interfaith

Jesus the Teacher

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

As traditions abound this time of year, my family hastily put up a tree, wrapped gifts, and cooked all kinds of complex dishes, culminating last night with Christmas Dinner. My dad and I always attend Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and this year was no different. I could see my breathe walking up the hill in Sierra Madre to St. Rita’s Parish, perhaps the greatest sign of winter that will come to Southern California. My dad and I found a seat in a pew almost in the very last row, off to the side. Normally, my dad sits front and center. As we sat down, he muttered something about the people who only come on Christmas and Easter. “But they’re here,” he corrected himself. “That’s good.”

Midnight Mass at St. Rita’s looks the same every year. I mean, exactly the same. The same carols welcome everyone to their seats. About 15 minutes late, we all stand as the procession of altar servers, deacon, and priest come down the center aisle to the altar, where they bow and take their places. The priest and deacon “visit” the nativity scene off to the left side, sprinkling the scene with incense. The first and second readings remain: Isiah (the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light) and the letter of Paul to Titus (the grace of God has appeared). The gospel rotates from Luke to Matthew to John each year. In elementary school I learned to remember: Luke= shepherds, Matthew= wise men, John= The Word. Everything else, down to the beginning of the priest’s homily, remains the same. Tradition, ritual. Sometimes, we find relief in the expected. Truthfully, I fought sleepiness the whole time.

There was one essential difference that woke me up. During the homily, the time when the one who says mass teaches the congregation about the readings and offers lessons, the priest acknowledged that our brothers and sisters of another faith were also celebrating: our Jewish neighbors were celebrating Chanukah, the festival of light and rededication. “We must pray for them, and for people of all faiths that they experience peace, enjoy relaxation, and welcome a new year just as we hope to,” he said. 1000 people heard that message, a message of interfaith cooperation in the form of prayer. The priest, our teacher, offered us an important lesson. I believe one of the most important teachers, Jesus, taught that lesson over and over.

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PC: Ben White

Yesterday among the cinnamon rolls and piles of gift wrap scattered around the family room, I reflected on the importance of teachers and the gift of learning. Teachers come in many forms: people, sacred texts, books, stories, experiences…anything can be a teacher if our persons are open to learning. One of the most powerful things about Jesus as I see is that his teachings transcended a particular time and place, and often related to the divine potential of each human being as a steward of resources. Many of the prophets and founders of great traditions of wisdom were also first and foremost teachers, and they were concerned with the flourishing of humanity. The Buddha traveled across Southeast Asia, teaching crowds of hundreds about suffering and liberation. I concluded that teaching is one of the highest forms serving human kind, especially because in teaching, we learn continuously.

Many of us will admit to spending too much money on something in particular: fancy food, clothes, alcohol, sporting events, you name it. I have much to work on in this regard. In particular, books are my downfall. The last time I walked in to a bookstore, there was a table with a “sale” sign, and I walked out with four new paperbacks. In this moment in time, memoirs and books dealing with race, gender, and religion are stacked in my “to read” pile. Besides my students who always prove to be my best teachers, books offer me a constant window into learning, the process that makes me feel most alive. Over my lifetime, the people who have most impacted me have been teachers: they have challenged me, believed in me, journeyed with me.

I closed my eyes with everyone else as we prayed for our neighbors celebrating Chanukah. I remembered something my friend Steven, an Orthodox Jew, taught me while we were on the Interfaith Council at USC: “When we light the Menorah, we take the first candle and light the others with it. Lighting one candle with another does not diminish the light in either.” Such is the case with great teachers, the more we learn from one another does not diminish the vast capacity we have to continue.

Keep it Simple, Silly.

