Today, I was catching up with an old friend, whom I'll call Jane here. Jane's my year, so eventually we were going over the highlights of our first year at college. She's also Buddhist so when I brought up church, she was really surprised.
"Wow so you are not...open anymore?" she asked, and I assumed she was referring to my old days of switching on and off as a Unitarian.
"Um, I guess I'm still accepting of other religions?"
"Really? But Christians are pretty intolerant."
"Um, well I mean, that's because we want everyone to get saved, right?" She knows, maybe more than I do, about all that; she and her father used to be pretty into Christian spirituality themselves.
"So you now believe in heaven too." She stared me up and down like I had physically transformed because of my beliefs, as if she hadn't noticed before that now my clothes and skin and expression apparently screamed "Believer in Heaven- Beware!" Then after a brief moment, she said, "Are there Buddhist temples at your college too though?"
I said, "I don't know. Probably."
"Why don't you go to those and try it out?"
I made a face. "Because I'm not Buddhist?"
"Well how do you know you're Christian then? If you don't try all other flavors of ice cream, how would you know chocolate's your favorite?"
"It's not a matter of favoritism, Jane," I told her. (By the way, chocolate is far from my favorite.)
"How would you know God wants you to be a musician and not a writer, if you liked music and writing equally?"
That was tough. "I don't know--I guess He tells you through prayer, right? And He provides the path for what He wants you to be?"
"That sounds right." Jane shrugged. "Well apparently, He wants me to be Buddhist."
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