I meet many people in east Vancouver who are very open to spiritual things, and who can see good in things that I in my “Baptist” roots fail to see at times. They see how pluralism is a way of building people up, rather than tearing them down…as sometimes we tend to do in church life…”I’m right and you’re wrong,” mentality.

However, amongst this relative living there is something that my friend Jason pointed out to me through his reading of the Life of Pi. Although he didn’t write it plainly, his words and the words of Yan Martel, author of “Life of Pi” brought to light something that I have been wrestling and pondering called “religion of everything,” which was emphasized in a quote from the book.

“I’ll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” (p. 31)

I realize that although these people want to be apologetic to all religions and philosophies, they are in themselves missing an opportunity to make a choice and their choice of “no choice” is really a form of doubt. But what if God is asking us to take a risk, to jump off the 3m diving board even though we have never felt the waters touch from that height before, rather than stand and simply encourage those who run by and jump beside us?