As I stood outside the souq in Musquat, Oman, I felt the air around me reverberate with the sound of the call to prayer. And like a circadian rhythm, the entire city shifted. Shops closed, the streets quieted, and I realized that there are many things I can learn from the rhythms and rituals of... The post As-salaam-alaikum appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

When you scan the brains of believers, you find that their understanding of God is nonverbal, more akin to a feeling or experience than a set of ideas. This is why Christians are usually stumped if someone asks them, “What is God?” Contrary to what some skeptics say, it’s not because these people’s belief system... The post The God We Can Know appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

If you’ve ever been hurt by a church, you’ll have to grieve the loss to be healthy. The deeper the wound, the more time you’ll need. Sometimes sorting out your emotions and reactions will feel like sorting through a restaurant’s dumpster without gloves, but all those feelings have to come up—the neurological associations with that... The post Take Me To Church appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

We simplistically teach a single story in our history classrooms, of brave rebels who left cultures of tyranny and heroically crossed the Atlantic to found a nation built on freedom and justice. When we speak of our national sins, such as the genocide committed against Native Americans or the brutal, long-term economic extraction of wealth... The post The Good Book appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

Early in the 20th century, Albert Einstein demonstrated that matter and energy are made of the same basic stuff, and that not only is everything that is “solid” in the universe made up of mostly empty space, but that what little actual “mass” there is only exists because some particles interact with a universal, invisible... The post Einstein’s God appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

“Can I sit here in church like an imposter?” she asks. “Am I an imposter?” I take a moment to collect myself. Her honest and vulnerability are too familiar: I, too, have sat in a roomful of Christians and admitted I don’t believe in Christ—or in any God at all. I tell her a story... The post An Imposter? appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

Shortly after 9/11 a church gave me some money to take out my friends who had survived the terrorist attacks. We went to New York City’s finest steakhouse and we ate and we drank and we talked and laughed. There we were — Christian, atheist, Jew, Hindu, agnostic — sitting around, thankful and yet mourning... The post The First Time appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

Five hundred white supremacists with guns gathered outside the mosque. Hate and venom spewed out of their mouths as Muslims tried to enter their holy place and pray. I stood with about five hundred other people of faith between the hatred and the holy. Two nights later we gathered again. Whereas the skinheads had brought... The post The Hatred And The Holy appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

So much of my identity—as a Sikh, a 23-year-old woman, and a brown person in this country—is linked to fear. Over the last several years, I’ve felt the continuing need to verify and justify my existence as an American, so much so that I found myself doubting my own identity, too. And yet, there is... The post From Fear To Love appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.

In the weeks following the 9/11 attacks in New York, I worked at the site of the former World Trade Center. My ministry was to support the rescue workers laboring in the ruins of the Twin Towers. So my experience of 9/11 was different than that of others. In the wake of a terrible tragedy,... The post Unprecedented Grace appeared first on Thirty Seconds or Less.