Over the course of its history the Christian monastic tradition has developed a -desert spirituality- of solitude, silence, and selfknowledge that fosters openness to the divine presence and its transformative power. Today the divine presence is manifesting itself anew in the -desert of otherness, - that sacred space in which we encounter the other as one whose difference, even of religion and spirituality, can enrich us, rather than as one who must be drawn to and converted to our own -truth.- The encounter of Christians with other believers will increasingly become a place of hardship and...