On 12 June 2005 Stephanie Dowrick was ordained at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York as an Interfaith Minister.

She says,

For me this was a wonderful celebration of my long-time commitment to interfaith – to respecting and honoring the teachings on love, tolerance and compassion from all paths, and the “”holy longing”” that goes beyond denominations. Like most of my classmates, I continue to have a “”home faith”” but I have benefitted hugely from my contact over several decades with teachers from many paths, and from the scriptures and insights of different faiths. I will continue to offer spiritual teaching, retreats and days of reflection from an interfaith perspective. And I also see writing as central to my interfaith work, bringing together the psychological with the spiritual and the social with the personal. I have been studying the different paths for many years – and will continue that throughout my lifetime.

My feeling about interfaith sings in these lines from the great
13th-century Sufi poet, Hafiz:

I have learned so much from God
that I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew…

and in these lines, from the equally sublime Sufi poet, Rumi

The sun’s light looks a little different
on this wall than it does on that.
But it is one light….

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.