Friday, April 18, 2008

Living World Religions Field Trip-Day Two

Today was incredible, but exhausting. So I'm going to have to brief in my explanations of the day, so I can go to sleep, because we have another big day tomorrow.

We headed out for the Hindu Temple at 8:15 this morning. On the way I had one of my most profound religious moments of the trip when I saw Texas Stadium, home of my Dallas Cowboys, for the first time in my life. I almost cried it was so glorious, though a little ugly.

The Hindu Temple was fascinating. We looked at all their statues to Vishnu, Ganesh, and many other gods and watched an offering to one of the gods. Then we listened to some explanations of Hinduism from some of the members of the temple. One of my favorite quotes from them was, "Once you learn to treat every person like there is a part of God in each of them, then you really don't need much religion after that." We also examined many of their saints and enjoyed some conversation with them.

From there we headed to the mall's food court for lunch and then headed to a Zen meditation center. This turned out to be just a regular house that they happened to put a bunch of mats in the living room. There we learned about meditation and how to properly perform it. Then we practiced for about 7 minutes. The basic tenants of Zen are pretty cool. They teach about being in the moment and being conscious and aware of everything you do. They gave the example of how we wash the dishes so we can then put them up and then move on to another chore so that we can do something else, while all the while our mind is elsewhere. They said that under Zen you wash the dishes simply to wash the dishes and are in the moment and just thinking about washing the dishes. During meditation we were just supposed to be semi-focused on the wall and try to clear our mind. Our guide told us it was impossible just to force yourself to stop thinking, so she gave us the metaphor of us being a mountain and thoughts are just clouds passing by that mountain. We were just to realize that those thoughts would just pass us by and we didn't have to force them away. Our guide gave us the option of just counting to ten over and over in our heads or saying a spiritual word over and over (I just kept repeating "Jesus") It was a neat experience, though difficult for me because I have bad posture. After that we did walking meditation, which was basically the same thing except you are walking around, and trying to just focus on taking one step at a time. This was a lot easier for me to concentrate on and I really enjoyed it (although it did last a little long and we were just doing circles in the backyard).

Meditation is a spiritual discipline that we Christians tend to neglect, but is however a very important one. Although Foster's Celebration of Disciplines discusses how Christian meditation is different from eastern meditations that try to empty the mind, while we try to empty ourselves but fill ourselves with Christ. I also liked the aspect of Zen where you simply try to stay in the moment and devote yourself to the here and now. Paul says "we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5) and 'whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17).

From there we went to a Bhuddist Soka Gakkai center. There we listened to the recitation of their chants which was really cool. It was weird because the members were mostly white hippies, and their beliefs were a lot different from traditional Bhuddism. I liked that they were really into world peace and ending suffering around the world. But they were basically a self-help group that believed by chanting the phrase "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" you could release the power within to reach a higher consciousness. The leader seemed to not have a lot of depth in his faith and kept saying we were asking "really tough questions" even though they weren't that tough. I was more interested in talking to the Japanese immigrants who were sitting behind us who were beautiful singers (chanters?) and really cool ladies.

Then we headed to a Sikh temple. We took off our shoes and sat down and listened to a long lecture on Sikhism, before enjoying some of the Sikh's hospitality and food. I love Indian type food, and this stuff was great (and full of curry....yum!). Then we listened to another lecture, but also got to listen to hymns and ceremonies and prayers to their holy book. Coleman even got to fan the book, which was hilarious. Then we watched as they put the book to bed and tucked it in as they said, "Goodnight teacher, we will see what you have to teach us tomorrow." Then the Sikh's served us even more dinner and we got to talk and meet a lot of cool people at the temple, who were super nice (definitely my favorite people of the day).

We then went back to the hotel and had some great worship time to God, and had some time to process everything we had seen today.

So yeah, I'm exhausted and a little overwhelmed with everything I've seen today. I need some more time before I can actually process everything I've seen. But, I'm going to bed for now. God bless!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Living World Religions Field Trip-Day 1

I'm currently sitting in a hotel here in Dallas, Texas on our Living World Religions field trip. Being on a charter bus turned a 6 hour drive into a 7 1/2 hour drive, but it was all good. Today is just a get there day and then we start our religion-ing tomorrow. We're going to a Hindu, Sokko Gakkai (a form of Bhuddism) temple, a Zen Temple, and a Siek temple tomorrow. It should be lots of fun.

I'll try to keep you all updated. I'm exhausted tonight, and there's not really anything left to write about. Lata.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

I'm A Sell Out.....

So, I guess I didn't get the memo that the writer's strike was over. I looked and I saw that I had only one post in the month of March.......lame.....I'll try to do better in April. It's been a crazy month with tons of stuff going on, papers, tests, midterms, sermons, and just not really in the mood to write any more than I had to for school. Oh well. Anyways, on to the real post.

So, I was filling out my Bible scholarship yesterday and the blank came up for Religion. For these things I usually just put "Christian." I say that on facebook or when people ask me at jail or anywhere else. I've always attended a Church of Christ, but that's not my religion and I don't really have any allegiance to that denomination. My religion and allegiance are to Jesus and that's all. In fact, a few of us are thinking about visiting the Episcopal church in our neighborhood we've been working with, because a lot of the people that we've met there attend it and it's more involved in that community.

However, I've heard rumors around that we don't give as much out in scholarship money for people who don't put "Church of Christ" in the religion blank. I'm pretty sure this is not true and is just a rumor.....but I did not want to take that chance. So, after thinking about it for 5 seconds I slapped the "Church of Christ" tag on there and turned the form in.

I guess I could just say that I meant Church of Christ in the broad universal sense of the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the past 2000 years.......but I didn't. I wanted to make sure I got every dollar I could possibly get and so I sold myself out. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of a lot of aspects of my Church of Christ heritage, and I imagine the Church of Christ will be an important part of my future. But, I'm more proud of my savior Jesus Christ and want to be known only as a follower of Christ, not a follower of any particular denomination (although it may claim to be non-denominational).

So I feel a little guilty today. I know I'm being pretty dramatic about this, and it isn't really that big of a deal. I know I didn't really "sell out" my religion or back down to the "man" or anything. I just feel that I wasn't totally honest with where the center of my life and religion is. I just hope that next time someone asks me my religion I can faithfully say, "I follow Jesus Christ" and that's it.