Kaufman Updates
Permanent link for Centering Together: A Judgment-Free Space for Reflection | By Rachel Robinson, President of the Interfaith Student Council on February 18, 2025
A reflection of our recent Interfaith Student Council general meeting on Grand Valley State’s campus.
When we planned this event, we hoped that at least four or five people would show up to have honest conversations about the political climate, both on and off campus. We wanted to create a space where students, including ourselves, could safely discuss topics that many of us are eager to discuss.What we didn’t expect was that these conversations would naturally become a part of our group culture. Before our board meetings, we found ourselves informally checking in with each other, talking about what was happening on campus, how we were feeling, and how we were coping. This wasn’t something we initially planned, but it became so essential that I suggested making it the focus of our next gathering: a space to openly ask, How are we doing? How are we coping? The question we decided to discuss was, what has given you strength in moments when your identity, beliefs, or values have been challenged?
From this, a powerful conversation emerged about intentional spaces - how much we need them to thrive, yet how rarely we make them a priority. So many of us crave community and connection, yet follow-through is a challenge. We say, “I’d love to come!” but then don’t show up. Why is that? And I am not perfect here either, I’m guilty of it too. I tell my friends I want to spend time with them, but unless I intentionally put something on the calendar, it often doesn’t happen. Worse, if plans are too far in the future, distractions arise, and the moment passes. But we need these brave spaces. If we want to make a real difference in how we are feeling, it doesn’t have to be through grand gestures. It can be a small gathering of just four people. As one of our board members put it, “The proof that people are interested is us in the room. If we are here, that means there IS an interest in it.”
So how do we show up for ourselves and our communities? Through small acts. They create ripple effects, and we never know how far those ripples might reach. Even though only one person outside our organization attended, that one conversation could inspire someone to write about it, to share it, to bring others into the dialogue next time.
Lately, there has been much controversy stirring and concern for communities both on and off Grand Valley’s campus. Some are outwardly expressing their concerns, but others are not. One of our board members said, “Our communities are quiet, and that is scary.” We need to be willing to have the hard conversations. As Brené Brown cleverly puts it, we need to be able to rumble with it: “A rumble is a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and generous, to stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, to take a break and circle back when necessary, and to be fearless in owning our parts.” Silence isn’t the answer, community is. Community gives us strength to bear the bad things and find strength within each other. A member of our group answered the question about what gives him strength by saying, “Things like this! Unfortunately, spaces where people can speak their minds without fear of ridicule or judgment are rare. And we need them.” He reminded us that “Diversity equals stability. Nature teaches us this; ecosystems thrive when they are diverse. If we can recognize that same principle in our communities, we will be stronger together.” As Valerie Kaur puts it, “See others as a part of ourselves that we do not yet know.”
The morning after our event, I listened to a podcast featuring Simon Sinek, a leadership expert and author, interviewing Jacob Collier, a musician. They discussed how creation and destruction are not always mutually exclusive. This resonated with me. Maybe the ways we’ve been connecting, through Zoom, social media, and digital spaces work, but maybe we also need to create new ways to be present with each other. In times like these, spaces for deep conversation are life-giving. If we’re willing to put ourselves out there, to be intentional, to get creative in how we gather and engage, then we’ll find not only connection but also inspiration. Because small acts have ripple effects. And maybe, just maybe, those ripples will help us build the world we so desperately need. We continue to plan events like this on campus every other Tuesday from 7:00-9:00p. If you would like to join us in these intentional conversations and brave spaces, please send us an email and we can send you updates on future events.
The Interfaith Student Council e-board at the Winter 2025 Campus Life Night
Permanent link for Interfaith Table Talks Come to GVSU | Liz English, Campus Program Manager, Kaufman on January 21, 2025
It wasn’t all that long ago that our options for gathering together were either virtual or not at all. During the shutdown, seeing friends and family was only possible through a screen, and thank goodness for that. In the interest of accessibility, after the shutdown was over, hybrid or fully virtual spaces have stayed incredibly popular. But I think we all know of the magic that dwells in the spaces where we gather face to face. For all its convenience, a virtual meeting room simply cannot replicate many of the unseen connections that arise in-person - whether we are in the depths of conversation or through body language and small talk in brief instances of passing by.
