Utah surprises me. You’d think after a few years of living here and a lifetime membership in the Church that I would be fully versed in all things Utah, but every now and then I have a “what the…” moment. Most of the time it’s brought on by unexpected precipitation on a day when I am (of course) wearing suede shoes. But this time, it was prompted by a different sort of precipitation—that of colorful powder and floods of photos on Facebook.

Yes, ‘tis once again the season of the annual Festival of Colors at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah. I usually dread this event because of what it does to my Facebook newsfeed, and because I have a phobia of crowds and bad traffic. However, after reading some statistics in online articles, I came to a rather interesting epiphany. According to several website articles, the 2011 Festival of Colors was attended by 40,000 people and is currently the largest Festival of Colors in the nation—as in the United States of America. Doesn’t it seem a little surprising that Utah would host the largest celebration for a Hindu festival in the country? More interesting still is that BYU students actually make up a significant chunk of the attendees at the festival.
Utah, and more specifically, Mormons, often receive flack for being narrow minded and sheltered. While in some ways that may be true, I’d be so bold as to say that I do not know of another religious group of people that is so interested in other religious entities.

From my own BYU experience, I can say that I was exposed to a good number of religions outside of my own. At BYU, students take classes such as “World Religions,” hold weekly forums with speakers from all denominations, and some of us (like myself) even get to live in Israel for a semester in order to study Judaism, Islam as well as Christianity. The most rewarding moments of my academic experience were centered around these experiences.

The truth is, while we, as members of the Church, like to talk about our church, I think we also just like religion in general. We like to learn about it, we like to see people practicing it, and we like others to share their beliefs with us. If you don’t believe me, just take a stroll through the Museum of Art on BYU’s campus. It’s currently showcasing an entire exhibit (which has been in the works for years now) entirely devoted to Islamic art. When you really think about it, that’s kind of amazing.

I think this stems from two things. First, is the fact that religion, to us, is more that frosting on the cake. It IS the cake, and who wouldn’t want cake, right? Secondly, I think because our history is peppered with times of being persecuted and misunderstood, we tend to be more understanding of religious “otherness.” We relate it. We wish that in the early days of our history, people would have been more open-minded.

I guess you could argue that perhaps we just like to throw colorful powder in each other’s faces, but I think there’s something a little bit more substantial than powder in this—maybe even a smidgeon of the Golden Rule in action.