Interfaith Leadership Institute: Day 2

What a great experience we're all having! Even after just the first full day, I can already tell that I will miss the relationships that have been made through this conference, the diversity and openness that everyone has contributed, come Monday morning when we're back in Moorhead. Sigh...

Today, the big theme was brainstorming specific projects our delegations could focus on. These could be events to promote awareness of an issue, or just the local Better Together group itself, it could be a service project, field trip kinds of experiences. Also, we discussed what were the best ways to advertise and get the word out to the community. We deduced that the crazier the stunt, or the catchier the poster/flyer ad, the better response you would get. So, dress all campus statues in Better Together t-shirts and apparel to gain attention-- t-shirts that you stenciled yourself at your hands-on/crafty interfaith event! Always provide pizza! Make a silly video about your campaign! Put flyers of useful information in the bathrooms! And most importantly, use social media. Facebook and Tweet it up big time with quotes from interfaith leaders in history, or statistics about the issue that you're focusing on, like homelessness, hunger, immigration/refugees, or environmental stewardship. This was a really great time for our group, because our creative juices were really flowing. And also, we did something called asset mapping. This was basically a flow chart of all of the support we have on campus, be it from faculty and administration, student groups, outside community, and even who let's us rent a room for events. We realized that we have tons of people at Concordia who've got our backs!
Other things that happened today was that we could attend a service to celebrate the Jewish tradition of Shabbat, and a Muslim call to prayer. I went to both, and it was one of those goose-bump inducing experiences.
Our Dorothy Day group is pretty awesome, I'd say. Yesterday, our delegations were all at different tables, but today, we tried to see how many people could fit around one table, and when we realized, "Oh, awkward, there's 8 people who won't fit," we jumped to action and brought our tables together, to the surprise of the IFYC staff who were leading our session. I'd have to say, our enthusiasm and humor has been making this such an awesome group to be in. (And thanks to one delegation, the phrase of the day has been, "Dorothy Day FTW!")

What I'm loving about this conference is that I have always been interested in diversity but because of where I live, I was always reading about those things instead of experiencing it first-hand. Most of the people that I encounter in my life are white Christian Lutherans--it's a kind of sad fact. Here, I'm meeting people who are Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic and Athiest, and not only are we bonding over deep stuff like our beliefs, but also through the goofy random flow of conversation that tends to happen between 9pm and Midnight when a lot of candy has been consumed and someone has a deck of Uno cards.

It's a goal of ours to make our school a more welcoming place for that type of relationship-building. And I think our school's ready for it.

Interfaith Leadership Institute: Day 1

I know it's midnight,and I'm tired, and it's been a day of information overload, but I'm going to try and make this blog post make sense. Please bear with me.
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Our group of 4 students and 1 professor arrived safely in Atlanta yesterday afternoon. The conference started off this afternoon at Emory University's conference center, with an overview of what Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) is all about, then afterwards we had our first break-out session. This meant out of us 150-some people, we broke into groups made up of 5 or six college delegations. Since it's the first day, we all got up and introduced ourselves, and intentionally talked about the differences of our faith. Some of us were Christian, some were Muslim, some were Hindu, some didn't identify with a religion or believe in a higher power at all. And that's what's so great. What I love about IFYC is that it's not an organization that wants to dumb things down, ignore our differences and sing Kumbayaa together. It wants people to know that we are different, and that we can learn from our differences. I myself strongly believe that learning from these different faith traditions helps me reassess what I really believe, and therefore strengthens my own faith. What's also very cool about this Leadership Institute that they put on is that everybody who's here actually wants to be here. Everybody's eager to know how they can build bridges through interfaith dialogue and service instead of maintaining walls.
We talked about how our college communities have responded to our interfaith-ing, both positively and negatively. For our group from Concordia College, while we love the positive response we're getting from students and faculty, we're also glad that we have encountered opposition from others--that means that our mission and message is being heard, and that the dialogue has been sparked, and the diversity of our community is being reflected.


I want to summarize a few of the things I've picked up here from various speakers. As members of an interfaith movement, IFYC believes that we should

~Voice our values. This means not being shy about our diversity.

~Engage with others! I shouldn't have to explain why: nothing gets done, no understanding is made, if we do not communicate with and learn from one another.

~Take action. So, with the knowledge and understanding that we now possess, we then should go out in the world and start making some positive changes.

And just like that, you change the world :)

~~~

These break-out sessions with other colleges that I talked about: each of them are named after an interfaith activist from throughout history, such as the Ghandi Group, The MLK Group, the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Group. Us? We're in the Dorothy Day group, which made me a bit too excited. I did a pretty emphatic arm-pumping motion,a la Napolean Dynamite.

Then of course, the highlight of the day was hearing IFYC founder Eboo Patel speak at dinner. He knew that in a way he was preaching to the choir by talking about how important interfaith dialogue and service is. I wish I could tell you more about the content of the speech, but I was so enamored that I didn't really take notes at all. And geez, I always take notes. And there was an overarching music metaphor, which was awesome! So, I'm hoping someone recorded it, 'cause I'd love for y'all to be able to Google or Youtube it. He did say that our job is not to ask, "Eboo, what are you going to do about this? When are you going to get something started in my community?" It's our job. We start it. We should mobilize ourselves and other people, we should be teaching people, and serving together.
Our delegation got to meet Eboo Patel and talk with him--we're really excited, because he'll be speaking at our school next year! "I'm not coming in the winter, though," he said, right up front. He doesn't know what he's missing. So, we got our picture with him, I got my copy of his book "Acts of Faith" signed, and it was very cool. All I can say is that he's the real deal.
Later in the evening we did more mingling activities, and I started hanging out with a few new people, and hey, there's a piano in the lobby, we said, so we started playing it. Me and someone else were just improvising tunes for a good 45 minutes. It's amazing how that always seems to happen to me. Music follows me everywhere; I can't seem to shake it. It brings me together with people that I never thought I'd encounter, ever. I feel so blessed by this.

Ok, that's all I can manage tonight. Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

Back in Moorhead...for now

Winter break has ended and I've been back at school since Saturday. Then, I'm leaving again on Wednesday for Atlanta! I've been alternating between long periods of packing for the trip, organizing everything for the school year, taking walks in the freakishly warm weather, sleeping, and watching "Throw Down Your Heart" on Hulu.
And hasn't it been loverly! Being back that early means that campus is rather quiet, and the time by myself is helping me start the semester off all confident and organized.


I really didn't want to come back at first, but now that I am back, I'm feeling optimistic about the semester. Last fall I had a huge learning curve, and now I've pretty much got my bearings. There are little things I'm doing to keep myself sane this semester: growing a pot of marigolds, keeping my desk clean enough to actually use, drawing (I specialize in hedgehogs and Hobbes-like tigers) and jotting down little thoughts on index cards, going to bed earlier, and doing pseudo-yoga stretches (because I'm not disciplined enough for real yoga). If I keep up with these things, I will be alright.

Arpeggios

My piano students are working on arpeggios this month. I've shown this video clip about 36 times this week. I'm surprised at how many of the 12 and under crowd have never seen The Aristocats! Enjoy.