We also know that these spaces can be intimidating. When we’re sitting in a room together, we no longer have the security blanket of being able to turn off our camera and disconnect when conversation gets difficult, when someone says something that causes our heart rate to speed up or our shoulders to rise in tension, or in those moments when the mind drifts to our to-do lists which we can conveniently check on a separate screen. Being physically together in a space requires presence in more ways than one, which is not always easy. It is, also, where we have seen profound relationships form and be sustained.
For years before the pandemic, and on several occasions since, Kaufman has partnered with the Dominican Center Marywood to curate such a space of in-person relationship building called “Interfaith Table Talks.” Since their inception in 2012, the Table Talks have always been spaces dependent upon the collective wisdom, collaboration, and trust built between the folks in the room, and the room has remained a physical space for a number of reasons. The evening centers around a shared meal, another type of magic not replicable via screen. Barriers are broken down as panelists model the conversation as co-learners, not experts. The atmosphere is often vulnerable and brave. They have quite frankly become some of my favorite spaces within which I can lean into challenging conversations around my own worldview.
This semester, we will host what is hopefully the first of many Interfaith Table Talks on campus, and I’m thrilled to be bringing this type of gathering to GVSU. The inaugural topic: getting to know your religious, secular, or spiritual neighbor. Through deep listening and dialogue, we will highlight both similarities and differences of our experiences across worldviews, and to get Lakers talking about this crucial and often underexplored aspect of identity while breaking bread together. We will put down the screens and simply be together, embracing the challenges of vulnerability and hopefully the personal and collective growth that comes with it as we get to know our neighbors.
Due to extreme weather conditions and the GVSU campus moving to
remote status for Tuesday and Wednesday, the campus Table Talk which
was originally scheduled for this evening has been postponed for a
later date.
Posted by Liz English on Permanent link for Interfaith Table Talks Come to GVSU | Liz English, Campus Program Manager, Kaufman on January 21, 2025.
Permanent link for Kaufman On Campus: A Semester in Review, and Looking Forward | By Liz English, Campus Program Manager on December 17, 2024
I remember the whirlwind of my first month at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. Suddenly, what felt like minutes after my final interview (though in retrospect it must have been at least a few days later), I found myself helping to organize an interfaith concert and dialogue with two international music groups, each traveling in from different countries and each with riders to fulfill. There I was with my degrees in Religious Studies, my new employee ID, and not a single clue where to begin renting instruments like a doduk or kopuz. We were off to the races – interfaith in action! – and I was still unsure where I should park.
This December marks the end of two and a half semesters that I’ve been at GVSU with Kaufman, and I still have not gotten used to the pace at which a semester flies by. All of a sudden, here I am reflecting upon what we’ve accomplished over the past three and a half months when it feels like yesterday that I was meeting students and handing out swag at Campus Life Night before the first day of classes.
My priority this past semester was the creation of various spaces of deep listening and authentic ‘being’. Even in my short time at the Institute, I have seen that Kaufman’s programming is at its best and truly thrives when it is deeply and authentically rooted in the needs of the community or communities which it hopes to engage – and I could not hope to create spaces of meaningful conversation and exploration on campus without knowing what those needs are. Low stakes meet-and-greet spaces of connection like the Multifaith Mixer saw great success and interest, as did more intimate spaces such as our weekly Listening Spot where students could share about their days – good, bad, or somewhere in between – in a judgment-free zone. The Interfaith Student Council made its debut on campus this semester, as well, and the enthusiasm for interfaith conversations and connections I’ve seen from these students brings me joy and great hope for future student-led initiatives both on campus and out in the wider community.
The desire for meaningful connection is strong; creating spaces and experiences in which those connections can and do flourish is something with which we continue to experiment. Our Winter 2025 campus programming is centered on this goal.
In January, we will be hosting a “Know Your Neighbor” panel discussion and dinner for the GV community, during which several friends of the Kaufman Institute in their 20s and 30s will explore the importance of interfaith friendships and share about their own religious, spiritual, or secular identities and experiences. Utilizing a model that has shown great success in the community, we will encourage attendees to dig deep into their own stories, lean into intentional and vulnerable conversation with others around worldview, and explore the similarities and differences of our lived experiences while breaking bread together.
