Finding the Center

A JOURNAL OF THE CRSL | FALL 2011

What Grounds You Spiritually at Macalester?

Keeping Good Company

Lucy Forster-Smith

After the Giving Tree

Abbie Shain

Spiritual Hopscotch
Angela Butel

English
Patricia Wright

The Snowman by Wallace Stevens

Zoe Michael

Synchronicity
Nola Pastor

The Weight on My Shoulder

Noah Westreich

In the Kitchen
Anissa Abdel-Jelil

Mac Students and Religion

Jamie Lucarelli, Anna Pickrell, and Sarah Dillard

CENTER FOR RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL LIFE

Keeping Good Company

By Lucy Forster-Smith
piritual conversation, sometimes called spiritual direction or pastoral counseling, is one aspect of my life at Macalester College that grounds me spiritually. It sometimes happens formally, when someone calls or e-mails me asking to speak to me about something theyve been puzzling overconfusion in relationship, worry over academics, an ill family member, or a questions about life or God for that matter. With the door shut, there is absolute privacy. The privilege of listening, of paying attention fully, of realizing that this person in front of me is a rare gift of life to all he or she knows, is deeply loved by the Creator. Often this person is holding the curtain of their life open for a moment allowing me to see behind the fear, the worry, the hurt, or to enter the joy and miraculous love that shows up when it is not expected.

But spiritual conversation also happens in unanticipated places. I recall a winter day many years ago when I was doing my daily run around the ancient track that hovered above the basketball court in the old Mac gym. A faculty member sidled up beside me, working the track at about the same pace as me. We ran together for five or six short laps. I didnt know her well. Wed met at a lecture. I knew she was a visiting faculty member from another college. As we ran together she asked me a question by the end of the first lap that took us around five or six more. It was a question about whether I believed in forgiveness, real forgiveness. As my feet kept pace, my heart knew this was more than a random question.

this person is holding the curtain of their life open for a moment allowing me to see behind the fear, the worry, the hurt, or to enter the joy and miraculous love that shows up when it is not expected.

I cant detail what the issue was that surfaced that question, but I do recall her face, that held the question in its lined furrowed brow. Making our way around that close track she told me a story and asked the question once again, Do you believe in forgivenessreal forgiveness? At that point, we both stopped, caught each others eye and with a tear welling in the corner of the eye, we simply stood in silence. We both nodded, Yes. There was a slight pause, and then she turned easily, fetched her towel, wiped the sweat and tear away. I continued my paces with a second windwind of grace. University of Minnesota English Professor and poet, Michael Dennis Browne said once, When I have been working with a student for a number of years and we are about to part company and I am asked for advice, typically I will say: Keep good company. Browne goes on, I would say that the present moment is the best company we can keep, and learning to be in it, to enter fully into it with our alert but relaxed attention, is the most beneficial practice, both spiritually and poetically.* Keeping good company in the quiet of my office with a student or other community member is a privilege, attending to the glimpses of the holy in the humus of our days.

*Michael Dennis Browne, Something Stood Still in My Soul, Arts in Religious and Theological Studies, 2010, pp. 43-44

he boy used to visit me whenever the shadows were long. We wrapped ourselves around each other like ivy and bark. Once, when he was little, he left a watch at the base of my trunk like a bouquet of flowers, told me Ill be back when the little hand gets to the three.

He wanted me to know how days are cut up small. In pieces he called hours and minutes and seconds. And how time is always passing like leaves floating down a river. Even though Im just a tree, he wanted me to know this. I told him: the sun makes shadows grow longer like syrup. Days and nights are how the Universe blinks, and time, time does not pass. Boy, living is the act of loving one spot so intensely, that you push into it and it pushes into you so that you can stay forever. I did not see him for a long while. When he came back, he told me about metal and cars, how fast they go, how fast we go, when youre in one, a million trees are a fingerpaint smudge, he said. That boy is only talking about speed now. And how much he needs to fit into those smaller and smaller divisions of days and nights. He came back to me yesterday. His skin, shrugging off of his tired bones in wrinkles. His metal car just tucked itself into the side of the road. So he started walking. Ive been walking for days, he said. Youve been walking for a lot of whiles, I said. And his feet remembered this place like ivy and bark. I told him: you humans, youre trying to reinvent the sun. Boy, days and nights cradle each other like siblings. Have you noticed how the hills hold the sun like an egg in a nest as it rises? You spend your days racing against night, your seasons pushing against seasons. You put shadows into watches and call it time. Put people into cars and call it speed. Boy, night is because we all need to rearrange the shelves inside of us. Do not rob yourself of the stars, boy. I told him: you humans grow old on the outside. Your youth is wrapped in skin and stories, folded into a box you dont open anymore. Trees, we grow old on the inside. Our youth tumbles off our branches in leaves and apples. Only when you cut us down can you count our circles. Ive watched more winters whistle into my trunk than I have branches to count on. Come here, boy. Count my circles. Be like trees. Let you be slow. Let you dig deep. Let you be tall. Let your sunshine youth float above your skin and tumble like falling leaves. When you die, let it be well. Let you have borne fruit, let there be babies, let there be generations of you in a grove. Boy, when your sun sets for the last time, let us gather in a forest of your light. Let us be grateful for your blessing. Let us count your years in complete circles.

