I am sincerely sorry for the drought in posts - it has been an unexpectedly busy semester. As an apology, I am offering pictures and thoughts on a semi-serious subject.
On Saturday, March 30, Jay and I had the opportunity to attend the Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork, Utah. The Festival of Colors is also known as "Holi" and is a Hindu celebration of spring. It is a very joyful celebration where participants sing, dance, and throw colored corn starch powder at each other. The colors are completely edible, but gross tasting. I don't recommend it.
The Utah Festival of Colors is at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple is the largest in the Western United States. It attracts tens of thousands of people every year and is growing at an incredible rate. Frankly, I think people go the see the llamas, but maybe that's just me. Anyways, just before we passed through the gates to enter the temple grounds, I was handed a postcard sized handout. I thought this handout would be purely informational about the festival and include helpful hints such as:
Do not inhale, snort, and eat the colors.
Do not pet the llamas. (dang it!)
Do spread peace and love.
Remember, do not hug people without their permission.
Absolutely no climbing on the elephant statues next to the temple doors.
Please do not chase our peacocks.
You know, all of the important things. But, to my dismay, it was not what I thought it would be. It was, instead, a handout of religious nature informing me that I if I believed in the Christian God and was participating in the Festival of Colors, I was breaking God's commandment:
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Honestly, I was not angry when I read the pamphlet, but I was, and still am, incredibly sad. Whatever happened to religious freedom and religious tolerance? How would the church-who-must-not-be-named feel if the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple handed out pamphlets at their events?
The past week or so has been a huge and wonderful merging point of several different religion's beliefs and celebrations.
The Jewish faith celebrated Passover - Jay participated in a Passover Seder.
The Christian faith celebrated Easter.
The Hindus celebrated Holi.
And I'm sure there were others.
I loved the opportunity to learn about and participate in another faith's religious celebration and it reminded me of the magnificent country we live in where we enjoy the freedom of religion. There is no reason, whatsoever, to diminish or combat other people's religions. Especially at their religious celebrations.
Every religion has principles of peace and love: Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and so on. So why do we all struggle so much in practicing that?
The past week or so has been a huge and wonderful merging point of several different religion's beliefs and celebrations.
The Jewish faith celebrated Passover - Jay participated in a Passover Seder.
The Christian faith celebrated Easter.
The Hindus celebrated Holi.
And I'm sure there were others.
I loved the opportunity to learn about and participate in another faith's religious celebration and it reminded me of the magnificent country we live in where we enjoy the freedom of religion. There is no reason, whatsoever, to diminish or combat other people's religions. Especially at their religious celebrations.
Every religion has principles of peace and love: Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and so on. So why do we all struggle so much in practicing that?
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Very well said. Cool story! It just shows even more difference between religions. Some tend to attack other religious beliefs (of course not always but certainly that seems to be the case in some) and some like the Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic faiths are just about living in harmony with fellow man. I know that the LDS church is the only church that is the entire tree of gospel truth. But it is so amazing to see and learn of the branches of truth that other religions have that all stem from the tree of eternal life or Christ. We as latter day saints love to participate in other religious activities to celebrate the love we share for mankind and the commonalities of our religious faiths.
ReplyDeleteYou are both Awesome! By the way I need my shoes back at some point hahaha ;)