Marsh Vocation

By aclauhs

I don’t trust my memory alone to remember things for me. I feel much more secure having things down on paper. Every New Year, I take out my journal and make a page titled “The Year in Review.” I write down important events, things I learned, and my resolutions for next year.

I think there’s something valuable about marking the passing of time like that. If you don’t record it, it tends to blur away in your mind. You have trouble remembering your triumphs–or your low points. I recommend you try it.

Though it’s not the end of the calendar year, it is the end of the academic year, and so I am offering you my own (Academic) Year in Review.

Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t do this at the end of every academic year on my own (it is just after the exhaustion of finals, after all), but I am lucky enough to have gotten a 4-year renewable scholarship from a foundation back home in South Carolina. To renew the scholarship, every year I have to write a letter detailing my academic year.

It has actually been incredibly helpful, because now I can look back on those old letters and remember how I felt at the end of those other academic years–what I cared about, what I was proud of.

So I thought I’d share this year’s letter with you, so that you could see the past year from my point of view:

Dear [Scholarship Director]:

For the past three years, I have received the [Scholarship] from [Scholarship Foundation]. This scholarship has allowed me to attend and to continue my studies at Boston University. I am writing now to share my experiences of this year at Boston University and to request a continuation of funding for next year.

As I wrote in my letter last year, I became involved with the Boston University Interfaith Council at the beginning of my sophomore year. Now, in my junior year, my passion for interfaith work has grown even stronger. I strongly believe that increasing people’s religious literacy and helping them to engage with people of other religious traditions (or no religious tradition) are important to foster a pluralistic, peaceful world that can celebrate and embrace difference and diversity.

The Interfaith Council, of which I am the president, put on many exciting events this year. We hosted a “Religion Mythbusters” panel series, aimed at breaking down stereotypes about various religions, including Islam, Sikhism, and Mormonism. In the spring, we held the First Annual BU Interfaith Fair, an educational celebration of the rich diversity of religions on campus. We had musical performances, a buffet with important foods from various faiths, and booths with student representatives from different groups—including Muslims, Sikhs, Baha’is, Buddhists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Hindus, Secular Humanists, and more.

On a larger scale, this fall I founded the Boston Interfaith Campus Coalition (BICC). Last spring, I had worked with various local colleges to put on an interfaith food drive event called HUNGERally, which raised awareness about hunger in Boston. Seeing how powerful cooperation between colleges was, I decided to formally create an alliance, so that we could all work together on more interfaith events in the future. And so BICC was born; it consists of over fifteen colleges, including Boston University, Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Tufts, Brandeis, and more.

I organized two service major events this year through BICC. In the fall, we had a Thanksgiving meal-packing event, which raised over $10,000. At $0.25 a meal, we were able to pack 40,000 meals for hungry children in Boston. Students from BICC, as well as locals from the community, helped fundraise and pack these meals together while engaging in interfaith dialogue. In the spring, we had Cards & Scarves, where we made cards and scarves for the homeless of Boston and participated in interfaith conversations about the meaning of service in our various religions. Excitingly, we are already in the process of planning what our next big service event will be this coming fall.

Apart from my extra-curricular interfaith work, my interest in religion is also fulfilled in my academic studies. As a religion major, I have taken many interesting classes this year, including “Women, Gender, and Islam” and “Atheism and Agnosticism in US History.” In the spring semester, I also began work on my senior year thesis, applying for approval from the Institutional Review Board and creating my prospectus. Entitled “Millennial Christianity: The Wild Goose Festival and the Response of the Religious Right,” my thesis will be an ethnographic study of a contemporary evangelical Christian festival and its reception by conservative Christians; I intend to study whether the influence of the Religious Right on American society is waning or merely changing form. I will be doing my research for the thesis in August at the Wild Goose Festival, which happens in North Carolina.

