Author: ucmadmin

Letter to the Editors of The Post and The Athens News

To the Editor: I must say that as a member of the OU and Athens peace and justice community, I am very disappointed with the theme and speakers of this year’s Baker Peace Conference (held last week). Having a peace conference featuring mostly men and representatives and proponents of the military and defense industry is ironic at best and dangerous at worst. Where are the nonviolent peacemakers in your conference line-up? We are out there (and here and everywhere), and the Contemporary History Institute missed yet another opportunity to seriously, and with integrity, promote values and real nonviolent strategies for peace and justice.

You have been given a great opportunity (and the resources) to put on a conference that could work toward undoing militarism and violence and domination, yet you choose to support it through the very themes and voices you chose to showcase. We should be able to look to the annual Baker Peace Conference as a venue for serious academic theory and activist praxis for peace and justice, and sadly this has not been the case. This should be a conference which promotes critical engagement with racism, militarism, sexism, colonization and other oppressive systems so that participants may further our understanding of the roots of conflict and how we might undo these systems at a personal as well as national and global levels.

I hope that the Contemporary History Institute will seriously reflect on their responsibility to the OU and Athens communities and not allow this Orwellian “war is peace” doublethink/speak to continue to dominate the annual Baker Peace Conference. As for me, I ain’t gonna study war no more.

Melissa Wales
Executive Director
United Campus Ministry (UCM: Center for Spiritual Growth & Social Justice)
Athens

UCM’s campus minister, Rev. Evan Young, delivered the opening prayer at the Ohio House of Representatives today (April 5, 2011). “I confess to a certain ambivalence about this,” Young said, “because I’m not certain prayer belongs there. But since it is there, I think it’s incumbent on me to speak a progressive word of truth to power.” Here is the prayer he offered: 

Spirit of Life, source and ground and destination of us all–here we are, in this chamber of power, gathered to do the work of leading your people who live in this great state of Ohio. Those in this chamber have the power to decide and determine what rights and privileges our government will protect and defend, and who qualifies to enjoy those rights and privileges. Who is entitled to a say and who is not concerning the conditions under which workers’ labor is bought and sold; who may marry and who may not; what sort of treatment we the people will consider hateful and abusive and who should be protected from such treatment, and how; to what great moral purposes the taxes collected from the people of Ohio should be put. The power concentrated in this chamber is powerfully attractive to those who wish to see their own interests furthered by the decisions made here; so attractive that they bend every effort to ensure that their voices are heard here and their interests are represented here. So, as we begin this session, we pray that the hearts of these representatives who have answered the call to serve be turned ever toward justice. We pray that they be given to understand that the measure of our justice consists in how we treat those who have been pushed to the margins of our society. We pray that they yield not to the temptation to listen only to the voices of those with the power and privilege to make their voices heard here, but that they strive to hear and attend to the voices of those who have been too often silenced by oppression or alienation. We pray that they humbly and steadfastly focus on the “all” in “justice for all,” and seek to extend justice across all the lines and walls that so often divide us. And most of all we pray that the decisions they make produce the just, merciful, and compassionate society we dream of for all of Ohio’s children, for their children after them, and for all the children who find their way here by whatever means in the years to come. Mindful of all that we have been given through your abundant grace, we lift up this prayer in all the many names we give to you who have always been beyond naming. Amen; blessed be.

Ohio University student group Interfaith Impact is moving– not just the day and time, but moving deeper.

In an effort to feed more than just the spirit, but the body too, Interfaith Impact’s new meeting day will be every Thursday at 7 p.m., giving members an opportunity to attend UCM’s weekly free meal, Thursday Supper, at 5:30 p.m. Both programs are held at UCM, 18 N College St.

United Campus Ministry’s Campus Minister, Evan Young, will now be attending all meetings, providing structure and creating a safe and sacred space for students to share and explore their spiritual journey. The group is also adding a community service aspect to its core, giving students the chance to put their faith and beliefs to action.

“Too often we hear about faith as something that divides us,” explains Young. “I want Interfaith Impact to be that space where what you believe and what you think will never keep you out. But what you yearn for and what you can envision might bring you in.”

Interfaith Impact is part of UCM’s endeavor to promote dialogue and cooperation across faith lines and to build a genuinely interfaith community. Programs such as Interfaith Bible Study, and organizing efforts like the Interfaith Youth Core campaign at Ohio University, make UCM a pioneer in interfaith work. UCM’s important role in this work was recognized recently in an entry in President Obama’s weekly blog announcing the White House’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge.