Spoken Word: After the Giving Tree

By Abbie Shain 14

hen I was asked to speak at the Family Fest multifaith service on the topic of Hop, Skip, and a Jump: Spiritual Journeys, the first thing that came to mind was hopscotch, which is a childrens game rather full of hopping, skipping, and jumping. I tried to rid my brain of the image, because hopscotch seemed like an inappropriate thing to be thinking about when I was supposed to be speaking about my spiritual journey and how it has evolved since leaving home. But, of course, the more I tried to think of something else, the more I kept thinking about hopscotch, and eventually I realized that it might actually make a pretty good analogy for the way my own spiritual journey has progressed.

Spiritual Hopscotch
By Angela Butel 12

There may be different versions, but the way I played, you drew yourself a series of connected boxes with chalk: first one, then two, then one, etc ., and numbered them. Then, taking turns, each player would toss a pebble or woodchip into a certain numbered square and hop to the other side, skipping over the square with the pebble in it. Then they would have to hop back, stopping to pick up the pebble along the way. Some turns were easier than others, because you could stand on both feet as you reached out to pick up the pebble; other times, you had to balance on one foot to pick it up, and if you fell, you had to start over. And sometimes, you would just get stuck: you might be trying to land your pebble in the 9 square, and keep missing, turn after turn. The key ability that hopscotch has to illustrate my spiritual journey is that hopscotch is not a linear progression from point A to point B; there is a lot of back and forth, many stops and starts, and the possibility of returning to pick up things that were dropped along the way. My first By Patricia Wright 12 semester at Macalester was incredible and also a little bit overwhelming; I was suddenly immersed in this vibrant community full of new ideas and ways of looking at the world. I soaked up everything like a sponge, not knowing yet how to critically differentiate between new ideas that would be helpful and relevant to me and ones that would I want to hate the sun. be less so. When I went home for winter break, it became That's when I know I've found very clear to me that I had become a totally different persomething good; son over the course of that semester. I thought the books that I would trade the sunlight for, changes were good onesI felt much more well-informed work that is the opposite of work, about the world, as well as much more confident and mawords that are more than words, ture. But it was still rather jarring to stand in my bedroom at that warm your face with their complex energy. home and barely remember what it had been like to be inI want my life side my own head just a few short months before. This reto emit more light than alization was spiritually significant on two levels: first, it just all the hydrogen and helium felt personally wrong to have such a strong disconnect bein the entire universe. tween who I had been and who I was; I knew there had to

English

be some continuity between the two, but I wasnt sure what that looked like. Second, on the more specific level of my faith, I had gone from a place where I had felt my personal religious beliefs to be pretty wellgrounded and defined to one where religion was a comThere are times when I feel off-balance or plex and confusing issue, and I was working to redefine stuck, unable to move forward When this where I stood with relation to my personal faith. Could I happens, I try to allow myself a time-out; its bridge the gap between here and there and reclaim okay to rest in one place for a few turns. some of the spiritual connectedness I had felt at home? Forward movement for forward movements

Now, nearly two years later, I have made a lot of prois not the goal in real life. gress toward filling in that gap between home and Macalester, between who I was and who I am. It is easier to see now that I didnt progress from there to here in one giant leap; it was a series of small hops, as if there were a giant hopscotch board stretching from one point to the other. And that means that the space between the two points is not empty space; it is space that I can traverse and negotiate, learning more about myself in the process. There are times when I feel off-balance or stuck, unable to move forward, especially when the stresses of college make it difficult to take time to focus on my personal spiritual needs. When this happens, I try to allow myself a time-out; its okay to rest in one place for a few turns. Forward movement for forward movements sake, without real, profound spiritual growth, is not the goal in real life. And, just as in hopscotch, there is a time for going forward and a time for going back; whenever I turn homeward and reflect on where Ive been, I find myself scooping up pebbles of wisdom that were tossed out ahead of me by my past selves and have been just waiting to be rediscovered. Engaging myself in this dialogue between past and present, here and there, has been central to my spiritual journey; it has been a process of knitting myself into one continuous person, and of proceeding into the futureby hops, skips, or jumpswith a clear understanding of where I have been.

