Vocation

This Friday evening, I will be breaking bread with the Jewish students on campus. In Judaism, the Jewish Sabbath (or Shabbat) begins at sundown on Friday evening and lasts until Saturday night. In observation of this, at BU Hillel there are services and a Shabbat dinner every Friday night.

This Friday's Shabbat is a special one--Interfaith Shabbat! Interfaith Shabbat is one of my favorite Interfaith Council events of the year. It gives students of many religious and non-religious traditions a chance to explore inside the Hillel House (a beautiful building that few non-Jewish students enter or know much about), to learn more about Jewish religious traditions (all students are invited to attend the Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox services at 5:30 pm), and--of course--to have some delicious kosher food (can you say challah?!).

There are so many important concepts intertwined in Shabbat--the importance of eating together (to use a scholarly religion major term, "shared commensality"); the setting aside of a day of rest (important for any busy college student, especially so close to finals!); the interfaith discussion that follows the dinner. This year we are lucky to have as a keynote speaker Dean Moore from BU's School of Theology. She will speak after the meal, then group discussions about interfaith issues will be led by various university chaplains and ministers.

I am very excited about the event, and I welcome you to come. All Interfaith Council members can get their meal free! Sign up here, and check out the Facebook event page here. Join us. Eat some challah. Listen to the beauty of a Hebrew prayer. I promise you won't regret it.

I'm from South Carolina. In South Carolina, there is a lot of country music. And where there is a lot of country music, there is a lot of Carrie Underwood. Thus, when her song "Jesus, Take the Wheel" came out back when I was still in high school, this was inescapable:

My parents love this song. With a little bit of tongue-in-cheek amusement at Carrie's country twang. But the general message of it, they agree with--giving it up to God. Or, as Carrie sings it:

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this on my own
I'm letting go

And, in a way, I guess I do agree, too. Much as I make fun of country music. Perhaps my song wouldn't be titled "Jesus, Take the Wheel," but rather "God, Take the Wheel" or "Spirit of Life, Take the Wheel" (which admittedly doesn't have the same ring to it), but the sentiment is the same.

I've been feeling burned out lately. Piles of paperwork and screens full of emails and interminable amount of Post-It notes covered in schedules and to-do lists have taken their toll on me. Working with people is what makes me--as our esteemed Howard Thurman would have said--"come alive," but I've been feeling distanced from my direct outreach, walled off by paperwork and responsibilities. Plus, that little thing called homework.

I've been making lists of graduate schools and scholarships and scrolling through the bios of people who seem way more qualified than me to get them. Wondering if I'm a competitive applicant. Staring forlornly at my resume. You get the idea.

Basically, as one of my roommates put it, I've fallen in a rut.

And then I remembered what happened this summer.

This summer was wonderful. I meditated every morning, exercised every day, and spent my weekends wandering the museums of Washington, DC. I attended the vibrant Unitarian Universalist All Souls Church in Columbia Heights, a thriving neighborhood filled with empanada stands and women selling agua frescas on the sidewalks. I was in a truly good place.

One morning, on a day I was feeling a bit frantic about work, I was meditating on the floor of my apartment. And then--well, I'm not quite sure how to describe it--I had a spiritual experience. I believe that sometimes God is revealed to us through our own minds (not just in the form of a burning bush). As I was sitting there, breathing in and out, these words appeared in my mind, lingering, as if someone had written them there. I certainly hadn't thought them.

ALL WILL BE AS IT SHOULD BE.
ALL WILL BE AS IT NEEDS TO BE.

A feeling of overwhelming calm. Security. Grace. To me, God.

I wrote the words in journal, in my planner, on the back of my hand. Whenever I looked at them, I remembered that peace, that assurance from somewhere beyond me that everything will be okay.

I found these words again this week when I was flipping through my journal on a particularly stressful evening. I wrote them on a piece of paper and stuck them on the wall. It's made a difference, that reminder.

I don't like admitting that Carrie Underwood could be a spiritual leader, but she does have a point. Sometimes we try and try and try--and there's something to be said for trying--but we also need to be able to let go and allow the Divine to take the wheel. All will be as it should be. All will be as it needs to be.

Last Thanksgiving, a swath of my extended family (plus myself) convened at my grandparents' house in New Jersey. On the day of Thanksgiving, as the tempting smell of turkey filled the house and the little ones grew more and more frenzied from excitement over the ten different pies my grandmother had made (but which they were not allowed to eat yet), my aunt called us all to the living room.

As we gathered on chairs and couches (and the toddlers zoomed around on the carpet), she handed us all pieces of paper. "I want you each to write down twenty things you are thankful for, and then we'll read them at dinner."

At first it was easy. There are the obvious things: Family. Friends. Love. But once you've gotten the big ones out of the way, the other 15-or-so things seem hard to come up with.

"Think about it," my aunt said. "What specific things make you happy, make your day a little bit better?"

One of the cousins shouted out, "Marshmallows!"

And suddenly things began to come to me in a flood. Fireplaces. The beach. Bacon. The first snowfall. Wool scarves. Comfy beds. Hot chocolate. Sunlight. The smell of gardenias. And on and on and on.

When the time came to read our lists aloud at Thanksgiving dinner, we all ended up having more than twenty items on our lists. My aunt told us that she does the exercise every day, writing down ten things she is thankful for.

I've started to do it, too, on a whiteboard beside my bed before I go to sleep at night. When I wake up the next morning, there it is--the list of things I felt especially thankful for the day before (often, there are multiple items of food on the list...we know where my emotional center lies).

It's amazing how easy it is be grateful for things once you begin. At first, the lists are hard to do, but then they become easier--soeasy that it's hard to choose just ten. Your mind just starts overflowing with all the things your life has been blessed with.

As Thanksgiving comes around this year, let us once again consider those things we are thankful for. Take a piece of paper. Start listing. You may surprised at what you see--and how many things you have to be grateful for.

Sorry. Couldn't resist modeling this post's title after Robby's own enthusiastic one.

But it's true! The BU Interfaith Council is also starting a panel series. The theme? "Religion Mythbusters."

Yep. That's right. That's us. Well. Maybe we look a little different. And the myths we're busting are of slightly different kinds. But we can dream.

Our goal, in this series, is to break down myths, stereotypes, and preconceptions about various religious traditions. And the first religion we're doing that with is Islam. There are plenty of stereotypes about Islam--terrorism, oppression, violence, and more. We plan to take a deeper look at these. Our panelists include Professor Kecia Ali, undergraduate Muslim student Monsura Sirajee (a proud member of our Interfaith Council Leadership Board!), and a Muslim religious leader.

I just designed the poster. It's cool. And it has the details of when and where this event is going down. So you should look at it:

We are all really excited about it, and hope to see you there!