My advisor for my thesis has been an incredibly helpful guide and a wonderful educator. In fact, I have found many incredible mentors at Boston University. My three years of college with all these advisors have helped me to discern what I want for my future. I aim to do humanitarian work in religiously diverse communities, especially in ones where religion is a source of tension and friction and where interfaith-based humanitarian work can begin to heal these conflicts. There are many humanitarian issues in which I am interested, including gender inequality, homelessness, and hunger, but all of them ultimately center around the issue of poverty and giving voice to those whose voices are not normally heard by society.

Through working with non-profits and NGOs (I am open to working anywhere in the world, though my experiences and opportunities will no doubt influence where I find myself able to work) to increase interfaith engagement and fight poverty through service, I hope to heal divides and empower people.

In the more immediate future, I am currently preparing applications for graduate fellowships abroad, such as the Fulbright and the Rhodes scholarships. I will submit those in the fall; the programs of study I hope to follow if I receive one of these fellowships would focus on peace-building and religious conflict resolution. I am also planning on applying to graduate schools within the United States in the fall. To continue with my theme of religion and humanitarian work, I am looking at dual degree programs for a Masters of Divinity and a Masters in Social Work. There are many schools, including Harvard, Boston University, and the University of Chicago, which offer this program, and I have already been able to make some school visits and find out about the exciting opportunities these various institutions offer.

More immediately, however, I am looking forward to this summer, which I will be spending in Italy. I have studied Italian since I first came to Boston University, and now—after saving up for multiple years—I am able to actually go to the country (it will be my first time abroad). I will be doing a program called Conversation Corps, in which I will live with an Italian host family and teach them English. I have already been matched with my host family and have been emailing back and forth with them, and I cannot wait to use my passport for the first time, get on a plane, and see them. I have always had a hunger to travel, and this is, I hope, the first of many journeys I will make to different places around the world.

It is hard for me to express in words the joy and wonder I feel about my experiences here at Boston University. In just three years here, I have transformed and grown as a person. Inspirational professors, professionals, and fellow students have shared their worldviews with me and offered me countless opportunities. I have discovered new passions, new people, and new possibilities.

On one hand, I feel somewhat sad to know that next year will be my last at Boston University. But it is a sadness unsullied by regret, because I know that I have taken full advantage of all that Boston University has presented to me. I want to thank the [Schoalrship Foundation] again for awarding me the [Scholarship] and enabling me to get an education at Boston University—in the fullest sense of the word “education”—and I humbly request a continuation of funding for this last and final year.

All the best,

Abigail Clauhs

posted in Abigail on 05.15.2013 at 10:58 am

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By Emma

I’ve been trying to write this blog post for a week.  A deadline has come and gone, and another one is fast approaching.  I’ve been overwhelmed by this week and a half, by the regular insanity of life, by my to-do list, trying to figure out how to handle and process the waves of emotions that have gripped me like a tide, encompassing me from time to time as I remember what this week has involved, fading as I get wrapped up with daily life, returning as I see the images and hear the stories that have become inextricably tied to the Boston Marathon.  I could write a hundred blog posts about this week, and I’ve written and rewritten many of them, but we’ll go with this one.

The last nine days in Boston have been absolutely surreal.  First there was Monday — I’ll get to that later.  I woke up on Tuesday, in disbelief that Monday had happened, and that I had to pretend everything was normal and go to class.  It was an entirely unproductive day.  On Wednesday and Thursday, it took all of my physical will to get out of bed and go to classes and work.  I felt emotionally drained.  Thursday night rolled around.  Just after Sean Collier was pronounced dead, I fell asleep.  When I woke up the next morning, my entire world seemed to have been changed irrevocably–for the second time in a week.  A shootout, more deaths, the worst cabin fever I could’ve imagined.  Friday was certainly the longest day of my life, and probably the most bizarre.  I tried repeatedly to turn off the news, but someone would call asking if I’d heard about the latest development, and I couldn’t stay away.  The days since have been emotional, as more and more details have emerged about the bombing, the suspects, et cetera.