“A big part about what we’re doing is relating what we study and learn to what we experience in our lives,” says Young. “It’s the ‘so what?’ question for me–that point where you explore and explain how what you believe leads you to choose and to act in your own life. And that’s the key to Interfaith Impact; engaging people in the ‘so what’ factor.”

Last week, President Obama launched a campus interfaith initiative and in his weekly blog posting he mentioned Ohio University as one of the campuses across the country that are already working towards interfaith community! Although he doesn’t go into the specifics of what organization is spearheading the interfaith movement on Ohio University’s campus, it should be noted that it’s Interfaith Youth Core at Ohio University and United Campus Ministry organizing these efforts. He speaks of our upcoming stream clean up with Rural Action’s Monday Creek Watershed Restoration Project, which will be held on April 16. If you’re interested in getting involved with the service project or the interfaith movement with UCM, contact Melissa Wales at ucmathens@gmail.com.

The Kara is a steel bangle worn by male and female Sikhs. It is one of the five external articles of faith that identify Sikhs to the outside world. It is in the shape of a circle because, like the eternal Lord, it has no beginning or end. The Kara is a constant reminder to me to do God’s work as a Sikh disciple, and it keeps the mission of performing righteous actions as advocated by the Guru (spiritual teacher/saint) in the forefront of my mind each day.

From time to time, usually at their invitation, I sit down with representatives of one of our supporting denominations, to tell them about us and to answer their questions. And almost inevitably, one of them will ask me, “How much of your programming would you say is for social justice?”

This is, on its face, a pretty simple question. But it brings me up short, because I’m pretty sure it’s usually meant to locate this campus ministry on the left-right political spectrum, and probably to place us on the left. Sometimes it can feel like a trap, and I don’t like feeling trapped.

I also wonder at my resistance to this. After all, we do a lot of “social justice programming,” and we embrace a lot of causes–like peace, economic justice, anti-racism, anti-heterosexism, and stewardship of the environment–that are commonly considered calling cards of the political Left. Why not claim the label?

Here’s what I’m afraid of. If I say, “90 percent of our programming is oriented toward social justice,” the group I’m talking to will slap the “lefty” label on us, put us in that box, and that will be that. All of their deliberations about supporting and funding our ministry will be based not on what we do, not on the transformations that happen in students who participate in our programs, but on this group’s assignment to us of a particular political identity. And that would be a disservice to the ministry we do. I want them not to know us by label, but to really understand us.

What we do here is based deeply on the Gospel message. And when I say “gospel” I mean the Christian message, AND the Buddhist message and the Jewish message and the Muslim message and the humanist message, and the message of any faith community or tradition that calls us to orient not toward our desires or aspirations, but toward each other. I mean the Gospel message that calls the privileged among us to concern themselves with those who lack, and calls the oppressed to call society to account for their suffering, to insist on their own humanity.

Is programming that proclaims, in the face of war, the value of peace “social justice programming”? What about proclaiming economic justice in the context of a widening gap between rich and poor? What about racial equality? Or fair legal treatment regardless of sexual orientation? What about service to vulnerable populations” And does spiritual growth arise out of this kind of orientation toward each other, or can it be separated out into its own set of programs? These are the questions I asked of the committee. Not to guide them toward a definitive answer (I didn’t have one), but because I believe that the process of faith requires that we grapple with the incongruities of our context, that we train ourselves to ask (in whatever terms best suit us) “how is God moving in all this?” I believe people who grapple this way inevitably grow in faith–and that’s a Gospel message we could all stand to hear.

-Evan Young

Looking through an old photo album. Really old. And there’s a picture of my father, holding a baby that turns out to have been me. And what draws me in to the picture are his eyes as he’s looking at me. You may have seen this expression before–part joy, part fear, part awestruck responsibility, part hope and excitement. And all the parts add up to a certain knowledge that, in that moment, everything is changed.

I remember that moment from my own life, when my daughter was born and I held her and looked into her little face. Everything was different, in a good way, a way that was calling a better self out of me. I knew she needed me, would need me from here on, in ways I couldn’t even imagine. And I knew, with that same certainty, what I was going to do about it: whatever it takes.

