A quick run-down of the titles under the ‘Religious Groups’ list at NU reads more like a hit list than a collection of unique religious communities. There are a lot of them, and to my freshman eyes many a year ago, they all looked the same – ambiguous, self-contained, clannish.
I can’t say I was eager to try them all – my own spiritual journey hit a bump in the road some about a year earlier, when 17 years of searching, wrestling, begging and questioning left me exhausted and apathetic. Sure, there might be something out there, but for now it was just too hard to find. Bouncing from chapel to chapel, youth group to youth group, I had more important things to do than chase the multitude of religious people parading through my life.
But this was college, and despite my misgivings, some part of me (probably the journalist side) kept asking, so I tried many groups listed on that purple-drenched websites. From the Zen Society and Buddhist meditation classes to Orthodox Judaism with Meor, I tried almost every flavor of religious experience I could get my hands on.
Of the Christian variety, I tried Cru and Intervarsity at the request of my parents. They’d met in Campus Crusade in college, had started two churches themselves and always carefully sought church community in every place we’ve lived. My sister and I attended our first services when we were two weeks old and fit the very definition of church mice, running in the halls during every one of their collective 30 years of production meetings, sound checks and rehearsals.
My religious background was diverse, at the very least, however. A past relationship with a Mormon guy checked that one of the list for me, and the friends I had from the Muslim-dominant country Malaysia (I finished high school in Kuala Lumpur) had answered most of my Islam questions. I spent the majority of six months with the Hare Krishnas while studying abroad in Wellington, New Zealand.
As I said, the key word with me is diverse.
But in terms of a home, I was still missing something. I loved the homey welcome of Meor, the self-discipline within Islam, the everyone-is-right sentiment of Bakhti and the inward reflection focus of Buddhism. I was looking for the perfect system, but each temple, chapel and living room felt like the almost-but-not-quite perfect dress I had to return to the rack.
Where were the people seeking the truth, or at least those who could openly admit they hadn’t found it yet? Could tradition exist with new solutions, regardless of their origin?
I sought solace in interfaith groups, working with the Interfaith Youth Corps and a friend to foster cooperative events and empathetic relations. I went to New Orleans to paint houses with an interfaith group and talked to religious leaders about their rebuilding process in the wake of Katrina. I joined NUii for a while, the Northwestern Interfaith Initiative, and not just for the free dinner. Surely the host of speakers passing through could lend me some insightful advice? Close, but not quite.
And then I stumbled into UCM, that giant white house on Chicago Avenue catty corner to the arch, used by the University Christian Ministry during the year. About 20 students gathered in the kitchen for something delicious, then piled into the living room for the beginning of one of most open, everything-goes discussion about faith and religion I’d ever experienced. I was no longer a passive observer, but a participant in this honest approach to the spiritual. To this day, that group of students challenges me, forces me to flex my intellectual muscles as well as that thorny concept of faith. Soul aerobics, we like to say. The community at UCM loved me from the start, whole-heartedly and without condition. I could have walked in with pagan tattoos and my welcome would have been the same.
In the process of arguments, of long debates and thought experiments many would balk at if it wasn’t in class, I found this group was more than a debate society or freeze-dried peer group. They understood me, cared about me, wanted me to grow. And to my surprise and delight, I felt the same.
I found that every religion I’d learned about, experienced in some way, had given me something to talk about, some knowledge to share as we continue to wrestle with our spiritual existence in a world where religion seems to be broken. I wasn’t shunned for bringing those experiences to the table, for admitting I’d “shopped around” and was still looking for the perfect dress.
Here at NU, you might think such a plethora of different experiences and religions would lead to competition, and for some, it does. But religion is more than one person practicing a belief. Rather than threatening one another, our diversity demands empathy. I have never seen so many people desperate to understand each other, so anxious to apologize for centuries of conflict, so eager to work towards intentional cooperation as I have at NU. It is not enough to say, “We disagree, and that’s ok.” Instead, “Tell me more” resounds in organizational meetings, in discussion groups and interfaith panels. We share holidays, like when the University Christian Ministry and the Muslim Cultural Students Assocation share Thanksgiving dinner. We share the same passions for global justice issues like world hunger and poverty and homelessness.
Northwestern is about the big issues, and this doesn’t change with our religious groups on campus. For me, religious groups provide loving communities in which to wrestle with tradition, and the one I happened to fit with included a community that applauded my determination to continue exploring.
For me, religion is knowing not all people can wear the same dress, but loving them anyway. It’s about the journey, what’s right for you, not about who’s right or wrong. The important things is wrestling with it, wherever you are, and separating your personal stance from your value as a person worthy of love.
I’ve been shown love, and no matter what your tradition or level of spiritual involvement, my mission is to help you figure out what you believe, and to love you while you’re working on it.
Read more student perspectives on spirituality.