Our February event comes out of a growing partnership with Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. which led to a great event with Kristin Kobes Du Mez and David Gushee this past March. Next year, three authors – Cait West, Dr. Sara Moslener, and Dawn Burns – will lead us through a conversation on surviving the harmful effects of religious trauma and purity culture by utilizing writing to process and heal. These (im)Pure Michigan authors will shape the spaces by sharing from their works of fiction, memoir, and academic research in two sessions, one on the Allendale Campus intended for Lakers and one in Grand Rapids open to the public. More and more, we have seen the need for trauma-informed spaces within which students are actively supported as they experience the stories of others and delve into their own; the “Writing Religious Wrongs” sessions will do just that.
Finally, in March, we are thrilled to host Syda Segovia Taylor as this year’s Rabbi Phillip Sigal Interfaith Leadership Lecturer. Syda is the founder and executive director of Organic Oneness, a nonprofit organization in Chicago which centers its mission around racial and environmental justice. She is a member of the Bahá’í community and camps her approach to social justice in the Bahá’í writings on the fundamental oneness of humankind. The planning process for the Interfaith Leadership Lecture has already yielded moments of powerful alignment between Syda’s work and that of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. We look forward to ushering in the Spring season with her!
Next semester will undoubtedly feel like a whirlwind, just like that first month – in many ways, it already does – but I am grateful for this moment to pause, reflect, and find myself in great anticipation about what is to come.
Multifaith Mixer Sept 2024
Liz and the Listening Spot couches
Tabling Event: Letters of Gratitude
Kaufman Campus Intern Chloe at the Letters of Gratitude event
Posted by Liz English on Permanent link for Kaufman On Campus: A Semester in Review, and Looking Forward | By Liz English, Campus Program Manager on December 17, 2024.
Permanent link for Interfaith & Interwoven is Looking for New Members on December 17, 2024
Do you enjoy knitting/crocheting and chatting with people of different worldviews than your own? Would you like to knit/crochet for children in a high-needs school while having life-giving conversations? If so, Interfaith and Interwoven is the group for YOU!
Interfaith & Interwoven: Knitting for Peace, Justice and Healing began as a project of the 2015 Year of Interfaith Service through the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at GVSU. While gathering on a weekly basis to craft hand-made goods to donate to those in need and dialogue about our faith traditions, we learn a lot about knitting and each other. Through our weekly Zoom meetings of knitting together, we are helping to put diverse people in relationship to one another.
The beauty of meeting on Zoom is that you can meet with the group from the comfort of your home or your travels (if you're a snowbird or a person who is on the go). And it allows our group to meet even though its members are dispersed around the Midwest. One might think that being on a virtual platform has impeded the intimacy of our conversations or relationships but it's actually quite the opposite. We have been grateful that our group has been able to discuss topics pertaining to mental health, aging and stages of life, death and grieving, end of life decisions, teen hormones and angst, diversity and justice issues, cross cultural experiences and much more. The current group is Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian.
If this group sounds interesting to you and you think that others in your faith community would like to join, please share the attached flier. Sign up for this group by filling out this form.
FAQ’s
Who: Persons of all ages (and handcraft abilities) from all faith and non-faith communities. People of all worldviews are welcome to join.
Why: To build friendships and dialogue about our traditions while our hands are engaged in creating items for ourselves, our families, and/or charitable organizations. We are currently knitting hats, scarves & mittens for Godfrey Elementary School in Wyoming, MI.
When: Every Wednesday morning from 10:00 - 11:30 am from September to May.
Where: Even though COVID restrictions have been relaxed, we are continuing to meet by ZOOM as our group has expanded beyond the Greater Grand Rapids area. If you would like to be on the email list to receive the Zoom link, please visit http://9dap.eduftp.net/interfaith/interfaith-and-interwoven-61.htm to sign up to receive the Link by email.
Yarn Supply & Garment Drop-Off: If you need yarn, we have a "stash" of donated yarn which may be picked up by appointment at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute on the downtown medical campus of GVSU.
So, please join us for this weekly relationship building experience! You won’t regret it!
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Children at Elementary School wearing items knitted by Interfaith and Interwoven.
Posted on Permanent link for Interfaith & Interwoven is Looking for New Members on December 17, 2024.