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

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PC: Jeffrey Wegrzyn
Ever heard of the k.i.s.s. principle? Keep it simple, stupid, is how it’s usually read. I’m trying to avoid words that degrade or demean people. Ask me how that’s working out later. Anyway, simplicity. Sometimes it’s nice, and sometimes it’s annoying. I want to make a case for it because right now, there are many things in the world that are so far from simple that everyone feels exhausted. So here’s a story I love that I’ve used often in writings and speeches that is simple, yet meaningful.

There is an ancient Chinese parable about an old man who knew he would die soon. He wanted to know what Heaven and hell were like. He visited a wise man in his village to ask “Can you tell me what Heaven and hell are like?” The wise man led him down a strange path, deep into the countryside. Finally they came upon a large house with many rooms and went inside. Inside they found lots of people and many enormous tables with an incredible array of food. Then the old man noticed a strange thing, the people, all thin and hungry were holding chopsticks 12 feet long. They tried to feed themselves, but of course could not get the food to their mouths with such long chopsticks. The old man then said to the wise man “Now I know what hell looks like, will you please show me what Heaven looks like?” The wise man led him down the same path a little further until they came upon another large house similar to the first. They went inside and saw many people well fed and happy, they too had chopsticks 12 feet long. This puzzled the old man and he asked, “I see all of these people have 12 feet chopsticks too, yet they are well fed and happy, please explain this to me.The wise man replied, “in Heaven we feed each other.”

From wisdomcommons.org

The message is clear, paradise cannot be achieved or maintained alone. We remember parables like this from many different sources of wisdom, including sacred texts because they are simple, yet speak to our humanity in powerful ways.

Last week I admitted something to some of my colleagues: I was not giving interfaith circles enough credit. I lambasted a conference I attended around interreligious dialogue for being too simple, too naive, for patting ourselves on the back when we’ve barely scratched the surface of what needs to be done. I feel silly for saying that today, for not lifting up the everyday miracles that we need now in this time of darkness and uncertainty.

As a scholar it’s my job to complicate concepts and ideas, to dig deeper into beliefs and convictions that many times we accept without further consideration. Yet- the story above reminds me that living in tension and accepting that the world is a complicated place can be a cop-out. How many times have I responded to someone calling me out with, “well, it’s complicated?” Simplicity is powerful and gives us footing. Does that mean we can congratulate ourselves and stop working for justice? Absolutely not. Witnessing milestones along the way pushes us further and allows us to build our teams. As the story shows us so clearly, Heaven and Hell don’t look so different. The difference is simple: in Heaven, we live in the exigency of others, just as we are needed.

PS: Shameless plug. I’m so honored to be part of the Trinity Foundation’s Boston Marathon Team and am asking for support from friends, family, and anyone who digs the mission. Check it out here: https://www.crowdrise.com/TrinityBoston2017/fundraiser/jemjebbia

 

 

Why Honesty is Risky, Sometimes

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

I started my Memoir Generator class. There are 12 of us aspiring memoirists. All women identified, all pretty quirky. I have decided after our first meeting we are all hiding something. That’s why we want to write. We are trying to figure out how to unhide. 

