The Tower of Babel (Book Proposal for Creative Non Fiction)

Student: `In phenomena, what is true?'

Master: `The very phenomena are themselves truth.'

Student: `The how should it be revealed?'

The master lifted the tea tray.

~Zen Koan

How many people have ever wondered if there really is an essential difference in religions? Or is it simply a matter of words? Simply an artifact of language and that over time it will be realized that everyone is talking about the same exact thing…

Over the next year I will visit twelve different religious traditions and follow a leader of the religion around, taking on the culture, dress and lifestyle. But as it seems often that the difference is merely a matter of language and not of meaning, I will select locations where the language is not my own. This will permit my eyes to see more than perhaps I would if caught in discussions of theology. I want to see their theology lived out. I want to see their reactions to a foreigner who can not speak their tongue. How do they really live out what they teach and preach? What do they seem most concerned with? How do they respond to the poor, to the rich? What does it mean to worship? How “attached” are they to the world?

The locations I will visit and leaders I will work with are: Mozambique with an evangelical Christian minister, Persia with a Zoroastrian leader, Nepal with a Hindu leader, Tibet with a Vajrayāna (Tibetan) Buddhist Monk, Italy with a Roman Catholic Priest, Turkey with an Eastern Orthodox Priest, Saudi Arabia with a Muslim Imam, Israel with a Jewish Rabbi, Japan with a Zen Buddhist Monk, Punjab, India with a Sikh leader, North Korea with a Juche (state atheist “philosophy”) leader, and China with a Confucian/Taoist practitioner.