Permanent link for Area High School Groups: You are Invited!!! | By Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani, Youth Program Manager on October 15, 2024
Why do we travel? Even traveling two hours away to escape to a neighboring city can get us out of the mundane, awaken our senses, heightens our emotions, invigorate our mind and open us up to the possibility of something new. For students, field trips serve this purpose, to unfurl our horizons.
A field trip to the Kaufman Interfaith Institute will take your students out of the humdrum of the daily school environment. Kaufman’s home, located on GVSU’s downtown Health Science Campus, is just far away enough, just academic enough, just curated enough to transport students into a headspace where they feel safe and ready to lean into deep learning about themselves and others. Our welcoming staff work hard to create an environment that caters to the needs of teens to create safety and comfort.
Jenison High School students recently visited the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. Twenty freshman and sophomore students signed up to voluntarily spend the day building interfaith understanding and belonging with us. Kaufman is grateful to have a space that is malleable and effective for groups up to forty people. With a group size of twenty students we were able to provide soft seating in an intimate circle for our presentation portion and still have plenty of space for hands-on activities in the room.
Our short two hours together covered a lot of ground! Beyond sharing the important history of Kaufman’s founding and the critical nature of our work during these polarized times, we talked about our youth programming and the importance of youth leadership. The crux of our time together was spent exploring individual identity because knowing oneself is crucial to knowing the other. Then we explored the idea of cultural humility, how it’s defined and why it’s an important posture as we engage in the world.
While learning via presentations is interesting, embodied hands-on learning engages different pathways in the brain. In our first activity we engaged with our values. It allowed for students to discuss their understanding of different values, what those values mean to them, why they are important and how they impact their decision making. In our second activity we used Play-Doh to model our “Ideal Communities.” The discussion afterwards centered on topics of leadership, collaboration, resources, barriers, and profound direct connections to issues in their school community. Just as students were digging into the way in which they, as leaders, could impact their school it was time to leave. The Jenison group was able to continue their conversation back at school and debrief their time with us. The overwhelming feedback was that they wanted more time together and felt empowered by the importance of their role as leaders on campus to build belonging. They want to stay connected with Kaufman via the Scholars and with staff because of the connections we built in our short time together. They were honored to be treated with dignity and respect as young adults and not children in our space.
As Kaufman grows its youth programming we are learning from these experiences. We often do trainings for community organizations and internal departments at GVSU. We are learning that we can be a resource to schools who are looking for a field trip experience on a variety of topics related to interfaith understanding, identity, youth leadership and belonging (to name a few). We encourage you to reach out to Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani if you would like to plan a visit!
Permanent link for Drawing from Ancestral Wisdom: On Valarie Kaur's Visit to GVSU | By Liz English, Campus Program Manager on October 14, 2024
We slipped our shoes off to feel the ground beneath our feet, with the waters of the Grand River flowing nearby. Breathing deeply, we closed our eyes, and were invited to imagine an ancestor, one that represents courage, standing behind us, watching over us, encouraging us forward. Next, she asked us to envision a child, one from our lives who brings us joy, standing in front of us, smiling up at us.
At the beginning of both of her visits to GVSU, Valarie Kaur started off with an exercise grounding us all in both time and space, one which is also used to ground her newest book, Sage Warrior.
“You are the link between past and future,” she said. “With the earth under you, and waters around you, with ancestors behind you, and the children of the future before you - May you find the wisdom you need to be brave with your life.”
Because bravery is what is needed right now. Especially from people like me.
In her first book, See No Stranger, Valarie provided tangible tools and strategies to encourage those brave steps as we turn towards others, even our opponents, while accruing an essential self-awareness - the sweet labor of revolutionary love, of breathing and pushing. At our event last week, and in Sage Warrior, she invited us to remember how our ancestors came together in community through music, storytelling, poetry, and song, leaving no one behind, even in times of the most dire crises. Drawing from her Sikh tradition, Valarie painted a picture of pivotal moments in the lives and stories of several of the founding Gurus as they faced seemingly unprecedented challenges of their own.
I found that, in practice, drawing upon the wisdom and strength of my ancestors was not a straight-forward task. I remember sitting in that room, eyes closed, struggling to think of an ancestor standing at my back. While I have great pride for my immediate family, my grandparents, even the great-grandparents about whom I’ve heard stories or even vaguely remember from my youngest years, I could not focus on a particularly courageous figure. While the grinning, goofy faces of my nephews were as clear as day in front of me, my past was blurry. I heard Valarie emphasize the kindredness of humanity, and that “all ancestors are available when summoned with integrity.” And yet I felt myself reaching back through a haze of colonial guilt.