PC: Hauke Morgenthau

We read two memoirs before the class so we could tear them apart. I don’t mean in a bad way, like a really tough movie critic- I mean we dissected them, made lists of characters and objects and places, and honed in on the authors’ strategies for effective writing. The books we read were When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (which I wrote about a few months ago) and The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham. These memoirs are both about death- the first is about the author’s battle with cancer and his understanding, as a surgeon, of exactly what is happening inside him, and the second is about the author’s father committing suicide and her family’s quest to pick up the pieces for years. Literally, years- Wickersham worked on this book for 14 years. Kalanithi died about a year after he started writing the book. 
I felt so alive in our first class, even after a long day of work, even as the sun set and the bands of gold light turned pink and purple and then darkness flooded the window outside. I love learning, and what’s more, I loved being in a room with writers interested in understanding writing as a deep spiritual, artistic process. We agreed that writing a memoir takes time, reflection, and the final product will leave out quite a lot of what we write. “Don’t think every scene you write isn’t sacred,” our instructor told us. “But don’t think it’ll all be publishable either.” I admit, that statement scares me. But I’m still willing to try the process. I have stories and people and pain to unhide. 
In this first class, I learned something crucial about telling the truth amongst my new classmates. As we delved into the character list for Wickersham’s memoir, someone asked, “Why do you think she only mentions her sister once in the whole book? That seems strange to me. We don’t even know her name.”
It did seem strange- I suddenly wondered if the author was trying to tell us that her sister wasn’t very important to this whole experience, which I found unbelievable. My sister would be, if that ever happened in my family. Before that train of thought could spiral out of control, another student responded, “her sister probably asked not to be in the book. She probably wanted to be private.”
Oh. Yes, that makes sense. I realized in my quest to begin telling my own story how difficult telling the truth is, especially to the world who doesn’t know you and the people you love. Because “the” truth is actually your own truth. We have great power in our hands (literally) when we write down the stories we tell ourselves and share them. We are exposing brokenness and pain and memory that may be locked away for good reason. Someone in my class mused, “you’ll never please everyone when you tell the truth. The truth hurts. And usually we are writing because we are hurt, or we hurt others, and we write about the people who have caused us pain or for whom we have caused pain.”
I thought about my family and our collective secrets. What will happen if I write them down and share them? Even the stories we have exposed are told in a way that everyone feels they have agency. We’ve told these stories over and over, and drafted them in a way that confirms and contributes to the greater narrative of who we are. What if my writing challenges this narrative, shatters our story of “us”?
So I begin by asking “why.” Why do I feel such an ache to tell my story, even though I risk upsetting the people closest to me? For now, the answer is that sharing my story could also put forth the beginning of an honest conversation about our shared family pain that we’ve never addressed before. Telling the truth is risky- and maybe it’s a way for me to build stronger relationships with my family. I hope the memoir process helps me unhide from my own truth, and that I learn to listen for others’ struggles in sharing theirs. 

The Longest Loneliness

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

PC: Nathan Anderson

I have felt lonely all my life. Lonely as an objective feeling, not necessarily good or bad, happy or sad. Loneliness is a part of who I am and will be, perhaps forever. I decided to reflect on my loneliness this week because it has been contributing to some deep depression and anxiety, and writing usually helps me practice mindfulness toward my own experience. So I write this week not to complain or whine (though I apologize if it seems that way) but to contemplate what loneliness really is, and wonder when we might use it to help ourselves and others. 

Yes, there have been times in my life when loneliness dug at me like a metal spoon scraping the bottom of an empty ice cream tub. I saw my classmates, teammates, and peers develop close relationships with people whom they could essentially treat like siblings. My own sister has been best friends with 3 people since middle school, one since kindergarten. I certainly have experienced deep friendship at times, yet have never truly shaken the feeling of being alone, isolated. 

There have also been moments when loneliness has made me feel special and distinct. When I was little, my parents worried that I wouldn’t recognize how smart I was. They feared I would fall into complacency with school work and sports and Girl Scouts and whatever else was on the docket, only to find myself in the throws of mediocrity. So they reminded me constantly of how smart and talented I was, compared to my classmates. They spoke about me being the best softball player on the team as if it were fact. I began to believe that my loneliness was a sign of greatness: if I were so much more talented, intelligent, and “better” than everyone around me, no wonder they didn’t understand me! I was too much for them. 

As I grew this constant distinguishing caused some deep harm. I became a perfectionist. Anytime I performed below expected on a test or in a game, my instinct was to find an excuse. My parents helped me assuage the feelings of failure. “You weren’t feeling well today,” “that was a fluke,” “its because she’s jealous of you, that’s why she graded you harder.” I found my middle school self drowning from feeling both extremely confident that I was smarter, more talented, more perfect, and terrified that I would mess up and someone else would experience the glory of getting the highest grade on a history test. And I was lonely. So unbelievably lonely. 

