(For this past Sunday, several of us who took the World Religions class gave a service that was meant to show what we took away with us from the experience. The others gave excellent presentations, and together we had the effect of helping increase support for future World Religions series, as well as more diverse religious exposure in our regular services. This was a good thing, and I'm happy about it. Below is my part.)

    There is a shop in Neptune called "10 Perfect Nails." I don't usually bother with acrylic nails, mostly because of the discomfort of having things stuck to me, but I've been looking for a job recently, and my own nails are virtually nonexistent, and certainly not professional looking. They are rough, torn, bitten, thin, and sad. So, attracted to "10 Perfect Nails" by its bright advertising and attractive price, I went in.
    The very first item in the shop is a beautiful red shrine lit by electric candles, and inside the shrine are two figurines of the laughing Buddha. Yesterday, when I went in for some maintenance, Buddha had been offered treats from Dunkin Donuts: an old fashioned donut and a cup of coffee. I do not wish to make light of this. While I may not have fully understood much about the significance of the Buddha, I definitely understand the significance of Dunkin Donuts, and consider the offering of high quality.
    There are many places in our world where the spiritual intersects with the physical in a symbol, in a reminder, such as crosses planted by the side of the road. Living in our predominately Judeo-Christian environment, if you are like me, you may not even really notice these anymore, or think anything of them if you do.
    But when faced with symbols, shrines, objects from faith traditions other than those which are mainstream here, my reaction in the past has been, "Oh that's interesting, but that's for them." "Them" being the people who put those objects there, for whom they have relevance and purpose. At that time, there was no thought in my mind that any artifact of another, more "alien," faith tradition would have any meaning for me.
    Well, that was then.
    I joined the World Religions class partway through the series. In fact, it was toward the end of the series, for as some of you know, I am pretty new here. The remaining topics to be covered were Judaism, Christianity, and Humanism. "Oh darn," I said. "I missed the interesting ones." That was a very silly thing to say because Judaism, Christianity, and Humanism are actually really fascinating, but I was entering a new phase of exploration, and wanted to consider faith traditions which are not predominant in our culture. There were still chances to do this some in class, as discussion in these final classes of the series made comparisons and contrasts between traditions that had been studied previously and the ones presently under discussion, for example funeral customs among Jews and Hindus, and what they reflect about the human response to death.
    Springboarding from this, and taking Huston Smith's book World Religions, around which the series of classes was based, I went to the internet for more, and more, and more. The class, and the book, fueled my curiosity about religions and the many ways they are practiced. I began to understand images of the spiritual that were unfamiliar to me.
    One of these concepts consists of a great, many-faceted power whose characteristics are so numerous that they are reflected in a pantheon of deities, each with stories that exemplify the attributes they represent. Another concept is that of a river of energy that penetrates everything and has no individual identity. Another is a communal awareness, in which a piece of divinity rests in each of us, and as we combine that which is divine in us, so emerges the collective spirit, the energy. I learned to contain ideas and feelings about multiplicity, duality, unity, about everything being one thing, and about one thing being everything.
    Like light through a prism, these ideas and the questions they generated split off into different directions, and different colors, and pervaded every corner of my life. The pen pal community to which I belong undertook a new conversation, serendipitously, maybe, maybe not (I didn't start it!), about philosophy and religion and theories about the existence of us and the universe. My mother and I began to discuss religion again, which we haven't done in a decade. I remembered things that Wiccan friends of mine had said about their perception of the spiritual in the universe, and used these as another springboard. A friend introduced me to the music of Krishna Das, a Long Islander who is bringing kirtan, chants, of devotion to the Western CD player.
    I was already in the process of learning to pray again. This was part of the seeking that led me to this congregation, to my new push toward understanding and personal fulfillment. But now I was trying prayer in new ways, in the form of chants, by dancing, by lighting candles, by confiding warmly as though to a close friend, by taking delight in the splendors of nature, by beating on a drum, by holding my palms up to the sky in offering and in acceptance, by loving the people whom I love with exuberance, seeing the divine in them.
    What this course taught me, which I should have already known, but didn't really take to heart before now, was that I really, really do have options. Not only do I have options in matters of ways of worship, of rituals and celebrations, of hymns and prayers, of dances, of symbolic items, not only do I have options about what I can DO, but I also have options about ways to SEE, to UNDERSTAND the divine. I don't have to stick to any one perception, any one incarnation, any one pantheon of deities, any one form of god or the Higher Power, or my favorite name, the Divine Light. Rather, I am free to think of the Pervasive Energy, the Great Spirit, in any way that seems right at the time, for any purpose. What I need is what is there, and that is enriched by the many ways of thinking and feeling to which I have been exposed. Because religion is not necessarily about god, it's about a human response to life, and that may or may not include a concept of god. What I encounter in life may call for a kind of nourishment that is different than was appropriate previously.
    I have received tools I can use. Tools for doing and tools for perceiving. Tools for transmission and tools for reception.
    Now, when I look back on the religion of my heritage, IT looks like the "alien" tradition, and that is actually a good thing, because I can now dig into it the same way I want to keep digging into the less familiar traditions. With the enthusiasm of the outsider driven get in, to get into the understanding. When I see the Jesus fish and roadside crosses, I am again prompted to ponder their significance.
    And now, when I see an offering at the glowing red shrine of a laughing Buddha, it really means something to me, and I feel warm and fuzzy, not alien and strange.
    I feel like a participant, and that is a wonderful gift.