Faith and community leaders from across North America gathered in Oxford, Ohio, to strengthen their capacity to remain in relationship through some of the most difficult conversations facing their communities.
What becomes possible when we meet one another with curiosity?
From September 4–7, 2026, approximately 30 religious, spiritual, and community leaders from across North America came together in Oxford, Ohio, for the in-person portion of URI North America’s Leading with Curiosity & Courage cohort.
The gathering was part of a larger learning journey offered by URI to interfaith leaders and practitioners, exploring how the wisdom of our diverse faith traditions can support courageous curiosity in our world today .
Before arriving in Oxford, participants met virtually to begin building relationships, establish shared commitments, and explore the practices needed to engage difficult conversations with greater honesty, compassion, and courage. The in-person retreat allowed those relationships to deepen in ways that are only possible when people share the same space.
Participants traveled from across the United States—including California, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Minnesota, New York, and Washington, D.C.—representing diverse faiths, cultures, communities, professions, generations, and lived experiences.
They did not gather because they agreed on every issue. They came together because they shared a belief that disagreement does not have to lead to dehumanization—and that building relationships across differences is essential to the work of peacebuilding.
The program engaged participants in a deeper question of How can religious traditions cultivate virtues that sustain practices of courage and curiosity in the face of threatening differences? Through personal reflection, storytelling and interactive learning participants shared their underlying motivations and what it is that supports their acts of courage and curiosity in the world.
As one participant shared in their feedback,
“As someone unaffiliated with a formal religious tradition but deeply rooted and informed by a personal nature-based spirituality, I am leaning into my own beliefs and practices and feel inspired to lead with/from them more confidently.” (Lisa Steele-Maley)
The cohort explored three particularly challenging issues affecting communities throughout North America: the local impact of the conflict in Israel and Palestine, immigration, liberal-conservative polarization and rise of censorship and limitations on freedom of expression. .
These subjects were not approached as abstract debates, but rather the invitation was to approach the conversation from the question of how have you been personally impacted by the issue. Participants were invited to consider the people, histories, fears, grief, identities, and convictions carried within them.
The purpose was not to persuade one another to adopt a particular position. It was to practice active listening, remaining present, curious, and grounded when conversations became difficult.
The space was carefully held and facilitated in collaboration with Rose Castle Foundation, who offered their expertise and guidance in designing and co-facilitating the program
Courage does not require the absence of discomfort
In many public conversations, people are encouraged to speak quickly, defend their positions, and respond immediately. The gathering offered a different invitation: slow down, listen deeply, ask sincere questions, and pay attention to what is happening within ourselves as we encounter another person’s experience.
Participants explored how curiosity can interrupt assumptions and make room for greater understanding. They considered how courage can help people speak truthfully while remaining attentive to the dignity of others.
The gathering also recognized that courageous dialogue requires more than intellectual skill. Difficult conversations affect the heart, body, spirit, and nervous system. Participants were therefore invited to draw upon their religious, spiritual, and personal practices as sources of grounding and resilience.
Times of reflection, shared meals, informal conversations, and moments of laughter became as important as the structured sessions. Relationships continued to form in hallways, around tables, and in the homes where participants stayed together.
These moments reminded the group that peacebuilding is not sustained through techniques alone. It is sustained through trust. Participants practiced creating enough trust for complexity to be acknowledged. They discovered that curiosity does not mean abandoning conviction, and courage does not require overpowering another person. Both can become practices that allow people to meet across real differences without denying the humanity present on either side.
This is demanding work. It requires humility, patience, self-awareness, and the willingness to be changed by what we hear.
Carrying the learning home
Participants returned to communities where many of these same difficult conversations are taking place - in congregations, classrooms, interfaith councils, nonprofit organizations, families, and public spaces.
The deeper invitation is to carry the practices of curiosity and courage into those settings.
How might a faith leader respond differently when a community is divided?
How might an interfaith organizer create space for stories that are often excluded?
How might a community remain in relationship when members carry profoundly different experiences of the same conflict?
And how might spiritual grounding help peacebuilders continue their work without becoming hardened, overwhelmed, or disconnected from one another?
The cohort will continue reflecting on these questions through follow-up conversations and the relationships formed during the program, as well as through the development of specific community projects taking the learning forward.
As one participant shared in their feedback:
“I am very excited about the proposed project collaboration we outlined in Arizona and anticipate further collaborations with URI and affiliates around intentional communities inclusive of multifaiths as a response to my Benedictine practices, monastery and recent curiosities, shared visions and potential collaborations” (Canon Lisa L. Derrick, ObISB, Vice President Arizona Faith Network, Phoenix Arizona)
Each act of curiosity creates an opening. Each act of courage helps sustain it. Together, they form relationships strong enough to hold differences and communities more capable of building peace