I used to dream that one of the most popular boys in our class would talk to me. It wasn’t a particularly sensual fantasy- in fact, what I wanted most was to be welcomed in to his friend group by association. I imagined myself standing next to him, listening to one of his friends tell a joke, and laughing, really laughing. That fantasy has never completely left my consciousness. In my quest to constantly prove my parents’ opinions of me (and my own) as a unique, brilliant young person, I found deep down a desire to simply be the same as everyone else. 

I believe everyone experiences some form of loneliness throughout our lives. The popular movie motif of the “nerd” sitting by themselves eating lunch in the bathroom feels relatable to most of us in one way or another. And yet, I believe loneliness differs from feeling “alone.”

We combat loneliness by connecting with other people. We join clubs, play on sports teams, go to church or temple or the YMCA. We join a community. Feeling alone, even among members of a community, is not so easily shaken. The “aloneness”, I believe, stems from a fear or uncertainty about one’s purpose, namely, that perhaps there isn’t one. 

Have you ever felt as thought the more accomplishments you add to your resume, the more limited you are in your ability to find purpose? That sounds and is coming from a very privileged position, one I feel the need to honestly assert. Feeling alone has driven me toward the work I do now, supporting students in their quest to find community and to state their purpose in this world (hopefully combining their skills and interests). If I’m honest, I myself have not yet fully realized my own purpose. Feeling alone in the world may posit a real challenge, but the benefit is the motivation it sustains in me to keep working. I may not demonstrate my appreciation for every person I meet that teaches me something extremely well (and given the right mindset, this can be every person), but I do appreciate them inside. I cherish connection because it does help me feel the slightest bit less lonely and for a moment, not completely alone in the world.

I know many of us feel alone, and it can be near impossible to discuss, given our circumstances. It is my hope that the quest to end loneliness by seeking out community also moves us toward recognizing how not to be alone, or at least, that being alone does not have to freeze us.

A Shattered Thursday

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

shatter
PC: Jilbert Ebrahimi
Let me tell you about my Thursday.

I got to work around 8 am, carrying a cake for my co-worker’s birthday. I stayed up until 2 am making it. It tasted fantastic, so I heard. The weather was cool, and crisp, and dry. Perfect for caramel apple cake with dulce de leche icing.

After I hid the cake (it was a surprise) and bore witness to an angry student before our center even opened, I guided a meditation. 7 people came. I went back in my office and answered some emails. At 9:30, I heard about a miscommunication escalating to a fight, lawsuits threatened, people’s jobs in question. I fielded phone calls from other offices. I cleared my schedule to attend an urgent meeting. A student worker left early from the office because her grandfather passed away. I sent her a text: “So sorry my love. May everything run smoothly. Let me know what you need.”

At 11 am, I set up for a student affairs colleague meeting. We ate lunch and vegan cookies that I brought for the birthday celebration. We discussed mental health issues on campus. Our students are all over-worked, sleep-deprived, and expected to be happy, productive individuals every moment of every day. We imagined a potential collaborative internship for our students that would focus on an exploration of intersectionality and identity. I texted my partner to see if he was awake. He said he would bring the apples by 1:20. My shoulders relaxed. “Thank you,” I texted back. I scribbled some practically illegible notes.

As our meeting was ending, I texted back and forth with a student leader about which flowers to buy for the birthday girl. We went over the surprise plan. I would stall her until my student sent me the ok, at which point my co-worker and I would head to a “meeting” across the hall.  I said goodbye to my colleagues and walked back into our office, to find a student crying on the phone. My phone buzzed with the text “Come now, hurry!”-birthday time.

