Tea Time!
Class is over, and my first exam isn't until Thursday. So with a free Sunday afternoon, I visited a newly opened Honeysuckle Tea House in rural Chapel Hill. The teahouse's architecture I decided on log cabin pagoda. Inside, they serve all kinds of teas and medicinal herbs, and surrounding the teahouse are planter boxes and grassy fields. Their goal is to grow over 50% of the tea and herbs they sell. Eventually this means the Honeysuckle Tea House will become a tea plantation where they even harvest their own tea leaves. Pretty neat place!
It was a great day to sip herbal hibiscus-lemongrass-peppermint tea and enjoy the sunshine and breeze drifting through the open-air pagoda.
It was also the perfect place to write a brief religious apology:
Why do I believe in God? The odds are stacked against me; I didn't grow up going to church, and I go to an extremely liberal college where many (maybe most) of my friends reject or partially reject the idea of a higher power. On several occasions my friends have questioned my faith. And frankly, I've questioned it with them. Biblical stories are absurd. Jesus was born of a Virgin; Jesus gave sight to the blind and turned water into wine; Jesus went to heaven; there is a heaven; a piece of fruit ruined it for humanity; Noah built a ship big enough to hold two of every animal on earth; Jonah survived three days in the belly of a fish, etc. etc. If you've never thought the Bible as being whacky, you probably haven't read or thought about it.
But I'm a Christian, and therefore am also crazy. As absurd as the book is, its stories have profoundly changed my life. They give me hope and challenge me to be a better person. Jesus' greatest commandment-- love your neighbor as yourself--is foundational to many religions. (If you don't believe me, Wikipedia the "Golden Rule" and you'll see where it exists in so many of the world's major religions. It's also included in the "Global Ethic" signed in 1993 when 143 major religious leaders agreed on common principles.) Jesus modeled a divine love, and I want to give and receive that kind of love. Those crazy Bible stories literally and metaphorically illustrate perfected love. When it comes to loving your neighbor, the Church makes a great support group. And when it comes to religion, I choose Christianity. I want to be a Christian, and I like it.
-EJS
It was a great day to sip herbal hibiscus-lemongrass-peppermint tea and enjoy the sunshine and breeze drifting through the open-air pagoda.
It was also the perfect place to write a brief religious apology:
Why I'm a Christian
Why do I believe in God? The odds are stacked against me; I didn't grow up going to church, and I go to an extremely liberal college where many (maybe most) of my friends reject or partially reject the idea of a higher power. On several occasions my friends have questioned my faith. And frankly, I've questioned it with them. Biblical stories are absurd. Jesus was born of a Virgin; Jesus gave sight to the blind and turned water into wine; Jesus went to heaven; there is a heaven; a piece of fruit ruined it for humanity; Noah built a ship big enough to hold two of every animal on earth; Jonah survived three days in the belly of a fish, etc. etc. If you've never thought the Bible as being whacky, you probably haven't read or thought about it.
But I'm a Christian, and therefore am also crazy. As absurd as the book is, its stories have profoundly changed my life. They give me hope and challenge me to be a better person. Jesus' greatest commandment-- love your neighbor as yourself--is foundational to many religions. (If you don't believe me, Wikipedia the "Golden Rule" and you'll see where it exists in so many of the world's major religions. It's also included in the "Global Ethic" signed in 1993 when 143 major religious leaders agreed on common principles.) Jesus modeled a divine love, and I want to give and receive that kind of love. Those crazy Bible stories literally and metaphorically illustrate perfected love. When it comes to loving your neighbor, the Church makes a great support group. And when it comes to religion, I choose Christianity. I want to be a Christian, and I like it.
-EJS
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