Interfaith Week

Hello to my faithful readers!

My... INTERfaithful readers that is! ;P

As you're all aware, I'm really involved in the Interfaith Council at my university, and this year, we're putting on our first Interfaith Week EVER! All very exciting, but also very stressful... And hopefully worth it.

A little background... When I joined, not only was the group incredibly poorly advertised and difficult to find, but they really didn't do much. Now, sitting around once a week to discuss topics and three people going on a trip each semester to a place of worship are great and all, but those were the two biggest things I wanted to change. First, I took over our Souljourn trip, the trip to a place of worship in LA, built it up to visit four different places in one day, and drew crowds of 15-20 the past couple of semesters.

As president, I've been working with the co-president and vice president to build visibility, getting a booth at our Involvement Fair and posting flyers around campus.

The next step has been planning Interfaith Week, a week we hope will become our organization's main event, and help both spread awareness of our organization, and encourage the rest of the student body to engage with a lot of the issues we raise! But it's really been a struggle to plan...

So this week we're in the thick of planning, as it comes up next week and we need a caterer for one of our events and I still need to finish planning the big Souljourn trip and we need to advertise so people come out to the events and on top of planning for my fraternity events, family visiting the same week and all the assignments I have for this writing class I'm taking, I'm drowning in work!

It's just such a difficult thing because we've never done something like this and we're still shaping and deciding exactly how we want the final product to operate. In addition, I feel like the rest of the club is dwindling. The three of us plus two other volunteers from the club are working really hard, but in the meantime, club attendance is going down, and we're worried that next year, when several of us graduate, there will be a lack of leadership to continue the club and we could see it die... Which would really suck. It would suck to see this end cuz it's something I'm so passionate about, and something that's changed my life so profoundly.

Because it's new, we're running so behind, and we have so little help, I've come to accept that this semester, we'll be laying groundwork for next semester more than anything else. If this year's a success, AMAZING! But if not... Next year will be so much easier! So even though it's driving me crazy, I think everything will be okay!

But it's times like this I have to wonder why this stuff is so important to me...

Freshman year, I came to school as a Religion Major, and I knew that I had to join the Interfaith Council. After all, you can only really understand a religion if you talk with the practitioners; studying them in class can only get you so far (and vice versa). It was very poorly advertised, but I found them after a couple of weeks combing the Religious Life website. Joining has changed my life in incredible ways, beyond anything I'd hoped for.

Learning about these other traditions deepened my understanding of my own faith and helped me appreciate other religions. It made me consider all the different ways we imagine God, through the stories we tell and the ways we worship. Perhaps most profoundly, I got to talk religion with secularists and atheists. Seeing the way they approach these issues, and the ways they find meaning without religion has been so impactful, and part of the reason I've remained a part of the Secular Student Fellowship all three years of college. It's been their perspectives that have most enhanced my own spiritual understanding of the world, and changed my life fundamentally. I feel like I'm a more welcoming, loving and kind person because of all these experiences have taught me.

And I want this for others... I want to make this available to anyone who wants or needs this! Because it has inspired me so much, I need to make sure everyone knows we're out there. I don't really proselytize, but if I did, it would be for interfaith, not for Christianity (odd... coming from the future pastor). But I'm serious. This has opened up the world to me, and I want everyone to experience what I've felt... I guess I feel the most influential thing that's happened in a while is becoming not just faithful, but INTERfaithful!

So all this work we're putting in... I think it will be worth it. I think it will make a difference in someone's life, and maybe even help bring new future leaders to our club! And next year we can make it happen again!

So here's to the future of these efforts! Let's make a difference!