But my role as the link between past and future is not to become paralyzed with shame. That does not help my nephews. Nor is it to ignore my colonial history. That does not honor the voices of other ancestors long silenced. It is to wield the gifts, the lessons, the mistakes, the privilege of my past to create a better future for my nephews and for all of the children envisioned in that room. The grounding exercise came to resonate with me all the more as I wrestled with this tension. I will be their ancestor someday. How can I use my time well and make them proud?
From her early days as a civil rights activist, Valarie’s vision of impacting the world has been rooted in nonviolence. At the same time, the Sikh tradition is one of warrior-sages, taking to arms to defend the rights of all people in pursuit of Oneness. She in turn uses the military language as a metaphor to describe our roles, our strengths, and our ‘weapons’ in the fight for social justice - what is my sword? What can I use to fight on behalf of others - my pen, my voice, my work, my resources? Maybe my position of privilege allows me to more easily and more safely enter into conversations and listen to the pain and the rage of those who I would consider my opponents. And what is my shield? How can I protect myself, who can I surround myself with to support me when times get hard? Because this is work that we must do in community, and we must take care of ourselves.
The verbiage we so often hear on the news or social media pushes beyond the vocabulary of uncertainty to call these ‘unprecedented’ or even ‘apocalyptic’ times. Divisiveness seems to be at an all time high, with the upcoming election serving as a lightning rod for the polarization that is rampant in the air. How do we step into this season intent to know our neighbors and to come together in community while bludgeons are sailing overhead and bunkers are being reinforced? It requires bravery to even step out of your door in times like this, let alone to intentionally extend an invitation of curiosity and care across deep, entrenched lines of difference. It is a tall order to venture further into this unfamiliar, uncomfortable, even potentially unsafe territory. But how do we find the courage to do so? What I have learned from Valarie is that we all have a part to play - our own swords and shields - and that we must move forward together, with the strength of our ancestors behind us and the future of our children before us.
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Posted by Liz English on Permanent link for Drawing from Ancestral Wisdom: On Valarie Kaur's Visit to GVSU | By Liz English, Campus Program Manager on October 14, 2024.
Permanent link for Building Trust and Introducing 'Interfaith' on Campus | By Liz English, Campus Program Manager on September 17, 2024
Last week, Kaufman held its kick-off Multifaith Mixer on a beautiful if unseasonably warm September afternoon. Though we intentionally distanced ourselves from the chaos of Welcome Week by waiting until the third week of classes for our event, the campus was (and is) still very much a-buzz with beginning-of-the-year energy. We set up our activity stations, got the food truck situated, laid out the floor labyrinth and the yard games, and we were ready to go!
In preparing for this event, I had a very simple goal: to provide a space for students to just be together. While I wanted resources to be available to those who were curious about Kaufman, first and foremost, I wanted students to experience what we mean by interfaith.
The stigma surrounding ‘interfaith’ is palpable on campus and results in many students being hesitant, uninterested, or downright put off by the presence of an interfaith organization. Perhaps that is because the students who don’t identify with a particular ‘faith’ may not see their interests represented in an interfaith organization, or because students who are grounded in a particular tradition are weary that interfaith may be intended to lead them away or convert them from what they know, or maybe there is just a general unease around the topic of ‘religion’ being so predominantly discussed in public. I cannot say for sure.
What I have observed is the physical release of tension, the relaxing of the shoulders that follows my elevator-pitch description of how we at Kaufman understand and live into interfaith. Once it becomes clear that we are inviting folks to bring their whole selves into our spaces, to explore where their values come from whether that is from a religious source or otherwise, to share their stories with others, and to learn how diversity in experience and belief can be a boon to collective action and not a detriment… Once this vision takes shape, the barriers begin to come down.
The Multifaith Mixer intentionally allowed students to opt in as they felt comfortable, to grab a meal and get to know each other or to take it with them on their way, to settle in to create a friendship bracelet, play a game, or pick up a conversation card or take some colored pencils home for later. While we view interfaith as necessarily interactive, having opt-in spaces to simply introduce ourselves and to begin to build trust are just as important.
