Over the years I have had numerous encounters with people who are of a different religion. Many of the discussions that I have had were stimulating, some of them quite humorous, and of course a few were unpleasant. Through intelligent discussion one can enrich their own spirituality.

      Ten years ago I was living in Charleston, South Carolina. My stay there was for only a little over a year, but while I was there I had a discussion that started out poor and ended up positive. The vast majority of my co-workers were Pentecostal and they would often recite bible verses to each other on their breaks. At any given moment, a group could be found who were actively discussing their beliefs.

      Eventually one of them asked me about my beliefs and a heated discussion ensued. Over the following week they tried everything short of open hostility to get me to convert. They invited me to join them in their discussions of Jesus, they invited me to their church, they told me that I was being mislead by "Satan", but I refused to convert to their religion. As time went by their actions began to annoy me and I knew that I would have to do something about it.

      As I sat at home one evening the answer came to me, I would show them how I viewed the universe. The following day at work the group began anew with their attempts at conversion. I quickly interrupted them and began speaking about my thoughts...

      "Picture the universe as a wheel, god at the center and all of the people of the world standing on the rim looking inward. Now, each spoke is a different religion. The closer two spokes are, the closer the views of each religion. Baptists and Pentecostal are similar so the spokes are near each other, but Muslims are a bit different so their spokes is farther away from the christian spokes." They understood to this point and nodded their understanding.

      "Shamanism is different from christian beliefs and therefore on a different spoke, yet we all stand at our respective spokes looking at the same hub, the same god. It doesn't matter what we call it or how we look at it, all that matters is that we are all worshiping the same god in slightly different ways."

      Silence overcame the group and they wandered off. Later, we all spoke again and the pressure to have me convert to their beliefs was gone. Its all a matter of perspective, I just needed to show them mine.

by Tache