Vapors
Walking in Taiwan//Advent
Father Tom and Earl took me on something of a culinary adventure with treats along the way. At first, we were joined by Father Keith for a jaunt through Ximending, a center of youth culture and a tourist hub of the city. We ate chicken butts. And other things. Then we made a visit to Longshan Temple, which was built starting in the 1730s by those who migrated from mainland China in the Qing Dynasty. It’s a temple of folk religion — the most common in Taiwan — and each of these could be oriented toward a god or a handful of them or to a human being who’s become a kind of saint or a kind of god. Longshan Temple is among many that have a principle god and a lot of other gods or saints and side chapels. Buddha would be but one example among many. The folk religions, Buddhism, Taoism — they all mingle with each other. Guanyin is a boddhisatva. If you’ve not heard that term before, it just means a person who has achieved a Buddha-like status of enlightenment. and who is now in some holy state.
Guanyin is resident in Longshan Temple and that’s why people come here to worship and have for a few hundred years. But this is not only where she is. She is also in at least two mountains we visited over the course of my time in Taiwan. She is a she in China and East Asia, and typically a he in India. The first is across the river from Tamsui, which I wrote about from the beginning of my trip:
And also in a statue at Dharma Drum Monastery and in a mountain there that we visited at the end of the trip.
Anyway, Guanyin is in a lot of places. In the statue. In the temple. In the faces and bodies given shape by volcanoes.
At Longshan Temple, it’s hot and the pilgrims and worshippers are cooled by vapor misters overhead. Someone has left an offering to Guanyin, a bottle of whisky distilled from vapors.
And of course there are the vapors enshrouding the mountains as clouds. The vapors ascending from candles and incense. The prayers radiating outward. And of course, we pilgrims ourselves. Only here for a little while.
Exodus 13:21-22
The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night.
Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.
God goes before us.
Note: this is the twenty-third in a series of Advent reflections on my summer 2025 pilgrimage to Taiwan. I’ll lean on photos from my trip to carry us, though you’ll find some short writing and some songs to guide you through the season. I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to Taiwan Episcopal Church (you may need to translate the webpage and will need to convert your contribution to New Taiwan Dollars).
A bit about me: I am a seminarian, teacher, and community builder rooted in the Episcopal tradition. After many years as a theatre professor and artistic leader, I am exploring how beauty, ritual, and relationship help people recover their humanity and their hope. Here on Controlled Burn, I write on formation, belonging, and the slow, never-ending work of becoming.