We make our way to Longshan Temple by subway train, climbing a nearly-infinite set of steep concrete stairs before emerging out into the suffused gray light of a cloudy Monday morning in Taipei. Five minutes later, we walk around a corner … and there it is: a riot of sound and color, a front gate featuring rain-slick roofing tiles and fiberglass dragons, and a courtyard full of Instagram-able pink and yellow pop-up stalls celebrating the Year of the Horse.
Longshan isn’t a hospice temple. It doesn’t depend on tourists dollars to keep its gates open. Locals crowd inside, even today — a random Monday morning — to shop in the little retail stalls hidden in wall niches, to watch the koi swimming in the ponds at the base of the faux waterfalls, to leave offerings of orchids and oranges and Red Velvet Oreos, to burn sticks of pungent incense, to toss half-moon-shaped wooden jiaobei, or divination blocks.
Tossing these blocks (they look like red apple slices) gets your prayers answered in real time, no waiting:
- one lands on the flat side, the other lands on the rounded edge – Shengbei – the gods say yes.
- both land flat – Yinbei – the gods are laughing at you (either because you’re asking the wrong question, or because you’re not really ready for an answer)
- both land on rounded sides – Chaobei – the gods don’t favor this path.
In the wide internal courtyard, the crowd prays in other ways. They light incense sticks, allowing the curling smoke to carry their prayers up to heaven. They stand with hands clasped at their waists, eyes closed, fervently speaking their needs to the gods. Others push forward to any of several temple alcoves filled with golden figures resting in vibrant red enclosures lit by hundreds of tiny LED bulbs; there, they get on their knees and press their foreheads to the ground. Hear me. Please, hear me.
As they pray, people shop for masks or candles or the sweet energy drinks the gods favor … tourists wander through gawking, snapping photos, tripping on uneven stairs … and kids chase each other over the uneven paving stones.
Earlier this week, a fellow cruise ship passenger, speaking of his travels around Asia, told me, “We go in these temples and I’m just heart broken. All these people there, praying to all these crazy statues, all in hopes that some gods that don’t exist will grant their wishes. It’s pitiful, really, and if I could speak their language, I would go around from person to person and tell them about Jesus.”
In an effort to be polite, I said nothing at the time. But his words have haunted me, and they came back to me today as I stood in Longshan Temple immersed in expressions of faith that weren’t very much like what we see in Union County, Mississippi.
Here’s what I see in temples like Longshan: an open, undisguised hunger to be closer to the Divine. Zero embarrassment over public displays of devotion. Sincere searching for guidance from the Divine will. I see Buddhists, Taoists, followers of Mazu (the sea goddess) and Wenchang (the god of literature) and the Moon Rabbit, all praying and worshipping side by side.
These folks aren’t praying to the figures in the temples, by the way — no more than Christians pray to stained glass images or the big crosses hung inside churches. The displays in the temple are a focal point, a trigger for a certain state of mind; the prayers themselves have always been directed to Heaven.
And as for “If I could speak their language I’d go from person to person to tell them about Jesus” … well, a lot of us don’t speak their language. And a lot of us don’t know much about their culture or religion, either. We certainly don’t know what life circumstances brought them here, or what motivated them to be doing whatever they did in the temple today. And even if language weren’t a barrier … how would I feel about a foreign tourist busting up in my worship service to tell me everything she thinks I’m doing wrong?
Maybe — just maybe — we have a little work to do closer to home before we go busting up into foreign temples.
I am not someone who believes that all roads lead to Heaven. But I do think a lot of roads are headed up the mountain, and that we can all learn a thing or two from seeing how those other roads navigate the treacherous landscape between where we are and where we want to be.
So: give me green roofing tiles and dragons coiled around columns. Give me prayers scented with sandalwood. Give me red paper lanterns and strands of yellow LED bulbs. Give me the sound of bells and waterfalls and children playing while the adults pray aloud.
Give me the kind of faith that has me out there, in public, unashamed to admit that I’m imperfect and needy and a little bit uncertain about what to do next. Give me the humility needed to let people see I don’t really have all the answers; let me be honest enough to say I don’t even know all the questions.
Let me be as at home in a noisy stone temple built in 1738 as I am in a carpeted, wood-paneled church from the 1960’s.
Let me be bold enough to believe in a God big enough to be present here, there, and everywhere … even in the sights, sounds, and shapes that feel foreign to me.
