Religious Experiences

What elements would you include if you were describing a profound religious experience to a friend?  Would your description be any different if your friend happened to be a scientist?

When my husband and I were youth counselors, we took our youth group to a Conference Camp for a retreat. After we had packed the two vans to leave and head back home, we circled up the field outside the cabins with the cross in the background and shared a closing prayer.  As my husband led the prayer, a wind came across the field and surrounded us. It felt like the presence of God. 

 

When I tell that story to people, I include what we were doing at the time, who was there, the fact that we were praying together after a meaningful retreat with the youth, and then how the elements of nature – the wind and the field – contributed to the profound experience of the presence of God among us.  I would use the same elements of the story if I were telling the story to a friend who was a scientist because my purpose is not to explain the science of the wind but presence of the holy.