The crying student, my co-worker and I each took a deep breath. We processed the student’s anxiety all together. Finally, as suavely as possible, I ushered all three of us across the hall again for the birthday surprise. Everyone shouted. My co-worker sped out of the room for a moment. The students had arranged the cake, caramel apples, and gifts on a beautiful table. “This looks like the Garden of Eden!” My co-worker exclaimed. We watched the videos and messages the students filmed- one included pictures of me and her, one a choreographed dance, and one a Scooby-Doo parody. We laughed, and secretly, my throat began to choke up. Did she enjoy the surprise?

Another serious, tense meeting began just as the party finished. This one included several students- they felt angry and scared, but determined. As I finished cleaning, I gave the student who put all the videos together a massive, shoulder gripping hug. “Thank you so much for doing that,” I looked into her eyes. “I think she loved it.”

Back in my office, I found another distraught student. “What’s going on?” I asked. She didn’t want to talk, just sit in quiet. The sound of new emails sliced through the air several times. I got up to fill my water bottle. Students sat strewn around the front desk, the chairs leading to my office, and everywhere in between. The phone rang at the front. No one answered. “The air is tense in here!” Someone said. “MmmHMMM,” I murmured back with a mouthful of water.

Suddenly, the student who bought flowers for my co-worker appeared. She snapped her fingers. “Can you do something!?” I jolted up, hitting my knee on my desk. My water bottle toppled over.

One of the students in the serious meeting had fainted in the Director’s office. I tried to ask everyone to leave. I closed the door. Clutching his head and slumped over, the student explained, “This is too much. Everyone hates me right now. I have an assignment due tomorrow that I haven’t started and I’ve had two weeks. This meeting was so stressful. It’s too much.” One of his best friends had stayed in the room. She touched his hand. “I’ve been there,” she consoled him. “Sometimes you just have to fall apart. We are your friends. We’ll hold you up.” After a few more minutes, the student seemed stable. I quietly excused myself to continue an email exchange about a scheduling conflict in our Sacred Space. The crying student sobbed again. I took in a breath that filled my whole belly, and let it out slowly, through my teeth. My body instinctively stood up again to refill my water bottle.

Back in our Director’s office, I witnessed something that evaporated all the emotions I was so carefully juggling. The two students were hugging. They were smiling and giggling. They stayed in the embrace for a few moments. A tear silently grazed my left cheek. My lips lengthened into a slight smile.

You see, the student who had fainted is a Muslim, very active in the Islamic Society of Northeastern. He is also a Jordanian-Palestinian American. His friend, holding the fragility, channeling her empathy and care into the shattered young man before her, is Jewish. Their friendship exists in tension with the wider world. In other places, perhaps even in the same city, these two people could negate the humanity of the other. They could ignore each others’ existence. But they don’t. Instead, they choose friendship, they seek connection.

Sometimes we need to shatter for our souls to be assured that we are connected, we are seen, we are loved. In the midst of the pain, violence, and terror our world faces, maybe love cannot save us from breaking into a million pieces. Love makes the tiny slivers, the shattered pieces, sparkle like stained glass that is kissed by the sun.

My Revolutionary Love Story: A Call to Action

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment
A photo by Greg Rakozy. unsplash.com/photos/oMpAz-DN-9I
PC: Greg Rakozy

 

Writing for the Revolutionary Love Project with one of my heroes, Valarie Kaur, and her team of Revolutionary Love Fellows these past three weeks has been nothing short of exhilarating. Every night I find myself  writing an op-ed, article, or blog post that speaks what my heart is feeling: that love needs to go further at this moment in our world. I have been reading stories of love overcoming fear and pain and hate. The stories I am privileged to read from other “love” enthusiasts like me always demonstrate a difficult decision they face and ultimately the choice to act rather than stay silent.

I have learned through these stories and reflecting on my past that “loving our neighbor” must mean more than loving only those who agree with us. In fact, as a practicing Zen Buddhist, I believe that that revolutionary love is about demonstrating compassion for those with whom we completely disagree, those whom we believe cause harm to ourselves and our world.