But through the midst of the horror that gripped our city for what felt like much longer than a week, and that will be in our minds for many more years to come, I have been completely floored by the outpouring of love and solidarity that Boston has shown, and that the rest of the world has shown for Boston.  I admit, I may have flooded my social media accounts with these stories.  Whether that’s a note from the Chicago Tribune to the Globe, the resiliency of Dunkin Donuts, the way Obama made this tragedy personal with his description of the Boston people, the tireless work of medical professionals across the city, messages of hope from countries that feel Boston’s pain every day, soldiers who had just finished the Tough Ruck (the 26.2 mile march in fatigues with a 40lb pack on their back) and jumped into the midst of the finish line wreckage to help survivors, my own coworker, an Athletic Training major who was working at the medical tent and became a first responder, messages broadcast on the MBTA buses this week, or, last but not least, Yankees fans singing “Sweet Caroline,” Fenway’s anthem — each of these stories made me feel that, no matter how terrified we may have felt for a few hours that Monday afternoon, there is a resiliency in our people, a will to overcome, and a fabric of community in Boston that may not always be this tangible, but is very, very real.

I was privileged enough to have direct contact with that deeply gratifying sense of Boston community during this past week.  On Monday night, a friend involved with a campus RHA asked if I could help him organize chaplains in the residence halls.  I called Brother Larry right away.  Before I could get a word in edgewise, he asked me to come to the chapel.  ”We have people,” I remember him saying.  I didn’t really know what to expect.  Grieving people?  Hurt people?  Shocked people?  Throngs of people?  At this point it was around 5:30 — just a couple of hours after the bombs went off.  All of my friends seemed to be accounted for.  But I was still totally in shock.  I was so cold I was shivering, even though it was beautifully sunny outside.  I changed my clothes before I left for Marsh so I would look more professional.  On a day like this?  How ridiculous.  I put on my puffy grey vest.  My favorite item of clothing.

At Marsh, the people gathering were mostly runners who had been turned back before they reached Kenmore, when the race had been closed.  Most were cut off from their families, and their belongings were at the BAA — downtown and inaccessible.  They were mostly in good spirits, a bit tired and cold but still talking and laughing every now and then.  Shortly after I arrived, a group of three middle-aged women came in.  They hadn’t been able to finish the race, and between the three of them had only gotten ahold of once space tent.  They sat down in the nave, and Jan Hill asked if they needed water.  They spotted a diet soda, and asked for that, instead — didn’t want to get a tummy ache.  They needed to get in touch with their friends so they could get a ride home to Worcester, so I lent them my phone, which at this point was almost dead because I had been relentlessly checking the news for several hours.  One of the three women started to get really cold.  Someone gave her a sweatshirt for her arms, and I offered my beloved vest for her lap, with my debit card, ID’s, and keys still in the pockets.  At that point I started wandering around the Chapel somewhat aimlessly, looking to charge my phone and help out anywhere else I could.  There wasn’t much else I could do, so I went back to the nave.  The three Worcester ladies were making jokes – I don’t remember what about – and laughing and chatting.  Something about that made me breathe a little easier.  If these women who had just run twenty five miles, only to be cut off with the news of the bombing, cut off from their belongings, their loved ones, and the coveted finish line, and still smile, surely I could carry on as well.  They used my phone to call a friend.  I wandered off again.  I came back upstairs, and they were gone.  My vest was carefully hung over the end of a pew.  Other runners were still coming in, and we filled water cups and helped them call family or cabs and gave them somewhere to sit and pointed them to the restrooms.

A little over an hour after I got to Marsh, Soren told me that all students were being advised to stay in their dorms.  I asked to go home, and, relieved of my duties for the night, emotion took hold for the first time. I couldn’t catch my breath, and started to cry.  What was happening?  This beautiful, beautiful city that I loved had been attacked.  Rumors were flying about more bombs being found across the city.  It felt a bit like we were under siege.  I went home, talked for hours with my friends about was happening, calling my parents every thirty minutes.

