I mean, I did move to a Hindu country and I do live in a house with a Hindu family, so I knew that it wouldn't take long. It didn't. Yesterday it happened.
I was served food offered to idols.
I am preeeety sure it happened last week during Tihar as well. As I was up on the roof washing my laundry, my landlord, Krishna, called to me to go down and open the front door.
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| Miniature fruits and rice bread. |
Krishna and his wife gave me a plate of fruit and rice bread. They have terrible English and I have terrible Nepali, so we weren't able to talk too much about their gift, but I know that the rice bread is a Tihar thing (think Christmas cookies). Maybe it was offered to idols. Maybe not. I still don't know.
But yesterday was different. I was siting downstairs with the mom of our housemates (still working on everyone's names) and Pratibha. We were working on some Nepali vocabulary and in walked Krishna's wife with a plate of goodies. The two older ladies talked for a minute, and then the mom took the goodies into the kitchen.
After a few minutes, she came back into the living room with a plate of yogurty stuff and some round flat bread.
Pratibha then told me that Krishna's wife had just done her puja and that she had just offered this food to the god.
I'm not going to tell you what I did, whether or not I ate it. That's another story for another day. All I can say is that 1 Corinthians rushed through my brain like a blur and I was forced to make a decision... eat or don't eat.
But I am curious... what would you have done?
Without cheating by checking the scripture now, I know that I probably would have eaten it, since to me, an idol is nothing. On the other hand, I seem to recall that Paul said it was okay to eat it; just don't ask if it was sacrificed or not. But, if they tell you it was, then don't eat it. Hmmm. Really tough. I guess this is where a bit of prior training would have proved really helpful. So, I wonder, what did you do?
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