Photo ©2025 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Religion goes deep within the psyche of man. According to Philip Yancey, “No society in history has attempted to live without a belief in the sacred, not until the modern West.” (Rumors of Another World) One of the possible reasons for the secularization is the opportunity to travel and be exposed to the religions of other cultures. While we may hold tenaciously onto our own beliefs, those of another culture may seem foolish or primitive from our perspective. That was something I struggled with while visiting Bali. Even though the island of Bali is strongly Hindu, the nation of Indonesia, of which it is a part, is predominately Muslim. In fact it is the largest Muslim nation in the world.
We were there on their New Year’s Day which this year happened to fall on March 22. Nyepi is a Balinese “Day of Silence.” Everything shuts down. From 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. the next morning the day is set aside for self-reflection, silence, and meditation. There are to be no fires, working, or travel. Even the international airport is closed. Not surprisingly, there are certain aspects of this I found very attractive.
The day before Nyepi is celebrated with a ritual procession through the streets led by children carrying symbolic statues made of cloth, tinsel and Styrofoam. These Ogoh-ogoh, or demonic statues, symbolize malevolent spirits which control their lives. This display ends in an open-air auditorium where these statues are paraded around and sometimes shaken until they fall apart, much to the delight of the onlookers. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to think I understand their religious thought process, but I do feel it is unfortunate they believe they can rid themselves of the evil that is within through this human manipulation. However, the positive takeaway is that they recognize the very real war going on within themselves. We can learn from all.
Along this same line of thinking I came across something written by a fellow Christian who, though not part of my own denomination, spoke eloquently about something that is important to me—the Sabbath. Eugene Peterson wrote: “If you keep the Sabbath, you start to see creation not as somewhere to get away from your ordinary life, but a place to frame attentiveness to your life.” Amen and Amen!