A few years ago, I was on a bus to Columbia, Missouri, to visit a friend working at the University of Missouri. Since my bus wasn’t direct, I connected in St. Louis. My first bus was almost two hours late arriving and in order to make the connection, I sprinted what felt like miles through the terminal, throwing myself on the steps in the bus just as the doors closed. “Whew,” I gasped for breath. “Made it.” I took the only seat open next to a young man wearing an old baseball cap and tattered jeans. “Ma’am, would you like the window seat?” My partner stood up to move before I could even refuse. I slid across the faux leather seats and thanked him. “On my way, see you in two hours!” I texted my friend.

The first half an hour or so, neither of us spoke. I tried reading John Rawls’ Political Liberalism, but my stomach began to feel queasy. Luckily, my polite seat partner began a conversation at that moment, asking me what I do. He explained he was on his way to Denver to become a truck driver. He had been traveling for over 30 hours by bus already. “I’m studying religion,” I started to explain, when he interrupted excitedly:

“Well thank GOD for that! Finally, I meet someone who is spreading the word of Jesus and being a good Christian. I’ll tell you, all these Muslims and gay folks contaminating our country, it is sure a relief to meet you.”

My heart sank to my feet. No words. I looked down at my lap, and stared at my backpack for a moment- the very backpack that held my UChicago Spiritual Life Council folder decorated with pictures of my friend Sunil (a Hindu-Buddhist classmate), my mentor (a lesbian Quaker woman), and my partner (an atheist international student). This man, a perfectly polite individual, had just shattered my hope in humanity for the moment. I was faced with a choice- I could say nothing, or I could tell the truth. If I said nothing, I could let him assume that I was a Christian, that I believe Muslims and gays sully our society, and I could guarantee we would have a seemingly pleasant conversation.

Or, I could tell him the truth. I could tell this man that I don’t believe in God, at least not the one he does. I could tell him that one of my best friends (who happens to have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do) is a Syrian-American Muslim. I could tell him that my family includes a two gay uncles who adopted a son years ago. I could tell him that I vehemently disagree with his assertion that Muslims and “gays” are detrimental to our society, and that in fact, I believe they are essential.

I took a deep breath and explained that my master’s program was an interfaith one, that my classmates included Christians from several denominations, an agnostic playwright, a Lesbian seeking ordination, and that I don’t actually spread the word of Jesus as my messiah- though I do love his message and works. My explanation wasn’t smooth, or confident, or perhaps even completely comprehensible- I fumbled with my words and used “like” and “um” far too much. Silence followed. The man grumbled something about the next 1.5 hours of his life being wasted. I closed my eyes pretended to sleep. After an eternity, I arrived in Columbia and never saw this man again.

Yet, I did see this man again. I see him every day. I see Islamophobia right before my eyes when people stare at women wearing hijab on the train and grimace. I see homophobia and transphobia and plain ignorance when perfectly well-meaning adolescents use the words “gay” and “fag” as insults, or when people in my community mis-gender my trans colleagues and friends. I see the oppression my own mind, body, and existence are implicit in, and know that more often I don’t see it and no one calls me out because that’s what privilege is. The man on the bus is everywhere, and this is why I am a Revolutionary Love Fellow. The reason I chose to tell him the truth is love. Love for my friends and my family, and also love for the human being who invoked such harm. Revolutionary Love is not perfect, it is a process. It’s about compassion, for ourselves and for others.

My call to action is to share your story with me. Every time I read a story of someone choosing love and taking action, I am deeply inspired and motivated to continue the hard work and long hours. I want to know what Revolutionary Love means to you. What difficult path did you choose in order to put love in the world, and what has come of that decision? You can comment, email me, find me on social media. I won’t share your story unless you give me permission. Please consider sharing- your story matters to me and to the world.

For more info on the Revolutionary Love Project, visit http://revolutionarylove.net/ and look at the three calls to action. A little time can go a very long way. Thanks for your support and love.