sake, without real, profound spiritual growth,

The Snowman by Wallace Stevens By Zoe Michael 13

s we enter into winter, I've been thinking a lot One must have a mind of winter about perception and practice. Meditation is To regard the frost and the boughs difficult practice, but it is still easier for me to Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; watch pain arise and fall away on my cushion than to watch aggravation arise and fall away when I am doing And have been cold a long time difficult physics problems. My mind of winter starts to To behold the junipers shagged with ice, melt away when I am confronted by a critical friend, an icy The spruces rough in the distant glitter acquaintance, or a mound of work to do. So I sit with my Of the January sun; and not to think worries and stress and find the fullness and emptiness in Of any misery in the sound of the wind, all that moves through me. And just as my cushion offers In the sound of a few leaves, a time for my wintery practice, the white land outside offers a space for this kind of work. I step into the cold in Which is the sound of the land the morning, to brush the snow off of my bike seat. I try Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place to find my balance as I skim over ice and splash in the slush. And instead of letting this ride make me fearful or For the listener, who listens in the snow, annoyed, I let it blow through me. As we enter into the And, nothing himself, beholds months of darkness, I encourage you to try to meet the Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. land of winter, with a mind of winter.

Synchronicity
By Nola Pastor 14

In the ENGL/BIOL class Mind and Matter, students were asked to read Andrew Westbergs chapter The Power of Belief, from his book Why We Believe What We Believe, after watching a presentation from the Mind and Life Conference on how meditation changes the perception of pain.

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remember experiencing doubts about what can really be known, how we really ought to live and focus attention. I don't know that there's an answer. On the one hand, bringing awareness to what you feel and see and can be in the moment seems so full of possibility. On the other, I imagine (and have sometimes found) it to be overwhelming. There is so much beauty in that resonant compassion, moments when you are one with the world and part of everything, but for me it feels like my chest is wide open and I can't stay there for long. I wonder about the connections between this and holding on and letting go. If we release our attachment to certain beliefs, to the fixation of memory and logic, what happens in us? I feel like it would be an avalanche, an earthslide, a tidal wave. Some advocate for a more deliberate and particular approach, in which it is possible to inch closer to a comfortable place with one's self and world, moment by moment, by staying flexible and keeping faith. These don't have to be contradictory. But I find it hard to imagine a balance. Perhaps this is a testament to the stubbornness of my own belief, the desire for things to be all or nothing, known and intelligible, guide ropes to go by. But the maps in our brains and lives are constantly changing. Even from one day to the next, things look so different, like the campus covered in snow. It seems so precarious to me, this attempt to constantly negotiate our own blinders and assumptions, the remedies we choose, to evaluate our own anticipation of pain and rework our response to those who disagree with us and those who suffer. It is a life's work. It can make it hard to sleep.

If we release our attachment to certain beliefs, to the fixation of memory and logic, what happens in us?

Still, there are layers here, constantly unfolding under our eyes. Things we never expected to be true can look, with the embodied force of neural ghosts and emotional passion, to make perfect and locatable sense. Proof, then, becomes subject to interpretation, creation and doubt. We are agents in the construction of our own believing and coping. The world can trick and surprise us, and we can shape it back. There is never resolution; it is a process of constant doubt and endless wonder.

The Weight on My Shoulder By Noah Westreich 14

rior to starting at Macalester I lived a religiously comfortable life as a Jew. In my hometown, Montclair, NJ, I certainly had a diverse network of friends from different backgrounds, but my Jewishness never made me stand out. I was deeply involved in my synagogue; I taught as well as studied in the religious school and served as president of the youth group. My friends at temple were also friends at my public high school, which effectively blurred the line between religious and secular life. Throughout my first year at Macalester I struggled to strike a balance between religious and secular life as I had done so effortlessly back home; here, religion sets a person apart. Even more than that, certain religions are etched in the collective unconscious as a result of stereotypes and past experiences. Aside from weekly Mac Jewish Organization meetings and bi-weekly Shabbat dinners, I downplayed the Judaism in my life to make room for studies and non-religious friends. Also significant during my first year were the challenges I faced with respect to my views regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like Jewishness, my pro-Israel views are not popular as they were back home. The difference in viewpoints at Macalester opened my eyes to new discourse that challenged me like I would have never expected. During the summer I reflected on my first year and found my raison d'tre as a Jew at Macalester. Since the start of the semester I have Members of the Shala'am coalition during Israel-Palestine Week begun my work opening the conversation about Israel which allows me to be myself, as I learn from others and more securely find my place on campus and in the world. It is as though I carry the weight of the entire Jewish people on my shoulder as I defend Israel and continue the traditions of Judaism. Every day I carry that weight with more and more strength as I practice pragmatism and relationship building. A year ago, I would not have thought it possible. Now I find myself more spiritually enriched than ever.

