The Best Lesson in the Christian Faith I Ever Learned from a Buddhist

The Linguista and I recently found ourselves in one of our famous marathon parking lot discussions that occur when one of us drives the other to a mutual destination and then the return trip to pick up the car turns into a two-hour gab session that inevitably becomes deeply philosophical.

As we talked about relationships, I told her that I had to focus on being a better person and a better Christian before I troubled myself further to find the love of my life.

"Why are you so hard on yourself?" she asked. "I marvel at you every day."

I mumbled some sort of abashed thanks for the compliment but quickly turned back to my failings. All the ways I fall short of the glory of God that I should be focused on improving.

The Linguista, a Buddhist, asked if Christians were the ones who believe that we are made in the image of God, and I confirmed. "I read this part of your book," she said. "And I don't think it means that you have the face of God. Maybe you do. But I think it's that your soul is in the image of God. You have a God-shaped soul. And you have to find the beauty of God that's already in you."

I had never thought of being created in the image of God as more than a literal interpretation that we resembled God in some way. And as a Baptist, I've always been far more educated in the ways that I am not like God than in the ways that I am. But to think that, as she put it, I have a piece of God's soul, cleaved from the whole, makes me feel less like I am a broken thing in a constant state of repair and more like I have something amazing inside. And it makes sense to think of God desiring a relationship with a soul that is like Him, but this idea that God's soul was there all the time, is, well, to put it Buddhistly, enlightening.