I am confident that at least a handful of the 75+ students who came by last week will feel just a little bit more comfortable joining in some of our future campus experiences, whether that means joining us for our sacred site visits, or attending lectures like our upcoming Faith Over Division conversation, or stopping by the first meeting of the Interfaith Student Council. Hopefully their curiosity has been sufficiently piqued so that when they see our Kaufman tablecloth or our t-shirts or any of our staff around campus, they’ll at least come say hello.
Liz with the board of the Interfaith Student Council - Molly, Franklin, Caitlyn, and Rachel.
Cornhole on the lawn.
Making friendship bracelets.
Elamin with members of the Muslim Students Association.
The Mixer from above
Permanent link for Kaufman's Youth Programming Embodies Flexibility While Invigoratingly Inspiring Our Community | By Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani, Youth Program Manager on September 17, 2024
Working at a nonprofit consists of constant ups and downs, so we have learned to embrace change. Timing things perfectly, or planning events with just the right mix of educational content and interactive experience while being mindful of your audience are just a few of the considerations Kaufman keeps top of mind when event planning. With youth programming the list is even more complex. I think we all know how hard it is to motivate teenagers to do anything! So, if I were to use one word to describe youth programming it would be “flexibility.” And then when we get them in the room- my second word would be “invigorating!” Kaufman’s youth programming has embodied flexibility while invigoratingly inspiring our community!
Kaufman’s youth programming consists of two main programs. The Summer Interfaith Service Day Camp and a co-curricular Interfaith Leadership Scholars Program. In June we planned our Summer Interfaith Day Camp for middle and High School students. However, due to a number of school districts not taking their snow days and ending school early, and our funder obligations which forced us to push back the week we held our camp, our registrations were extremely low. While we canceled our Day Camp we incorporated our youth voices into our June Interfaith Convening - Critical Hope: Envisioning the Future of Interfaith. State-wide Interfaith leaders heard from Kaufman Scholars, GVSU student interns, and Michigan Youth Faith Advisory Council Members on an Youth Interfaith Panel. Youth were specifically asked about fostering inclusive spaces, creating awareness of blind spots in interfaith relationships, and where they saw potential in the interfaith movement. The audience left with multiple takeaways including better understanding of neurodivergent populations, accessibility considerations in spaces, inclusion of traditions beyond the Abrahamic, inclusion of younger age populations on committees and boards, and much more.
Most recently, the Kaufman Institute launched the 6th year of our Interfaith Leadership Scholars Program. This year we have 15 students from west Michigan representing the Agnostic, Atheist, Christian, Jewish, and Sikh traditions. At our first meeting on Sunday, September 15, Scholars were able to meet one another and build trust via team building activities facilitated by Adventure Point. Each of the students in this program comes into the program with a different motivation. Some have been harmed in religious spaces or found them unwelcoming but enjoyed the idea of community they felt in them and wanted a space to do something productive with other youth. Some want a platform to gain leadership skills and network with others. Some are looking to build cross-cultural understanding and geek out on learning about different religions and worldviews. But the core purpose of the group is leadership development and interfaith cooperation with the ultimate goal that the students will execute a community impact project of their choosing. As we begin the year, establishing trust, building our community environment, and learning about our strengths and skills will be our focus. While we have about ten returning Scholars and five new Scholars, based on our meeting over the weekend I can tell that we have started to establish roots that will grow deeper over the next few meetings. One of my favorite moments was when one of the new students asked his small group, “So what languages does everyone speak?” Totally normal west Michigan question right? In the upcoming months I look forward to updating you on some of the leadership curriculum and experiences we have as a group and how the youth continue to invigorate Kaufman onward into the future.
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Kaufman Scholars engage in activities
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Kaufman Scholars participating in Paper Airplane Company activity.
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Kaufman Scholars participating in Bull Ring activity.
