The Sun Of God

It all began on a quiet afternoon, walking through the streets of Belfast, far from the world I knew growing up. I was on my way to Queens University for a simple game of basketball with friends, something we had arranged in the gym. The streets were familiar, but that day, as I strolled through them with time to spare, something unexpected caught my attention—a church with its doors wide open. It wasn’t part of my usual path, but the sight stirred a sudden wave of curiosity in me.
I wasn’t raised in a religious family. In fact, religion wasn’t a significant part of my upbringing. But there I was, standing in front of this church, wondering who went there and why. What drew people into this place of worship? What did it mean to them? These questions, which seemed simple on the surface, felt strangely complicated to me.
With no one to stop me, I stepped inside.
The air inside the church was different, quieter, almost weighty, as though the walls themselves held something unspoken. The rows of empty pews stretched out in front of me, and above the altar hung a man on a cross—Jesus, though at the time, I didn’t know him in that sense. Across from him, a statue of a woman cradling a baby—Mary and the infant Christ—stood quietly in a corner. The church was filled with ornaments and decorations, objects that clearly held deep meaning to those who worshiped there, yet their significance was a mystery to me.
As a young student, far from the war, violence, and fundamentalism that had surrounded me in my earlier life, standing in this European church cracked something in my comfort zone. Here I was, in a place where people—grown-up people, as I noted at the time—gathered to reflect on something much larger than themselves. What was it that drew them here? Why did they sit in these empty seats, gazing at these statues and symbols, meditating on things I couldn’t yet understand?
These questions started to swirl in my mind, refusing to leave me alone. I had always been a critical thinker—a trait sharpened by my studies as an engineering student. My life had been filled with the tangible, the measurable. And yet, standing there, confronted by symbols of faith, I found myself grappling with something intangible, something that didn’t fit neatly into the logic and reason I was accustomed to.
I walked out of that church and headed to the gym, but the questions stayed with me, lingering long after the basketball game had ended. What was it that these people believed in? What was the meaning behind these symbols of Jesus on the cross, Mary, and the child? These were not questions I had ever asked before, but now, they seemed unavoidable. Why did so many people, in so many places, across so many centuries, gather to worship something or someone that could not be seen?
It was the beginning of a journey—a journey that has shaped the course of my life to this day.