Mantra, Chakra, Etc...

Saturday night, Sarah, Josh, Caleb, and I went to a party at Eric and Kristen's place. They were the cool people I met at Josh's birthday party a couple weeks ago. While there, Caleb and I started talking to Belinda, this really cool girl who lives down in SLC. She invited us to go to this meditation session with her last night, so we did. We were both curious to see what it was all about, and were anticipating some kind of mystical, new-age-y type thing with lots of crystals and chanting. Boy, were we wrong. Well, except for the chanting part.
It all took place in a room in a psychiatrist's/massage therapist's office building. It was dimly lit and there was incense burning. There were about 20 people there and everyone was very friendly. The session started with 30 minutes of meditation. I really liked this part. I'm pretty familiar with prayer and meditation, and the 30 minutes went by really quick. After that, a few people talked about what they meditated on. I was expecting people to talk about Buddha or Oprah or something about ruffling away the bad spirits, but of the six people that talked, four mentioned Jesus. One lady talked about how much meditation has put her in touch with the Lord. Caleb talked about how God fills his heart up with love. It was pretty cool.
Then the chanting started. It lasted for about 30 minutes, and it included beating on a drum. I tried to participate at first, thinking it might open me up to something new, but I just ended up feeling silly. What I did realise is that it was much easier to meditate and concentrate on the Lord when I have background noise.
The whole thing was over by 8:00 PM, so then, Belinda, Caleb, and I went to this restaurant called the One World Cafe, which was the coolest place I've been to eat in Utah. It was all organic food and run by volunteers. There was no menu and no prices. Only a box at the door, and when you leave, you just put in what you thought your meal was worth. Apparently, that works pretty well, because the place has been there for years and it's pretty popular. I'll definitely be going back again.
So, yeah, overall, it was a pretty good evening. I wouldn't mind going back to the whole meditation thing again, but I wonder if I could leave before the chanting.