I was chatting briefly to one of the radiotherapists this morning after being nuked - you have as long as it takes you to dress yourself in the nuking chamber whilst they clean down the 'couch' for the next patient (no gowns as they'd constitute low level radioactive waste even if they have no impact on the nuking itself).

She was asking me what I was doing the rest of the day - home, change, work - and what that involved (they all know I'm a minister).

It happens that this one is Asian (I'd guess first generation given her accent) and in her own words 'not religious'.  She asked me what I thought about Eastern views on 'life after life' commenting that she felt she had an 'old soul' and had several lives still ahead of her.  Whilst I cannot share her views on reincarnation (and said so) there was a common ground in believing that this life is not all there is. 

When I was studying theology, and we learned about world faiths, the emphasis was heavily on dialogue - meeting points, learning with and from one another without denying or watering down differences.

I am fascinated by this woman's sense that she has an 'old soul', which is probably as strong for her as my sense that 'we pass this way but once'.  Yet for each of us, with very different worldviews, was the sense that we make the most of the now with a hope (theological meaning) for the not yet.  Amazing what you can discuss in two minutes!