Started more than ten years ago by Protestant Chaplain Gary Comstock, Spirituality Week is a weeklong series of lectures, panels, discussions and spiritual and religious services intended to highlight the ongoing presence of spiritual life at Wesleyan. The University Chaplains and student religious groups work together to organize a schedule that demonstrates all the options for spiritual life within any given week at Wesleyan.
“[We] put together a calendar of what’s going on, but [we’re] also doing it in a way to make our services even more of an open house than they usually are,” Comstock said.
Along with weekly events like Vespers, Muslim Friday prayers, and Shabbat services, Spirituality Week featured a series of discussions focusing on various aspects of forging a spiritual life at Wesleyan. Muslim Chaplain Mahan Mirza led a discussion titled “We Refuse to Be Enemies: Jews, Christians, and Muslims for Peace,” and Comstock welcomed ten students to a conversation about queerness and spirituality.
“If I had any doubts about whether people want to talk about this, [I now know] they do,” Comstock said of the event. “There’s a lot of energy around this. People were really responsive.”
On Tuesday, five faculty members participated in a panel discussion entitled, “Integrating Spirituality and Academics.” The faculty, whose religious backgrounds ranged from a Catholic-Voodoo tradition in Haiti to a Mennonite community in Oklahoma, addressed the various difficulties of being spiritual at a school that largely prides its secular reputation.
“The Christian story is kind of fantastic in some ways,” said Assistant Professor of Physics Greg Voth, a Christian. “Sometimes in the process of engaging that in the University we’re too quick to set [it] aside. The expectation that [spirituality] must only remain personal and private seems to be to be quite counterproductive.”
Gina Ulysse, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African American studies, said that her religious faith was her main reason for teaching, and she feels it necessary to share that fact with her students.
“What’s the big secret?” Ulysse asked. “They need to know why I’m really here.”
Several students contributed to the conversation from the audience, two of whom agreed with the panelists that it can be difficult to properly express one’s faith at Wesleyan.
“I am a devout Christian and I feel personally attacked and ostracized, often in the classroom setting, when someone who’s not Christian tries to explain to me my faith,” said Jason C. Harris ’09. “I do feel silenced in the world of academia.”
Rebecca Parish ’06, who is involved with various activist groups on campus, also said she feels silenced in terms of spirituality.
“I often feel like I can’t ‘go there’ with spirituality in activist circles because when I do, people become really uncomfortable and automatically disengage,” Parrish said.
Last year, the Princeton Review ranked Wesleyan students number 15 in the category “Students ignore God on a regular basis.” Dean of the College Maria Cruz-Saco, who spoke about the influence of her Catholic faith on her academic study of economics, said she wants to see more discussions like this one.
“My paradigm is strongly grounded in my philosophical beliefs and values,” Cruz-Saco said. “All we do is so much framed by our spirituality and our faith. I wish that we could address these very important conversations more often.”
Other special events during the week included a speech on “Jesus, Revolution and the Pursuit of Justice,” by Mako Nagasawa, a volunteer session at the St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen, and workshop for learning the sacred Hindu art of Rangoli led by Maya Bery ’07.
“Rangoli is the art of using sand to make temporary decorations that are simple yet so intricately beautiful, and is used on various occasions, ranging from celebrating festive occasions to decorating to welcome a new day,” Bery said. “I felt that since a lot of the activities during Spirituality week related to religion or were talks, it would be a nice change to provide a calm yet hands-on activity.”
A handful of students joined Bery and Comstock to use train-set gravel—no sand was available—to create designs ranging from abstract boxes and circles to a duck.
“I hope it offered a moment to de-stress from the rest of the day,” Bery said. “The highest compliment I received was Gary [Comstock] telling me that it was exactly what he needed because it gave him time to sit down and focus on something completely different and calm down after a day of running around. That was the intent of leading this activity, and I think it succeeded.”
For all of the groups and individuals involved in Spirituality Week, the event provided an opportunity to reach out to those who might not be involved in spiritual life on campus as well as reconnect with their own spirituality.
“I’m just hoping that there will be more questions and more people interested,” said Charlene Chow ’08, a leader in the Wesleyan Christian Fellowship, which welcomed several Muslim students to its regular Friday meeting. “Even if they’re pretty set in their beliefs and they’re not looking to become Christian any time soon, just to have them there to stimulate dialogue, it’s really good.”
“The work of the chaplains is not about coming to services once a week and that’s it,” Comstock said. “If we’re being successful, it’s that we’re touching different audiences.”
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