Hinduism and Insomnia

I'm in a very interesting class this semester. It's call Religion and Culture. On the first day of class Dr. Grigorenko told us that we would learn more than we ever wanted to know about more religions than we knew existed. He's kept pretty close to this promise. Actually, this is one of the two classes that I am having the most difficulty with. However it is also the most interesting one this semester. One of our assignments for this class is visiting a non-Christian religious site.

I joined the group that was to visit a Hindu temple. I had no idea that this whole semester I'd been going to a mall directly across from a temple! You can actually see it from the mall parking lot. It's a big white tower rising above the sub-divisions and trees. It's seriously looks like something out of the Jungle Book, just smaller...and newer.

We actually started out our visit in the basement of the temple, which could have been the basement to a Baptist church, based on the flooring and folding chairs and tables. However it smelled amazing. It was a mix between Indian food and incense, which actually creates a somewhat pungent smell, but you get use to it. We spent two hours in what felt a lot like a Sunday school class. There was a Hindu teacher, who I guess has written books and stuff. The first hour was intended for discussing 2-4 verses from the Bhagavad-gita, one of their authoritative texts. And the second hour was for discussing issues in the Hindu life. It was really informal and really interesting. The class (not including us Baptist visitors) had a pretty good mix of white Americans and those of clearly Indian descent. Most of the people there had a really good understand of not only Christianity, but of Islam and other religion as well. I doubt most Christians have such an awareness of the faiths of the rest of the world.

They did a good job of making us feel welcome, and a lot of the discussion was drawing parallels between Christianity and Hinduism. They were so good at making the Bible fit into their worldview. It was frustrating though because they used many of the same terms we us, like God and grace, but with a completely different meaning. As I learned in my worldview seminar, "same vocabulary, different dictionary."

One of the things that really struck me is how reasonable they can make Hinduism sound. It is so easy to sit in my Cedarville classroom and shoot down the foundations of Hinduism, but when you're there with them, it is not hard to see how they can believe it. It made me realize that if I'd grown up in a Hindu environment, I could be just as passionate about it as I am about Christianity. It's kind of a scary thought, and it has made me much more aware and thankful of the fact that God has allowed me to grow up in a Christian home.

My return from the temple was not so exciting, however. I've been working for the last week on a research paper for that same class. I was supposed to take an apologetic approach to a few of the common arguments that Islam has against Christianity. I found that my experience living in a Muslim country, did very little for me in regards to this paper. The paper was due in class at 9 a.m. today, and I worked from 7 p.m. yesterday until 8:40 this morning. Let me tell you. It killed me!! I pulled a freaking all-nighter and now I'm jet-lagging...or paper-lagging, whatever... I've got to stay awake until at least 10 tonight if I hope to get back on the relatively decent schedule I've managed to maintain this semester.

My poor roommate is also suffering from some form of insomnia. Even though I was working out in the unit lounge (which consists of a lousy 20 year-old love seat and a matching chair, crammed in so close together that two people can't sit across from each other without clashing knees), my roommate woke up at 5:30 and was awake until 7. My insomnia is contagious!!

Yeah...so that's my life. I'm in a somewhat zombie-ish state contemplating the significance of Hinduism in the world and hoping that I will never again have to do a school project taking an apologetic stance against Islam.