While some on campus indulge in freshly made waffles on Saturdays and nurse their hangovers on Sunday mornings, a surprising number of students stream into Middletown to take part in religious activities. Services with off-campus congregations provide spiritual fulfillment, familiarity and a sense of community.
Last year, Jeri Ho ’08 began attending Wednesday meditation sessions at Small Forest Temple, Middletown’s Ch’an Buddhist Temple, after she found out that it was directly descended from the legendary Shaolin Temple.
“I kind of did want to be a ninja-monk, and I was like, ’This is as close as I can come to realizing my dream in Middletown,’” she said.
Ho enjoyed the temple so much that she soon began attending the longer Saturday morning meditation sessions in addition to those on Wednesdays.
“It was a regular thing that made me get up in the morning, and afterward I just felt really refreshed and excited about the day,” she said.
Ho explained that while she might have meditated at Buddhist House, the Small Forest Temple was a place to which she could escape from the pressures of Wesleyan.
“It felt like it was a way from the busy energy of Wesleyan,” she said.
Samuel Kachuck ’10 and Sydney Berkman ’10 walk into town to participate in Saturday services at the Adath Israel synagogue, where they are occasionally needed to fulfill the ten-person minimum required to pray.
“The synagogue needs people and we need people,” said Kachuck, who helped Adath Israel reach this quota just last Thursday.
However, the experience of finding and joining new congregations can also be jarring. During her first years at Wesleyan, Meera Davé ’08, who practices Swaminarayan Hinduism, was unable to find a Swaminarayan temple in Connecticut, and instead attended services at another sect’s temple.
“I really didn’t feel that comfortable there,” she said. “It just wasn’t what I was used to.”
Now she drives to a newly founded Swaminarayan temple 20 minutes away in Newington, but still does not feel completely at ease.
“I used to go every Sunday to the same temple in Dallas,” Davé said. “I grew up with those people.”
Emily Sheehan ’10 grew up attending a Catholic church with 1000-person congregation and now worships at St. Francis Church in Middletown. She is dismayed at the lack of a Catholic chaplain on campus, and notes that Wesleyan’s 9 p.m. mass lacks a “Sunday vibe.”
“[It’s] more like a vigil than a celebration,” she said.
Sheehan described her experience at St. Francis as nostalgic.
“It’s something I’ve been doing all my life,” she said.
Across denominations, Middletown residents seem more than comfortable with the presence of Wesleyan students.
“They love having us,” said Berkman of Adath Israel. “Last year several of the congregants came to see me in a play I was in.”
Davé noted that some students who venture off campus can be put-off by the age gap between themselves and the congregation.
“It’s usually older people, like our parents’ age,” she said of the Newington temple.
Berkman has had a similar experience at Adath Israel.
“We bring down the average age by 15 years at the least,” he said.
As freshmen, many of these students were surprised by the scarcity of religious events on campus. Berkman recalls being told by his first tour guide that Wesleyan had Saturday morning services. Sheehan decided to come to Wesleyan in part because the school had a Catholic chaplain.
Despite these initial misunderstandings, both Berkman and Sheehan have been pleased with their religious experiences thus far.
“It’s nice to have a full Catholic community that’s actually in Middletown,” Sheehan said, acknowledging that even if Wesleyan had a Catholic chaplain, she would still go to St. Francis Church on feast days.
Ho eventually stopped going to the Ch’an meditation, and now does Kung Fu with the temple through WesWell.
“It is more doable because it’s just so much closer to me,” she said.
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