My mind had been traveling around for a while... if I don't take a moment to reflect and organize what I had been through, I will slowly and surely lose pieces of me that would make a better future me. I would certainly regret that. So LAZINESS NO MORE!
One remarkable moment from today's Interfaith Dialogue:
While serving for the homeless today, I met a young man in his late twenties. Ray was his name. He stood out from others because he was one of the two younger ones and he dressed just like us college students. He was from Texas, a energetic thinker and free-style artist. Before I even realized it, we were having profound conversation that I very often enjoyed with others who truly and sincerely seek for the truth.
We talked about religions, God, suffering, justice, epiphanies and our experiences in terms of seeking God. The mutual respect and understanding that we had for each other really encouraged our conversation to continue. I could tell from some of his verbal and body languages that he was confident in what he believed in (which was himself and the goodness in others) One thing that shocked me a lot was when he mentioned that he did not have the faith to believe in God's existence, and that everything came from a person's mind. He had an accident where he forgot all of his feelings for his friends and others around him. I thought of myself being in his shoes and that gave me goosebumps. I really could not imagine myself waking up one day and couldn't even recognized my friends or family members.
There was not one moment in our dialogue that we were silent. I truly believed that it was God's blessing for us to have this experience. Ray may claimed that our encounter was random and completely out of God's plan, if there is even a God. But I truly believed that every little things happened in our lives for a reason. We must be courageous enough to lift up our faith and just believe.
Later on he told me that he was a free-style artist. He loved to put together random things he saw on the street. He showed me a photo of a tape that he decorated and it said "Love". He also enjoy drawing photos of sunflowers (one was a joyful sunflower with a big smile). Speechlessly excited, I shared with him about my affinity for love shape items, free-style art, and sunflowers! At that moment, I saw why we were able to have deep conversations. Regardless of our backgrounds, our races, our surroundings, we had a similar mindset. We believe that there are beauties in people, and that by doing little things in life, we may somehow bring happiness for others. That was what it counts in our lives.
...we were similar, yet very different: I believed there is an even more creative Artist behind this beauty project.
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At the end of our intense dialogue, he tapped my shoulder before his departure: good luck! Before I could turned around and say "thank you", he was already half way out the door, continuing his life journey... I yelled across the room with a genuine and encouraging smile"Keep seeking!"
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