essential reason it is critical that we reach out to know and respect our spiritual neighbors. In this context, he referred to the URI as “an experiment to know God in depth.”

As is so often the case, I feel my words are inadequate to express the fullness of our time inaugurating the peace center and sitting with three remarkable spiritual leaders. But it felt as though we were given a taste of heaven or nirvana – a taste of the world as it might be, as it must be. A taste of the world made possible through interfaith cooperation dedicated to creating cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings.