Last night, I was at Marsh Chapel for around four hours.
No, don’t worry. We haven’t instituted some Puritanical four-hour-long Tuesday night service (though extra-long services would be in the New England tradition...).
I was there for the Boston University Interfaith Council‘s kickoff event.
The Interfaith Council is the group I run (technically, my title is “Undergraduate Chair”). Between setting up the room for the event (which included raiding the chapel office for a plant to use as a centerpiece), and getting all the food ready (thank you, kosher section of Shaw’s)–then actually running the event, and cleaning up afterwards, I was there for quite a long time.
And yes, it’s time I could have spent doing homework (or, I suppose, socializing, but you see where my perfectionist personality preferences lie). And yes, that is a good chunk of time. But honestly–steel yourself for the cliche–there is nowhere else I would rather have been.
Members showed up early to help set up. New friends stayed after to Tupperware leftovers with me. When we went around the table to introduce ourselves, we had Christians, atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and more. We lingered for far longer than the event was supposed to go on for, having conversations that ran from the delights of Jewish food (Rosh Hashanah honey cake, anyone?), to meditation practices, to the afterlife. In all of this–in every single moment–I felt the warmth of a community.
This is what builds understanding: being able to see each other as fellow human beings, regardless of our differences. Being able to talk about dessert and breathing and funerals. If it takes four hours–or twenty, or a thousand–I want nothing more than to continue building communities like this.