Late in November 2016, people from all over the country gathered in Cambridge, Mass., for an experimental meeting in an austere room at Harvard Divinity School. It was deeply cold outside, and just weeks after the election, many of the participants were feeling shaken.
Around the table where they had gathered were two demographic groups that rarely encounter each other: millennials who describe themselves as having no single religious practice (better known as “nones”); and Catholic women religious, who mostly prefer to be called sisters but will settle for being called nuns.
They had gathered to share experiences of community, spirituality and activism. More quickly than anyone had anticipated, they discovered enough common ground to lead one of the sisters to tell the millennials, “I believe that we are more alike than we are different.”....


The guidelines developed by the group include making room for “generous listening,” “extending grace,” an “unhurried pace” and speaking from personal experience to avoid generalizations.