Permanent link for Engaging 'Thin Spaces' of Connection, Understanding, and Transformation | By Kyle Kooyers, Director of Operations on September 17, 2024
“No one lives outside the walls of this sacred place, existence.” -Rabia Al Basri, Arab Muslim Saint and Sufi Mystic
Growing up in the Christian Tradition, especially around the summer camp scene, we would often use the term “thin place” to describe spaces and contexts where there was a nearness to the sacred, a closeness to God. Originating with Celtic Pagan culture, the implication of this term is that the line, the veil, the distance between the physical and the ethereal or heaven and earth, was so very fine that one could almost exist in both places simultaneously, becoming attune to the presence and movement of the divine energy.
These “thin places” look different for each of us - especially as we orient differently around religious, secular or spiritual identities. Perhaps it’s engaging in a thoughtful and honest conversation, free from distraction, where we see or feel seen by those who we can no longer call a stranger. Perhaps it’s retuning to the rhythms and frequency of nature as we sit awestruck of our earth, floating as dust through the vastness of the Milky Way. Perhaps it’s feeling awash and alive with the emotional language of dance and song, moved by rhythms of our artists and ancestors. Or perhaps it’s the moment of breaking bread, where we share sustenance at a table with those whose daily dependence on food illumines the sacred reality of our shared mortality.
It’s not that these spaces or moments are in any way magical in and of themselves, though they may certainly feel as such. Rather, they interrupt us. They draw our attention to something that has been there all along. We are opened-up to the numinous, to the profound sense of presence and connection to something beyond us…even if that “sacredness” is simply our shared planet and inhabitance as a human species.
In her book, Sage Warrior, author and activist Valarie Kaur writes, “If we are all apart of the one, then there is no space that is not sacred. But it’s so hard to remember that when we are holding a toddler over a toilet. Or stuck in traffic. Or falling into our phones. It’s especially hard to remember in the wake of a mass shooting or climate disaster or atrocities happening in real time. We need to demarcate space in order to connect with the sacred…These are not spaces of escape; they are spaces of refuge where we can respond to what is happening from our deepest wisdom, our best selves.”
Kaur goes on to talk about the importance of finding that sacred sovereign space within us for energy and resilience. But here at the Kaufman Institute, we recognize that we also have that in each other. We must also do this work of demarcation, even in interfaith dialogue, so that we can connect to one another. That isn’t always easy. In an era of hybrid attendance and recordings made available after the fact, our presence is no longer required to participate and take in the content of a gathering. But what about the visceral feeling of the space, the human connection, the collective transformation? To paraphrase Gil Scott-Heron, the revolution will not be live-streamed.
Over the course of this past month, the Kaufman Institute has been working to nurture those demarcated spaces. At the end of August, we hosted our first in-person luncheon for Multi-faith Leaders since the start of the pandemic. These gatherings have been a rich time of connection and relationship building where we can share with each other the concerns, hopes, and emerging projects of our respective communities. Looking ahead, the Institute plans to revamp these spaces to better network and support area clergy and leaders as they are helping their communities navigating a very polarized and uncertain time.
Staying with the theme of ambiguity and anxiety, last week we held our Fall Interfaith Tuesday Table Talk, planned hosted in partnership with Dominican Center Marywood at Aquinas College. The theme, drawing from the wisdom of Howard Thurman, was “Centering Down in an Uncertain World.” It was profoundly appropriate that, on the night of the US Presidential debate, we gathered to talk about the ways we can look to our centers of belief, behavior, and belonging to sustain ourselves in seasons and times that are profoundly disorienting and unpredictable. We shared with one another the anxieties we are holding as well as the ways in which we can choose to respond with thoughtfulness, centered in compassion, rather than giving in to the seeming normalcy of vitriol.
At both of these gatherings, the rooms were warm and transcendent as we had space to pause and simply listen to one another. They were disruptive in the most beautiful and edifying sense. Franciscan friar and teacher, Richard Rohr, offers this observation:
“[We] often remain trapped in what we call normalcy— 'the way things are.' Life then revolves around problem-solving, fixing, explaining, and taking sides with winners and losers. It can be a pretty circular and even nonsensical existence. To get out of this repetitive cycle, we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here...This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed.”
There is a very palpable opening-up that we have found within these in-person spaces, where we invest in the intimate. Free from the tyranny of the camera or recording, free from the trappings of an impressive headcount that renders us invisible to the crowd, we can share a profoundly authentic human experience with one another. Yes, we will still offer our larger events, and we will strive to make those events accessible to folks who, for one reason or another, are unable to join us in-person. But there is something to be said for being together, for engaging in thick dialogue in thin spaces – for drawing each other’s attention to the abiding presence of something that is much larger than any of us and yet, at the same time, requires all of us. This is where connection, understanding, and transformation take place.
