Finding Jesus

For as long as I can remember, my grandfather has asked me the same question over and over again.

“Who’s your best friend?”

It’s gotten to the point where it’s rhetorical, as there is only one right answer. That answer, of course, is Jesus.

It seems to me that Jesus has a peculiar habit of popping up at all sorts of times — and not always in the vicinity of a church.

Just recently, 26-year-old Zach Evans of the United Kingdom claimed to have seen Jesus’ face in a Hungarian pasture while using Google Maps. I also took a look at the satellite image and concluded the field’s geography does bear a striking resemblance to the face of a long-haired man.

While Evans’ claim has generated a lot of interest on the Internet, it is hardly the first Jesus sighting in recent times. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, brought a renewed fascination with the famous Shroud of Turin.

The Shroud is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion.

In 2006, an Orlando couple claimed to have seen Christ on a pancake. They did what any good Christian would do and sold the flapjack on eBay.

While I have no problem with people getting excited about finding evidence of their messiah in everyday life, I do dispute the apparent notion that every long-haired man portrait must be of Jesus.

But back to the Google Maps Jesus. I noticed the man in question did look an awful lot like The Doors vocalist and rock ‘n’ roll  messiah Jim Morrison. The pancake Jesus could very well have been Duane “Dog” Chapman, the star of A&E Network’s “Dog the Bounty Hunter.”

I’m not here to bash religion in the slightest, but the level of religious fanaticism that leads people to believe they are actually finding Jesus in ridiculous things like breakfast foods is somewhat troubling.

Coming from a family of diverse religious beliefs, I’m open to different ideas of connecting oneself to a higher being or deity.

I’m also very open to entertaining the idea that we humans are merely an amalgamation of sustained chemical reactions that have preposterously continued against all odds.

Either way, the most important lesson I have learned is to respect the beliefs of others. In my opinion, it matters less what you believe than that you actually believe it.

The happiest people I know are the ones who are content with their existence in the world, regardless of what they believe.

Many Christians, when debating some of the contradictions in the Bible, claim “God moves in mysterious ways.” However, while God may be one for subtlety, I highly doubt that means Yahweh will reveal his presence to the world in a Hungarian field.

At the end of the day, the real winner is Google. After all, if God chooses to reveal itself to the world via Google Maps, I’m sure its stockholders will be praising the Lord all the way to the bank.


E-mail: halderfe@indiana.edu