I Could Search For All Eternity Long

Here in Los Angeles my semester consists of 4 classes. One is community organization and is held every Friday the whole semester. The other three are spread into 4 or 5 week sections and meet Mondays and Wednesdays. I just recently finished "urban explorations" which dedicates each class to a different "social justice" issue, such as homelessness, education, the judicial system, prisons, sweat shops, and others. It was a heavy class and one that tends to drag you down a little and make you feel helpless against the masses of this pain that other people are faced with everyday that until now I had been mostly oblivious to. The last class is on immigration, in which we will actually travel to Mexico and see the wall from their side, as well as look up our own genealogy to see where and when our relatives immigrated here. The class I’m in at the moment however is the one I want to talk about tonight. The class I recently started is called urban religious movements and covers everything from Judaism to scientology. So far I’ve visited a Hindu temple, a Turkish orthodox cathedral, a liberal protestant church, a Buddhist meditation site, and today an Islamic mosque.

As I’ve studied these other religions with the most "objective" standpoint I could muster, I can not lie and say I have not found truth. But I have found incomplete truth. It still is difficult to write them off as wrong and "hell bound". I guess I sort of had this misconception, subconsciously, that other religions were wrong so therefore they must be satanic or of the devil. ...Which I guess they might be, I guess I cant rule that out... but never the less its become harder for me to dismiss them as sinners as quickly. I've found something that scares me, I’ve found people seeking God. In some cases as with Islam they even say they are seeking my god. And that hurts me. Its so much easier to write it off, its so easy to view them as wrong and sinful and feel a need to preach truth to them as if they had no desire for the truth already. But when I met Buddhists and Hindus and especially Muslims I found that they have been seeking it long before I came in contact with them. What do I have to offer them? They are in a sense just like me, seeking God. Sticking primarily to Muslims but including Jews as well. All three religions do not worship other gods, both of them worship the same god as Christians. And that seriously messes with me. Not in a sense that I want to convert, because unlike them I believe that God came down in the form of a man and died for our sins and that without him we cannot receive grace through any other method. But in a sense that breaks my heart, that they are seeking God possibly (and I would venture to say that they are) seeking the God, the right God, our God. But they think their way which is not morally wrong only doctrinally wrong is the right way, and don’t understand why we have to be "selfish" and say "do it our way" that’s what they really think. That we seek the same god they just do it a little different... unfortunately I do not claim to know enough to speak educated…ly about these topics but I did personally meet and talk to several Muslims as well as sit through their service today.

I was not intending to go into detail about what particularly was perplexing my mind, but instead I just wanted to say that the whole experience thus far has been tough.

One of the five pillars of Islam is the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. If I was able to separate myself from the blatant differences between the religions and agree at least that they try to serve the same god (the god of Abraham) this particular pillar stuck out to me I think because of some of my recent experiences. See there are a lot of misconceptions about Islam, most grow out of ignorance or fear. Most people don’t know about the pilgrimage to Mecca and think it is about Mohamed, or that it is where god resides or at least you can feel his presence better. This is not true.

They travel to Mecca because they believe it to be the site that Abraham set up to worship, in fact part of it is related to the story found in our bible of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. And they even "symbolically" throw stones at satan at one point in the journey. The man I spoke to today has been 4 times to Mecca, and said this "its not about Mecca, god is not more present there than anywhere else, we don’t worship the big rock, it is true we go to seek god, but not because he is there, but because through the journey we find god right where he’s always been. right with us all along."

From this he told us that its truly powerful and life changing to realize god is with you. Ok remember we are trying to forget that these are defiantly not the same religion, but isn’t it true? Do you see the kind of truth I am finding even in other faiths? Once again not things that make me question conversion because again I believe that Jesus is God incarnate and that he died for our sins. But it does make my attitude turn less from disgust and bitterness, which is all misunderstanding, to respect and worry that they are close but not close enough.

As I have pondered these things and thoughts of traveling and searching cross my mind, God has a way of drawing my attention. I returned to LACPC the Korean American church I have been working with the youth group at here in LA. As we went into worship, we didn’t sing this song and I don’t know the last time I heard it, probably not since my days at believers chapel in Mexico NY, but its lyrics came to my mind between songs. Its a song called “in the garden” or “none like you” and ill include the full lyrics at the end but one line in particular stuck out to me. "I could search for all eternity long, and find.... there is none like You." As I began to agree and feel God's reassuring hand on me I felt so glad to know, I could go on my own hajj of sorts, I could go study Islam and Judaism as well as all religions and ultimately I have faith (which is not hope but rather trust and even fact in my heart) that I will find none like my God. Cuz in fact I have already done so. I have previously written of my experience of finding God at work when I traveled 700 miles from home to Indiana, and even after traveling 3000 miles here in LA, even in a different ethnic group that is unfamiliar to me I have found a bond among strangers. And then as if that were not enough we finished praise with better is one day... coincidence? Maybe but it was exactly what I needed. Thank you God.

IN THE GARDEN/NONE LIKE YOU MEDLEY

I come into the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.
and the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses.

There is none like You, no one else can touch my heart like You do.
I could search for all eternity long, and find- there is none like You.

He speaks and the sound of His vioce, is so sweet the birds hush their singing.
And the melody that He gave to me, Within my heart is ringing.

There is none like you. No one else can touch my heart like you do.
I could search for all eternity long, and find- there is none like You.
(none like You--ou, none like You)

And he walks with me, and He talks with me, He tells me I am His own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

There is none like You, no one else can touch my heart like you do.
I could search for all eternity long and find- there is none like You.

I'd stay in he garden with Him, tho' the night around me be falling.
But He bids me go, thro' a voice of woe, His voice to me is calling.

There is none like You, no one else can touch my heart like you do.
I could search for all eternity long and find- there is none like You.