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An unorthodox retreat

I asked my friend, Fr. Bill, to prepare for me some spiritual exercises I could do while I was in Indonesia. I felt the need to connect with God.  Although I was only able to accomplish one out of seven spiritual exercises, I had somehow achieved my goal of connecting with God in the strangest and most unorthodox of retreats.  I gained a connection with God through the eyes and practices of persons who, unlike me, are not Catholics. For, while I had not gone to Indonesia to learn about religious beliefs other than my own, I received an unexpected crash course in Islam, Buddhism and Balinism and learned more about Hinduism while I was there. My crash course did not, by any means, provide me with a comprehensive understanding of other religious beliefs.  If at all, it would probably take me several lifetimes to understand those beliefs.  I did, however, come away with the simple realization that a connection to God may be made through Islam, Buddhism, Balinism and Hinduism.  And to me, this is really what matters.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under 'Pinions, My Indonesian Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.