Salat

May my prayer be set before you like incense;
may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.
– Psalm 141:2 (NIV)

A couple of months ago, I happened upon a group of Muslims engaged in prayer on the plaza of San José’s City Hall. They were performing Salat, an Islamic ritual that devout Muslims repeat five times each day. The chance to witness Salat still feels like a rare treat to me, so I stopped to watch respectfully as they prayed together.

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Meditation with Cats

Prayer takes many forms, all of them beautiful. One of my favorite forms of prayer is contemplative meditation, a time of silently reflecting on a specific subject. On any given day, the topic of my contemplation may be a Bible passage or a theological concept such as healing, wholeness or joy. Most frequently, I simply focus on God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. Whichever focus I choose, one thing is always the same. While many forms of prayer involve speaking, contemplative prayer involves listening.

This is not to say that contemplative prayer is always easy, particularly if you have cats. Read more »

Finding our Spiritual Center in Difficult Times

 
Please join us this March for From Bud to Flower: Finding our Spiritual Center in Difficult Times, a powerful and inspiring sermon series at MCC San Jose.

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My Spiritual Journey with AIDS

I See You . . .
 
I am grateful to you AIDS
You have deconstructed
   Everything I made.
And allowed it all
   To reassemble in a new creation
Still all that I was
   But a new creation
All that I will become
   Yet, all that I am.
                  – Karl J. Vidt, October 2008

On March 6, 1989, I tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. I expected the test to confirm that I did not have the virus. I thought that I had escaped. But the virus had been lying dormant in my body all along. I was in deep shock. Read more »