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Permanent link for Lessons of Humility and Hope from Interfaith America | By Liz English on August 20, 2024
Earlier in August, I had the opportunity to attend the Interfaith America Leadership Summit with two of my GVSU students volunteers. The theme of this year's Summit was The Ties That Bind, and we asked the question, in a time when our social fabric is being stretched thin, how can we come together to create positive engagement and reconnect? The three-day conference in Chicago was geared toward both educators and students actively engaged in interfaith work on their respective campuses across the country.
As a part of the opening plenary, we heard from Shira Hoffer, a senior at Harvard and a changemaker in the pursuit of interfaith understanding on her campus. In response to the October 7th attacks, Shira created the Hotline for Israel/Palestine, an educational initiative meant to provide a multi-partisan approach to the conflict with an emphasis on creating your own nuanced and informed perspective. From there, she went on to found the Institute for Multipartisan Education to continue to encourage curiosity as a tool for engaging across difference.
In her opening remarks, among her many pearls of wisdom, she left us with this very poignant and frank advice: “If you ever feel as ‘unexpert’ as me, it doesn’t mean you can’t still do something.”
Over the last two years in this job, there have been any number of times where the word ‘unexpert’ would have come in handy. Navigating the crisis in the Middle East is just one recent example. Securing musical instruments for visiting international bands was another. Developing engaging campus programming is an ongoing experience filled with questions like - Do I really know what I’m doing? Who am I to say? I’m no expert!
Thankfully, an integral part of the Summit is connecting with others who are also sailing uncharted waters and yes, sometimes making it up as they go. All levels of experience were present. Workshops included folks from Big 10 universities who brought 30 staff and students to the conference and also the single representative from the private school with less than 1500 people. Together, we were able to share our experiences, our wisdom, occasionally our resources, our successes, and, importantly, our missteps. We could name the challenge of this work honestly - the landscape for this work changes every day, and we must adapt to succeed. That means finding yourself in new and unfamiliar territory quite often as a program manager. We aren’t going to get it right every time. We cannot possibly be experts in everything that this diverse work requires of us. What we can do, though, is keep learning and keep trying, and it is so much easier to do so in community.
Shira’s comment provided a moment of vulnerability, honesty, and humility. And critically for those of us who may be worn down or burned out, her insight instilled within us a drive to keep going no matter what, because this work is truly that important.
As we enter into a new school year, we are trying new things once again, inventing and reinventing in community. On campus this year, Kaufman is creating spaces devoted to simply being human together, playing games, and sharing a meal (like our Multifaith Mixer), as well as those where we’ll dig deep to explore difficult conversations (such as our Faith Over Division conversation). I am perhaps most excited about the development of the Interfaith Student Council (IFSC) at GVSU, with a board of four fantastic students from across worldview traditions devoted to creating campus culture that values diversity, promotes understanding, and inspires collective action for positive change.
Rachel and Franklin, both of whom are on the board of the newly-minted IFSC, joined me at the Summit, and left with perhaps even more enthusiasm than they came with (which is saying something!). The energy with which they engaged in the three-day conference did wonders for my own excitement for the upcoming year. I cannot wait to see what they come up with for ways of engaging their fellow students. While we all will likely feel ‘unexpert’ from time to time, especially as we adapt and try new things, we will be sure to pause and celebrate what we have accomplished. Sure, that could mean a sell-out crowd at one of our large events, or more likely, in such relational work, it could mean a handful of heartfelt and open conversations, or a collaboration with a new university partner, or coffee and connection with a new friend. Or perhaps it looks like bringing two students to the Summit where my first year I attended alone. :)
A banner with The Ties That Bind, the theme for the Interfaith America Leadership Summit for 2024, hangs over the Makerspace, a spot for crafting during the conference.
Franklin and Rachel, members of the Interfaith Student Council board.
A closeup of a quilt created as part of the Interfaith America Summit 2024. (Franklin's addition is in the middle!)
The Surabhi Ensemble performing on the first night of the conference.
The crew! Liz, Rachel, and Franklin at the Summit.