Getting out of the boat

  Let’s read part of the Quran! TWO DISCLAIMERS: I think it’s impossible to read a religious text without bias because they typically cover very personal things. In this case, I think it’s smarter to use bias to my advantage, and use what I believe as a stepping stool up to an interesting perspective on what many Muslims believe.  The orthodox Islamic belief states that to get the full grasp of the Quran you must read it’s poetry in the original Arabic. I’m not doing that as I don’t know Arabic, so I’m reading a translation. Grain of salt, I guess? I think it’s really cool and wise to read things like the Quran, even if I have been conditioned to not believe it. I have found that it’s a strange book; on one hand it references the Bible multiple times, and expects readers to have some knowledge of the Bible. On the other hand, it adds bits of canon or “lore” onto these commonly heard biblical stories that weren’t in the initial biblical canon. The Quran was written roughly 500 ...

                 "We're brothers in Christ with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and are looking to find out where he was hidden". This is what I typed into my English-> German translator app in hopes that it could unlock a few doors for us.            Last week, my brother and one of my best friends, Matt, were staying at an AirB&B in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a skiing town in the German alps. We had one day left to spend in the beautiful region and no plan of what to do with it. I'd heard a couple times about this cool old monastery that was nestled in a valley 20 minutes away in the alpine village of Ettal. I thought it could be a cool thing to check out, but wasn't too motivated to go see it. I had done a 10 hour hike the day before, had a big breakfast, and was too busy enjoying gawking at the nearly 10,000 foot peaks around us to see another silent, ornate Roman Catholic building on top of the dozens we'd...