On Tuesday, I got a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.  ”Is this Emma? The girl from the church?”  Yes, it’s me.  It was one of the 50-something runner ladies.  ”Thank you for what you did for us.”  What?  Me?  I barely remembered Monday night.  I just remembered the relief I felt when three marathoners showed me what Boston resiliency looked like.  Later that day, I got a Facebook message from one of the other ladies.  I’ll post it here to prove something–not that I think I did anything great on Marathon Monday, because the people who did were several miles away at Copley Square, at the hospitals, in the law enforcement departments–I was just a lost girl at work.  But the relationship that started that day with these women goes to show that there is never an act of kindness too small.  I almost didn’t take off my vest.  I was cold too.  I almost didn’t let them use my phone, because I wanted to charge it so I could connect with my parents and loved ones.  But I did, because they breathed reassurance and relief back into my life, and I wanted to do anything for them that I could.  This tragedy brought out a million acts of kindness between Bostonians.  These messages were acts of kindness that affirmed my interest in ministry, my belief in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, in loving others as we were–are–loved.  I’m not sure if any of this has made any sense, but I hope it’s clear that I continue to be touched and amazed by the community — sometimes invisible — that I’m a part of, and the way that it has gelled and surged this week in the face of adversity.

“Hi Emma this is Shari I was one of the girls you helped. I want to thank you so much for everything you did for us. We felt so comfortable at the church we had everything we needed and such great people with us. With all the bad in this world it’s so good to know all the good still stands strong. Thanks again. [We are] so happy you were all there for us. All the people in that chapel opened their hearts to us and we will never forget it, thank you all for making a very sad day turn into a great experience.”

posted in Emma on 04.25.2013 at 10:47 pm

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By aclauhs

As I sit down to write my weekly blog post for Marsh, there is only one thing I can think of to write about. The thing that is heavy in the air in Boston today. The explosions at the Marathon.

I had been in New York for the weekend, visiting grad schools. As Evan and I had been taking the subway earlier that morning under Manhattan, we had started to talk about how New York City was just a little too cold, a little too unfriendly for us. How we love the vivacity and colorfulness of Boston. Hey, everyone might not be friendly that way I am used to in the South, but in Boston, they’ll curse you out with vigor and be your best friend if the Red Sox win.

There is a boisterous joy for life in Boston, from the way we celebrate our sports teams’ victories to the crazy way the Massholes drive. It’s slightly irreverent (our favorite Catholic feast day is the one where we drink Guinness and deck ourselves out in green, after all) and rebellious (anyone remember the Boston Tea Party?), but it’s also strong and uniting.

Marathon Monday is one of those days where that spirit is particularly strong. You wander into the streets, pressed against strangers who are suddenly friends, cheering on the runners and squeezing to get to the front, so close you could reach out and touch them. The atmosphere is boozy and loud, but it’s welcoming. You don’t care if you get separated from the people you came with, because it’s just as exhilarating to cheer along with strangers as with those you know.

I was sad that I was missing Marathon Monday this year. It had been the only long weekend when I could get down to New York to visit schools, but I read jealously the excited statuses of all my friends back in Boston on that Monday morning. I’d gone to see the Marathon all the other years I’d been in Boston, and this was my first time away.

I found out about the tragedy on our bus back to New York. It boarded at the same time as the first explosion. The bus passengers were frantic as we began to move, grabbing snatches of news from people across the aisle. Those with smartphones and internet access were questioned desperately by others for news. Rumors floated between the seats. Phone calls begin to pour in from people checking to see if their loved ones were okay.

My family members kept calling, relieved to find that I hadn’t been in the city. Meanwhile I tried to get in touch with my friends via email and Facebook to see if they were alright (phone service was down in Boston). I read article after article and tweet after tweet as more horrific details and images appeared.

Finally, I just cried, watching the New York City skyline fade into the background, the almost-finished Freedom Tower rising from the site of Ground Zero.

When we got back, South Station was strangely empty. We walked down the stairs into the T station for the Red Line. It was quiet, haunted. Armed policemen were our only company while we waited for the train.

And then it came, and we got on, and I melted into the comfort of being back again, of the familiar sounds of the MBTA. We had just been in New York, with its big trains and blinking lights that announce where the next stop is. But we were back in Boston now, with the plaintive squeaking of the Green Line when it takes a corner and the dinging bells that sound before the doors are about to shut. I closed my eyes and listened hard and tried not to cry at how familiar it was.

But when we passed through Copley, I couldn’t help it. The tears started to come as the automatic voice announced “Copley” over the intercom. We slowed down but didn’t stop. The lights were off in the station, but you could see the glint of the wall tiles and the shadowy signs as we passed. And all I could think of was that right above our heads, through a few layers of soil and steel and pavement, it had happened.

It had happened on the same sidewalks where I had walked a few days ago, touring a visiting friend around Copley Square proudly. On the same sidewalks where one of my closest friends had been standing an hour before the explosion happened. On the same sidewalks which, in pictures I had just seen while scrolling through news articles, were now covered in blood.

Spring had just come to Boston. We were just starting to remember, after a snowy and miserable winter, why we loved this city so much. The trees were blooming; the sun was finally warming the ground. And it was Marathon Monday, with its buzzing energy that someone who has never experienced in Boston can never understand.

When I got back to the apartment, I locked myself in the bathroom for awhile. I needed the catharsis of some shoulder-wracking sobs. I cried for the victims and for their families. I cried for the ones who saw such horrors happen. I cried for all the Bostonians that no longer would feel safe in their city. I cried for a Patriot’s Day that would be irrevocably changed.

Finally I came to a point where the tears subsided, and then I prayed, stumbling over words, my hands clasped and my forehead pressed to the cool bathroom wall.

My prayer was for the next day, and the days after that. For warmer afternoons and more flowers and people spread out on the Commons in the sunlight. For cheers filling Fenway under bright lights and the crack of baseballs against a bat. For sunsets glinting gold off the Statehouse and church bells tolling the hours on Park Street. For strolls through the North End and cannolis from Mike’s. For cramming into the T during rush hour as the trains creak through the tunnels.

For cheering on the runners at next year’s Marathon.

For joy instead of fear, and life as it can only happen in Boston.

That–my city, my people, my friends–was my prayer, and it still is today.

posted in Abigail on 04.16.2013 at 11:45 am

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By Emma

I don’t necessarily consider myself a sports fan.  I usually have some consciousness of what’s going on in te world of sports, but don’t spend a whole lot of time following it in detail.  I am, however, a die-hard baseball fan.  Living abroad and in different cities for so long somehow precluded me from attaching myself to one team or another, but my mother’s entire family loves the Red Sox, and when I moved to Boston nearly three years ago, they stole my heart, too.

The summer after my freshman year I stayed in Boston, working days at the Admissions office, and evenings and nights at Fenway Park.  The atmosphere in that place is truly unbelievable.  The “church of baseball” metaphor may be somewhat overused, but I’m not afraid to say that Fenway is something of a sports cathedral to me.  The energy in that ballpark, the history enshrined therein, the appeal to every sense and the way the game enraptures the soul–something about it just defines baseball.  It gets my heart pumping to be in the park, to wait for the home runs, to feel crushed by the strikeouts, to celebrate the wins and mourn the losses.

In a semester that has been supremely stressful, when I’ve not had a lot of time to just sit and do leisurely things I love (don’t get me wrong–I LOVE my work and studies), I’m really looking forwards to getting to attend four Sox games in the next two weeks.  My hat’s been collecting dust on my desk all winter, I’ve burned my Youkilis shirt and laundered my Ellsbury jersey, and dug out of storage my Sox fleece with the subtle “B” on the chest; the outfit is ready to go.  Tickets have been purchased for the bleacher section (let’s be real, that’s where all the action is), and the schedule has been hung up above my desk.  I am a devotee of the cult of the Red Sox, and I’m not sorry.  I can’t wait to take some time to care about something that has no weight on my future, on my career, on my academics–besides providing me with pure joy.  Go Sox.

posted in Emma on 04.12.2013 at 4:36 pm

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By Emma

Throughout my time at Boston University, Spring Break has been a time of year when I’ve completely run out of steam and need to just sit on a beach and sleep for ten days.  This year, since I already had more on my plate than I could possibly digest, I figured why not throw Alternative Spring Break coordinator in there?  And it was one of the best decisions I’ve made at BU.

Sheena, my co-coordinator and I, were assigned to the Hartford, CT ASB trip.  It’s the first year that ASB has gone to Hartford, so we definitely had our work cut out for us.  After months of planning and contacting sites and failing to get very many meals donated, I was in full-fledged panic mode in the week leading up to our trip, certain that we and our volunteers were going to starve and probably get mugged on the streets of Hartford.  I was almost dreading spring break.

But as we met under the shadow of Marsh Chapel on an incredibly bright, sunny day, all volunteers on time and looking impressively energized, I suddenly felt much better about the trip.  From that moment on, things went more smoothly than I could possibly have asked for.  The people we met along the way were enormously hospitable, getting around was much easier than expected, and the service we participated in was genuinely life-changing.

Often times at BU we get stuck in this Comm Ave bubble, forgetting our back yard, let alone other communities within the New England area.  Spending time in Hartford, the capital of a state where many BU students come from, in homeless shelters, food pantries and soup kitchens, hearing the stories of people who had never expected to become homeless, who had experienced illness, had been laid off, evicted because the building they were living in was unsafe–it all reminded me that the lifestyle we see on Comm Ave is a lot more fragile than we sometimes care to think.

In the Ash Wednesday sermon that we gave, the Marsh Associates emphasized living out an active fast.  My Hartford ASB trip reminded me, particularly in the last three weeks of Lent, to be particularly conscious of the things I have in my life that I too often take for granted.  I’ll never be able to repay the people I met during my trip for the lessons they taught my and the experiences they shared with me; my best bet is to continue giving my time to serve others, and remember constantly how lucky I am in my own life.

posted in Emma on 04.3.2013 at 10:36 am

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By aclauhs

As I sit here in front of my computer, typing quickly before I head off to the slew of Easter services that Marsh Chapel is holding this morning, I think about all the things Easter has meant to me.

I’m wearing a new dress now, as always, because that was a constant in our family–my mom was adamant on having a new set of clothes to wear for Easter morning (I didn’t get it then, but now I suppose it was one of her small ways of symbolizing new life and a fresh start; back then, I was just excited to get a new fluffy pastel dress). My dad would also buy all his girls–my mother, my sister, and me–fresh lily corsages, tied in ribbons around our wrists. In my South Carolina hometown, it would be azalea season, and we would always get pictures in front of the vibrant, delicate magenta flowers.

In the mornings before church, we would find our Easter baskets, hidden craftily around the house in places like the inside of the oven or behind the door of the washing machine. After church, we would hunt Easter eggs while Easter dinner cooked, crowing in triumph when one of us found the “golden” egg (so called because it had a $5 bill inside of it, instead of small change, like the others).

My Easter memories aren’t really about religion.

Most of what I remember about Easter church services are lilies at the front and purple on the altar. At one of our churches, there was always a cross made of flowers put out front on Easter Sunday, and after church, they let the children pluck flowers from it to take home.

Now that I’m older–and studying religion, and working at Marsh Chapel–I have to put more thought into Easter. It can’t just be a holiday where I go and sing some hymns and then sit down to a family dinner of honey ham. I have the think about it theologically.

And, as a Unitarian, that can be tricky. Easter is a holiday I love for all the fond memories, and for its themes–rebirth, new life, fresh beginnings (it’s no coincidence that it happens at the start of spring). But I was struggling with how to fit all the triumphant talk about victory over the grave and the Resurrection, which my own personal theology…well…doesn’t affirm.

And then I came across a passage from Forrest Church, one of my favorite Unitarian Universalist theologians. Here is what he had to say about Easter (and yes, I put it in typography….don’t judge):

I think this is beautiful. The idea that love is our legacy. That the story of the Resurrection is a metaphor for the transcendence of love over death.

It is something I can get behind. And it is what I will be thinking about when I sing, “Christ is Risen” in church today.

posted in Abigail on 03.31.2013 at 12:58 pm

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By djwalker

Over the weeks I have been interning a Marsh Chapel many of the old anxieties I have had about church have crept back into my head. I have for as long as I can remember always been uneasy with the form of Church, the steady ritual, the sterile feeling, the image of one man standing before a docile audience claiming to speak on behalf of the divine, and the collection plate, always the collection plate, serving as a stark reminder that this holy place is just that, a place, an institution situated in a society that demands each of us bow down at the alter of green idols.

Ok so I understand that my language may be a bit harsh and fail to approach the church with the appropriate amount of attention that its complex form deserves.  Yes, the steady ritual is useful in removing the self and allowing the divine to take root where the individual personality would normally reside. Yes, my lamentation of the sterility of the church may simply be a holdover from the days of my Southern Baptist theological tradition. Yes, I understand the necessity of a priestly class charged with actively reflecting on moral questions and the words of wise me, I understand the need for a guide on our spiritual journey. And yes, I understand that the church is and cannot pretend not to be an institution in society, needing to rely upon the financial support of its congregation for the church’s maintenance, I understand the command to give a portion of one’s earnings back to God.

I understand all of these things in large measure as a result of my internship at Marsh Chapel, but the internship has also allowed me another perspective, sitting in front of the church near the pulpit within the chancel, during the service I have the privilege of looking out towards God’s assembled people. I take note of who is in the room, I examine what they are doing during each part of the service, I study their faces. And my observations have led me to one painful conclusion, God’s people are no longer in love with their church. While, many find meaning in the structure, mostly a fondness for childhood, Church for many has become empty ritual.

I don’t form this conclusion simply from my experience with Marsh Chapel. I take this from my various experiences with church back home in Atlanta, GA. I take this from conversations I’ve had with many students on campus who were brought up in a myriad of church traditions. I form this conclusion from the clear statistical evidence that America is becoming a more secular nation, measured not simply in a decline in the amount of people who attend church but also measured in a decline in the number of church attendees who believe that institution holds any authority.  This trend is also coupled with a diminished number of people in America believing in absolute truth.

These sad trends can be correlated with any number of signs of moral degradation in our country: political corruption, divorce, debt-peonage, homelessness, imprisonment, drug use, single-parenting. But this is not the direction I wish to go with this post. As one sincerely wrestling with a call to ministry, I hold an a prior assumption that the church is a valuable institution that must be restored.  However what to make of such an institution in a society that despises its very form. I believe first we, meaning those lovers of God, Truth, and Man, must begin with a full acknowledgement that the church must be born again. (To be continued)

posted in Demarius on 03.8.2013 at 10:17 am

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By aclauhs

…you unconsciously give others permission to do the same.” – Marianne Williamson

Some people just have an incredible, innate ability to inspire. You can just tell that they have come in touch with their own connection to the divine (a connection I believe each of us has, but which some have a harder time finding than others). These are people who have a certain light, a certain joy.

These are people I met at Coming Together 6.

Enter the Hindu student who was teased for his faith in middle school. Determined to build understanding, he set out on a journey in high school to learn about the other religions out there. He studied with Mormons in their early-morning before-school classes for a year. He lived in a Buddhist monastery for a summer. He grabbed on tight to every opportunity that he could, making friends and building connection along the way.

Enter Elizabeth Davenport, the charming British Dean of UChicago’s Rockefeller Chapel (yes, those Rockefellers), who played the bongos on our first night and had us look around the table and tell people that we loved them with our eyes.

Enter the Muslim UChicago divinity student who is training to be a hospital chaplain. Or another divinity student who said that out of being gay, socialist, and Jewish, the Jewish part was the hardest for his evangelical family to cope with.  Or the Mormon doctorate student struggling with the flaws of his church but still dedicated to the family of believers.

Yes, there were panels and events and speakers and important educational opportunities at Coming Together. And I fully appreciated them (might I also mention that I fully appreciated the chocolate-covered strawberries and cake pops at the dessert reception?). But what was most meaningful to me were the human experiences–the conversations over dinner, the chats in between events, the deep late-night conversations while finding the secret stairway to the very top of the cathedral-like chapel, with the best view on campus.