I was reading an article the other day by a colleague in campus ministry. Talking about how students today are concerned about whether they’ll have the opportunity, the skill, the determination, the whatever to “change the world.” They want to feel like they’ll have an impact.

I get this–it’s a big world with a lot of problems, and it needs all the changing it can get. Periodically we remind ourselves of this, by celebrating the lives and work of the remarkable people who have changed the world before us. And I think sometimes we allow ourselves to be not inspired, but intimidated by their example.

What I want our students to know is that they will change the world. They’ve changed it already, and they’re changing it every day–just like I changed my father’s world, just like my daughter changed mine. Just by being there and needing, at the beginning; then by asking hard questions, then by doubting the answers, then by casting visions and dreaming dreams and putting their backs into the hard work what they care about requires. Asking whether one will have a chance to change the world is, I’m convinced, asking the wrong question.

The right question, the one we ask here at UCM all the time, is “How will you change the world?” What vision of the world will your time and effort and passion and energy move us toward? Because it’s going to move us. We’re moved by the free meals that are served, and by the couches that are burned; by the impassioned calls for justice, and by thoughtless consumption and waste. And eventually, at the end of our moving, we can only hope to be satisfied with, rather than ashamed of, our answer to the hard question asked of us by that child we held, the one who needed us in her helplessness: “How did you change the world for me?” Through our work together, let us write our best answer–over and over again, as many times as it takes.

-Evan Young

It starts with a simple question. What if students of all faiths and traditions took action together to make this world a better place? What if religion was used as a force to unite us and not divide us, at Ohio University and throughout the world? A common value in almost all religious and philosophical traditions is the belief that fulfilling one’s highest purpose comes in the service of others.

This past fall, we asked this very question in an event: the “What If? Speak In.” On November 10, over 70 students, faculty and local religious leaders came to the Speak In (held in Alden Library). After a panel discussion that featured Sikh, Muslim and Christian professors discussing the need for students of all and no faith backgrounds to come together in service, students left the event inspired to create a climate of religious pluralism at Ohio University. Students and faculty shared stories about interfaith cooperation they had seen or heard about throughout the evening, and discussed personal “faith heroes” such as Gandhi who inspire them.

I, along with the rest of the Interfaith Steering Committee, are partnering with United Campus Ministry to spearhead the interfaith movement on this campus. Our goal is to make cooperation among diverse faith communities the new social norm at Ohio University.

We have selected the issue of local and international water pollution to organize around, as we believe that access to clean water is a fundamental human right. This winter and spring, we are going to channel our common desire to serve others by cleaning up local streams polluted by acid mine draining practices and raise money to send personal water filters to Haiti.

My parents converted to the Indian religion of Sikhism before I was born, so I grew up practicing that faith. Though I do not practice Sikhism as rigorously as I once did, I still hold the Sikh faith in my heart. There is Sikh scripture and theology emphasizing the validity of all religious paths, and a central tenet of Sikhism is that there is one truth, but more than one path to God. There are also examples of personal leadership among Sikhs who engaged in interfaith work. One such example is Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh from India who spread Sikh teachings throughout the West. Yogi Bhajan served on various interfaith panels across the country, and met with Pope John Paul II and urged him to bring leaders from all the major faiths together to convene on important issues.

So not only does my faith call me to serve others, not only does my faith call me to respect members of other religions, but my faith calls me to actively work together with others, from all and no faith backgrounds, in an interfaith capacity. I bet that if you think about it, yours does too: whether or not faith plays a large role in your life, whether or not you support organized religion, and whether your hero is the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad, Dorothy Day, Rabbi Joshua Heschel, or Guru Nanak.

I believe that in order to combat complex and daunting issues on the global horizon such as overpopulation, scarcity of resources, global warming and massive poverty, cooperation and coordination among the world’s religious communities will be absolutely essential. Though there is severe conflict throughout the world today where religion plays a major role, from the Middle East to central Asia, from North Africa to the Balkans, I believe that it is only a matter of time before cooperation among members of different faiths as opposed to vicious conflict becomes the norm.

We are working to demonstrate this for others to follow at Ohio University and at universities across the country, proving to the world that it is indeed possible.

Some of you joined us in asking: What If? last fall. We truly hope that even more of you will help us prove that we are better together in 2011.

Guru Amrit Khalsa is a senior at Ohio University majoring in journalism. She is completing an intensive year-long fellowship with the Interfaith Youth Core, an international nonprofit organization that builds mutual respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others.