Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Taxi

It is exactly midnight here in Dallas. No, my computer is showing Nevada time. It is exactly 2:00 a.m. here in Dallas. Looks like tonight will be my fourth night running with less than 4 hours sleep. No. I think I'm going to skip breakfast and get a few more minutes of sleep.

Today I was able to catch up with many friends, most of whom I have not seen in over a year.

Eric and I had to grab a cab tonight to get back to our hotel. As we pulled in I noticed what looked like a Koran on the floor of the cab. I asked our driver about it. He also had a Bible in the passenger seat. He is a Muslim. He has been reading the Bible for about one month. His familiarity with the Biblical texts is astounding. He struggles to believe that the Bible is God's word for a variety of reasons. First, if there is anything mentioned that would be contrary to the Koran he will go with the Koran. Secondly, he struggles to understand how God could allow sin to take place while not doing anything about it (in his opinion the cross is not a display of God's active engagement in justice for evil). To make his point he mentioned Lot's daughters who got their dad drunk in order to have sex with him. Thirdly, he can't believe that the Bible is God's word because of the explicit command to kill men, women, and children in certain countries when God's people were settling the land. These are difficult issues. He wants to have more conversation in the months ahead. We had 35 minutes of dialog in his cab in front of our hotel tonight.

The irony is that the last time I was in a cab--late April in southern Florida--Eric and I had a conversation with our Muslim cab driver. He was a very dear man, and was very open to understanding the Bible.

These conversations have served to sharpen my own faith and have also been a help to make me a better listener to the faith statements of others.

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Me and Angie

Me and Angie
December 2010