 

 

 

 

 

Practivism in Perspective: Spending Time at the Interfaith Youth Core’s ILI

~ jjebbia ~ Leave a comment

Before my 14-hour debacle getting to Chicago due to “mechanical issues”, I felt pretty confident about what to write this week. After all, I was delivering a short speech at the Interfaith Youth Core’s Interfaith Leadership Institute, and I could very easily transcribe my speech here. Of course, as an educator I consistently learn much more from passionate students than I could ever teach anyone by talking.


When I finally arrived at my hotel around 10:30 pm, 12 hours after my planned arrival to the city I called home for over three years, I felt exhausted. I barely arrived in time for my roommate and new friend Janice D’Souza to let me in our room before falling asleep. In the brief minutes I got to know her before my head hit the pillow and jolted me into dreamland, Janice shared her story with me. She had participated in Better Together, a national Interfaith Campaign, at Berea College when she was a college student. This is how she became an IFYC alum. She had spent the past 14 months traveling around India working with women around issues of education. “I thought I was going to talk about menstruation, disease, and health issues”, she said. “I didn’t consider religion at all. When I found out that the reason so few girls were participating in our programs was that upper caste Hindu families didn’t want their daughters mingling with lower caste families, I realized I had to talk about religion, it wasn’t optional.”

Gazing around the room at the excited and somewhat sleep deprived faces Sunday morning, I felt nostalgic. There is no feeling like meeting 199 other students from around the country who actually care about something you do. I started my speech with a story that revealed my road to interfaith work. I entered college as a business major. In my second year, I added East Asian Languages and Cultures (I had passed out of all but one required language class, so it seemed reasonable). I tacked on International Relations because hey, it was only five classes more, and I thought it would give me access to traveling opportunities. By the time I was almost a junior, I took my first religious studies class- and knew I wasn’t giving this up. Studying religion seemed impractical, and quite unique from my other fields of study- but it was what I loved, pure and simple. “I can do this, all of this,” I thought.

That same summer an esteemed professor in the Marshall School of Business came to the office I worked in as a student one day. He knew my last name because my mom still does his family’s taxes. He launched into a conversation with me about what I was studying, which quickly became an advice seminar.

“You can’t continue with all four of these,” he said. “It’s not practical. You look unfocused, uncommitted, like you don’t know what your passion is.”

“But I have so many passions,” I wanted to say. I looked down at my shoes. Should I continue in the field that would most certainly come with several job offers before I even walked at graduation, or should I choose the destiny that got me out of bed actually excited to go to class every morning?

Business, Japanese literature, and foreign policy did interest me and I enjoyed classes in those majors, but religion was different. In one course, I was transported back in time to the days Jesus lived on earth. I journeyed with him as a person before he was called Messiah. In another class, we spent our time smelling sacred perfumes and elixirs meticulously brewed for sacred rituals. We visited a Hindu temple that put all my senses on overload. And yet, all the rich knowledge I kept acquiring needed to be put to use. What could one do, besides become a professor, with a newfound expertise in classical Taoist apocalyptic texts?

Listening to my colleagues on stage Sunday reminded me why the USC Interfaith Council became my home on campus. This was a community that made religion and spirituality relevant no matter what we were studying. We sought to root our practices, our guiding questions, our assertions about ultimate concern in everything we did- because they sustain us in everything we do, every passion we pursue.

Today, the interfaith movement speaks so much to me because it is not only about religion. The interfaith youth movement, in fact, is about everything beyond religion. Janice was spot on- talking about religion, in this time of deep pain and polarization, is not optional. When I hear students struggling to turn their many interests into a career, I remind them that in our lifetimes, we are expected to have no less than 12. Religious Literacy is a commitment to embracing difference, both among our friends, colleagues, and teammates, and within ourselves. When we do this, we open our personal narrative to multiple possibilities and new perspectives that the world urgently needs.

 

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