November. Sad, nostalgic time. Mourning time. Inside the heartaches. Once again hope falls dwindling down with the last of leaves as another burst of violence, the Satanic bloom of another bomb, obscures the sky, and 'Peace', that peace that so many still live and die for everyday, seems to recede far beyond the horizon.

Enter Andrew White, a man with a price on his head. Somebody's out to get him. He was quite disappointed to discover that he was originally worth only $30,000 but feels more satisfied now it's been upped to $4 million. Yet this is no villain, so who's gunning for him then? Insurgents in Iraq because he's a middle man walking amongst religions seeking to draw peace ever nearer by creating dialogue - "crossing divides and being friends with everybody, even the bad guys". He's been described as the new Terry Waite because officially he is Canon Andrew White, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special representative in the Middle East. The fact that at 41 he has multiple sclerosis doesn't stop him, though "it does make a difference climbing in and out of helicopters". He feels he is called by God to this and has no option.

He believes religions can and must play a crucial role in peacemaking across the world. It is long term not short term work and "the cost of making peace is indeed very great". It is because he is a religious man that he feels he has a contribution to make because most terrorist activity has religious roots. Of the London bombing and other outrages: - "whether we like it or not, these are profoundly religious acts of destruction, carried out by religious people often against religious people". If religion is a prime cause of so much violence erupting on the world stage, religion must also be part of the cure; this must be faced head on by politicians, not sidelined to whispers behind the scenes. Exchange, listening to the other on equal terms and responding truthfully is the key. As he says, he spends quite a lot of time with very wicked people, but they have to be brought in since they have so much power and it is they who can institute change. Yes of course there is a constant background of danger. He is convinced that redressing grievances in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya would go a long way towards creating peace.

Demonising other religions is no help, as The Troubles in Northern Ireland have clearly shown, and this is where we, who will stand in the silence of our humble remembrances in and around 11th November, can play our very small yet decisive part. There are no excuses for terrorism and we must not try to offer any, yet we must seek to listen and to learn. This will uncover similarities. For example, the use of the rosary in Catholic devotion. The rosary was originally the Muslim sibhah, a string of prayer beads usually of amber, for counting prayers through the fingers. The Dominicans adopted it for Christian use in the 13th century. The nun's habit, particularly the headdress or veil is said to have been inspired by the hijab, the traditional Muslim dress for women. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, like many Christian saints and prophets, was said to have sought forgiveness in prayer often 70 times a day to constantly acknowledge his need for humility and poverty of spirit.

Dialogue will also clarify real differences and here religions must offer not conflict but great respect. "Seek to understand rather than to be understood". (Brother Roger of Taize whose tragic murder in early September during evening worship so shocked the religious world). It serves no purpose to consider 'the other' beyond the pale simply because we do not understand their thoughts and ways. Dr. Zaki Badawi, OBE, Director of the Muslim College in this country:-"Peace can only be achieved if you accept diversity. If you try to make everyone the same by imposing your will on others, you have dictatorship. It is interesting- and sometimes painful - to see diversity re-emerging, once the heavy hand is lifted. We need to live with each other and learn to negotiate our differences". All this can be the good that arises out of the terrible evil of the London bombings and the daily atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere.

There are those who say that by the end of the 21st century the Muslim faith will predominate in Europe or at least be on equal terms with Christianity. That's as may be, but perhaps in a vastly changing world, where Christians need yet to be robustly (and we are not) but not dogmatically Christian, what we need to show together as religions is that here are two sister faiths, living side by side, neither in competition with the other to be top religion. This is the truth we have to face. The life-changing thing that both could show to the Western consumer world, the dog eat dog society where consumer competition is king, is a new morality where we do not need to live as if competition were the meat and staff of life. If remembrance of the myriad of wars reveals anything, as we stand quietly there, it is that competition always sets us over against another and inevitably breeds violence; that to live violently against each other is the engine of our own destruction which would eventually consume us all. We are at this bleak crossroads once more where the cenotaphs continue to raise their bleak stones to the unnecessary dead. There has to be another way and religions can show the way.