eing able to bake cookies in the chapel is such a treat! Pun intended. It's a wonderful space in which my friends and I feel extremely comfortBy Anissa Abdel-Jelil 15 able and welcome. We are offered a clean space with all the ingredients and utensils required. What more could we need? My floormates and I use this time to reconnect and take a homework break. We love to chat and listen to music while our culinary creative juices are flowing. We usually bring the leftover cookies (if there are any) back to our floor and share them with everyone. This is pretty much how we've made a lot of our friends over the semester. It's so rewarding to be able to gift something that you've put a lot of effort into making and that you know that the person will enjoy!

In the Kitchen

The CRSL provides a cozy kitchen, with a different recipe each month to try out!

Last Word: Mac Students and Religion?

By Jamie Lucarelli 13, Anna Pickrell 14, Sarah Dillard 15

nce called the most godless school in America by the Princeton Review, Macalester renewed its vows with the Presbyterian Church again this year. This speaks to the fact that, despite the frequent claims of college reviewers, religion is still present on campus. Ive come to see that [religion] is much more individually based at Mac, said Hannah Letchinger, 12. [It] is not a part of campus per se, but thats just because religion of students isnt as public as it might be elsewhere. Student employees at the Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel feel that this religious individualism creates an environment open to self-expression. No one is bombarding students with religion. Ever, said Clara Younge, 12. Younge, who does not identify with any particular faith, has taken Macalesters relaxed religious atmosphere as an opportunity to understand religion on her own terms. Ive always been interested in religion as a cultural phenomenon, she said. I think its interesting and I read the Bible sometimes, randomly. [Religion] is a huge cultural cornerstone in society. While there are students like Younge who approach religion culturally, others choose to engage more personally. Isabel Hart-Andersen, 14, is a life-long Presbyterian and practices on campus. I applied to work here, Hart-Andersen said of her placement at the chapel. Hart-Andersen, a Religious Studies major, said that Macalester supports both her religious practices and her academic pursuits. Im interested in every other religion, she said. A lot of people are afraid to study other faiths because they think itll weaken their own faiths, but it actually does the exact opposite...its to encourage communication, discussion, and respect.

Annual Christmas Candlelight Service

Finding the Center is published

twice a year for the Religious and Spiritual Life community at Macalester College. STUDENT EDITORS: Micah Fowler 12 and Lorin Leake 12 STAFF EDITOR: K.P. Hong Photo Credits: Cover illustration by Sara Shaffer; Pg 3 photo by Micah Fowler 12; Pg4 ocean photo by Lorin Leake 12; Pg7 photo by Sara Sandmel 13.

Lucy Forster-Smith, Macalesters Associate Dean for Religious and Spiritual Life E-mail: religiouslife@macalester.edu and Presbyterian Chaplain agreed with Hart-Andersen. I want to make sure that http://www.macalester.edu/ students have the opportunity to engage with the religions or traditions they religiouslife/ come to Macalester with, said Forster-Smith. She hopes that the Center for ReliOpinions expressed are not necessarily gious and Spiritual Life is able to reach students from many backgrounds, whether those of the CRSL, college, or editorial staff. they come from a faith tradition, want to explore one or identify as non-religious. While many students do not practice religion on campus, Forster-Smith says that Macalesters community is open to discussions about religion and spirituality. Even though we have a reputation for anti-religious students, cases where someone is put down because of what they believe are rare, said ForsterSmith. In general, when I attend things, Im not just welcome, but people say were really glad you came. Tori Lewis, 15 says that the Macalesters reputation might be based on the wrong criteria. I think its important to make a distinction between religion and spirituality, said Lewis, who doesnt consider herself religious. People here dont necessarily connect to one religion enough to fully subscribe to it. A lot of people here do have a sense of spirituality though. While it may seem that religion is an afterthought to students and administration alike, Forster-Smith believes that it is deeply embedded in the makeup of the school. She says the renewed Presbyterian affiliation provides funds to the college but also offers a sense of history. Presbyterianism is about reform, Forster-Smith said. In a way, Macalester has become more Presbyterian through the years because of our activism and engagement on campus.

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