Not Of This World

So a few nights ago, I'm lying in my bed, doing my nightly reading in the prayer book called Seeking God's Face  that my lovely friend Jess gave me in December, before going to sleep. Every day, it starts out with a Bible verse, and then a moment of quiet. I usually try to have that be a moment of listening to God. But I'm not so good at the quiet time. When I was jetlagged a couple of weeks ago, I kept falling asleep. I'd wake up fifteen minutes later and do the next part. So then I started making a rule that I had to read sitting up, but I would invariably get cold, and snuggle under the blankets. This time, though, jetlag was not the problem. It was my imagination. Before long, I was imagining my next encounter with a person who had recently hurt me, and how I would react. The imagined scenario got more and more elaborate, my reaction more and more angry. All of a sudden, I was sobbing. Full, body-shaking sobs. And just as a sudden as the sobs hit me, a few m...

It is Monday again, but I am frayed at the edges. I'm not sure I can write much of anything today. Today, at lunchtime, when I was crying my eyes out, all I wanted to do was be alone with God. So here you are: I will leave you with some of God's words. His words are better than mine, anyhow. The  Lord  is my shepherd,  I lack nothing.        He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,        he refreshes my soul. He guides me  along the right paths      for his name’s sake.   Even though I walk      through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,      for you are with me; your rod and your staff,      they comfort me. You prepare a table  before me      in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil;      my cup  overflows.   Sure...

While I was in Singapore, I visited a mosque. It was beautiful. And, inside, taking advantage of the hordes of tourists that traveled through their doors, there was a series of placards describing some of the beliefs of Islam. Some of these placards felt oddly familiar. They showed the same kind of logic that I write here on this blog, describing a system of beliefs, modernizing it, even, for the modern outsider, peppered throughout with verses from the Quran. I also visited several temples in Thailand and Singapore, but I didn't get the same feeling there. Maybe it was because the Buddhist temples didn't have the user-friendly placards for the outsider, but I don't think so. It all felt very foreign, taking your shoes off, bowing in front of a golden statue, chanting, dropping coins one by one in a row of bowls. The temples were all ringed with statues of Buddha. Dozens and dozens of identical or nearly-identical statues lined the outer walls of the temple. Many old ...