One of my favorite ways of understanding our relationship to the  divine is through the Quaker metaphor of an inner light. I like to think of it as a candle.

On one of the nights of the conference, a wonderful Middle Eastern music group called the Yuval Ron Ensemble (its members are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, and their aim to build peace through music), played a concert at the chapel. The final song was very simple–the words were, “Shalom…Salam…Hallelujah.” They were repeated, over and over again, beautiful and trance-like. Yuval Ron and his fellow musicians stood up and encouraged us to join in. “Shalom…Salam..Hallelujah.” Our words echoed in the vast spaces of the chapel, warm and filled with melody.

And as we sang it, a cappella, all of us in harmony, I couldn’t help but envisioning hundreds of tiny candles, one burning deep in the heart of each person. The longer we sang, the more they blazed together into brilliant light. I may have gotten teary-eyed. It was beautiful.

Enter the future peacemakers.

posted in Abigail on 03.7.2013 at 1:24 pm

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By Emma

As Lent goes on and my meditation on the active fast continues, I had the opportunity last night to perform to works of music that I think are quite relevant.

The first was Bach’s Cantata 77, Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben.  This work intertwines the Old Testament commandment to love the Lord your God, and the New Testaments teaching to love your neighbor as yourself.  The second was Britten’s Cantata Misericordium, which is based on the story of the Good Samaritan.  Particularly striking to me is the final chorus verse of Britten:

O that men like this gentle helper, who saved a wounded
man and treated as his neighbour an unknown stranger,
may be found all over the world. Disease is spreading,
war is stalking, famine reigns far and wide. But when
one mortal relieves another like this, charity springing
from pain unites them.

This verse also resonantes beautifully with the final chorale of the Bach Cantata:

Lord, dwell in me through faith,
let it become always stronger,
so that it might be fruitful for ever and ever
and rich in good works;
so that it be active through love,
practiced in joy and patience,
to serve my neighbor from now on.

I think that meditating on these two cantatas is a wonderful opportunity to expand on the Biblical basis and suggestions for an active fast.  Loving your God and loving your neighbor as yourself are in fact, I believe, an excellent centerpiece for an active fast.  From this can grow nourishment of the soul and rebuilding of one’s community.

posted in Emma on 03.2.2013 at 1:57 pm

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By Emma

If you attended Marsh’s evening Ash Wednesday service, you might have heard myself, DJ and Abigail chatting about Lent from somewhere up at the front of the chapel.  To me, the most important of our sermon was the idea of an active fast, and I’ve spent the last week and a half trying to be especially conscious of that.

Part of my active fast did involve giving something up.  I decided to give up eating meat during Lent, partly because of the Christian tradition behind it, but for other reasons as well.  As an Alternative Spring Break coordinator, I attended a pre-break meeting where we heard speakers from different ASB issue area talking about why our service in those areas is important.  One representative from the Humane Society gave us an overview of the effect that reducing the amount of meat you consume can help the environment.  I felt like during this time of simplicity, giving up something that will actually improve the world I live in would be an active fast, but it’s also motivating me to be more conscious in my daily routine of when and what I’m eating, so I’m generally being healthier.

The other part of the active fast that we talked about in our sermon involves actually doing things to reinvigorate our own souls revive our communities.  By starting of my day with yoga and improving my diet, and going to sleep before midnight every night, I’ve felt healthier and more energized and ready to be present and useful in my community.  By taking time to greet people, ask how they’re doing, concentrate on other’s needs as much as on my own, I feel like I’ve been able to be a more respectful and compassionate member of my community, not just a passive observer.

While it might be alright to do these things for a week or so, I want to challenge myself to really keep things up for the remainder of Lent–and hopefully throughout the rest of the year as well.  I’m so glad that I have the motivation of our sermon behind me.  I feel that because we shared this suggestion of an active fast with everyone on Ash Wednesday, I’m compelled to try to follow my own advice, and I feel and see the positive effects of this already.

posted in Emma on 02.23.2013 at 5:57 pm

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