About Religious Diversity: A Social Justice Issue
Mon 12th Nov, 20:35
I thought Otelia Cromwell Day was inspiring as well as thought (and action!) provoking. I am so appreciative of all the imagination and creativity that went into the production of such a rich day. I was especially taken with the historical connections that Latoya Peterson made, and that she noted the need to remain ever vigilant for the “fracturing” that can happen inside our movements when we begin to ignore what is near and dear to our fellow people. I feel that paying close attention to ourselves and our relationships with one another is a crucial part of interfaith work.
With respect to religious diversity in particular, I am struck by the fact that it was difficult to have conversations about religion even (or especially) in academia following 9/11, and that some of those conversations have now started to happen. I am also struck by what fertile soil there is to be tilled, and how far we still have to go…
Please read this courageous post below—by a student responding to an incident which occurred on campus a few weeks ago in which anti-Muslim slurs were vocalized from a passing car. Islamaphobia is a pervasive and widespread social justice issue—micro-aggressions occur more than we probably are yet able to even identify.
Religion is interwoven with so many other things—history, race, class, culture, colonialism and globalization—it is the subject of a crucial conversation that needs to be had…conversations that are hard to enter into, but once we do, we have begun the work of transformation…..
-Matilda Rose Cantwell
Student Response to Anti-Muslim Incident
Mon 12th Nov, 12:33
On Friday, October 19th, EKTA, the South Asian organization, celebrated their annual Mehndi Night, a night of celebrating South Asian cultures through food, dance, music, performances, trivia, presentations, and of course, Mehndi. This event is a cultural celebration, not a religious celebration; even though this was a secular event, some men going by in a car took this event as an opportunity to spew their bigotry with anti-Muslim taunts against students departing from the festivities. The fact that these men equated a celebration of people who were not like them with Islam shows their xenophobia and ignorance; unless the men had a talk with these students, they would not have known whether or not they were Muslim, as religion is not as obvious as some people would like to assume, so this incidence also reminds us of the xenophobia in this country.
When a hate crime happens, the event’s effects are not limited to the people involved. When someone says a bigoted comment about Muslims to a group of students, I take it personally because I am Muslim. It’s not the first time I’ve heard bigoted comments about Islam, nor will it be the last time. In the last decade, my religion has been under intense scrutiny, especially from people who don’t understand Islam.
Time and time again, I have listened to news anchors, pundits, so-called experts, religious leaders, and guests on news shows call my religion the worst of names, the one that gets me the most being “the religion from the pit of hell.” I’ve seen people rally against my religion and rally against freedom of religion with Islam specifically in the protesters’ minds. I’ve heard bigoted comments about Islam all over the news and I’ve seen people go along with it. I’ve heard Islam used as an insult or as a legitimate reason to describe someone as unworthy or not as good. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes change when they find out I am Muslim, and I’ve heard the change in the tone of their voices from one of friendliness to one of uncertainty. I remember my fourth-grade teacher asking me if Islam was a religion of peace in front of the entire class, and my wanting to become invisible and praying that this wasn’t actually happening. I remember the dirty looks people gave me while I was walking to school when I was only eight and did nothing wrong except wear the hijab in public. I still fear people’s reactions to discovering my religious affiliation with Islam because it has not always been a positive experience. The most striking part about all these criticisms is that these people know nothing about Islam.
When confronted with the event that happened on Friday, October 19th, I felt the same anger, confusion, and fear I have felt for the past decade while I have been watching my religion misrepresented in the media and misunderstood and misinterpreted by the public. Reading the email sent out in response to the event, I was reminded of all the other hate I have had to face as Muslim in a country that fears Islam. I was reminded of that lost and isolated feeling I have had every single time I heard a bigoted comment about Islam; there is this feeling that there is not a place for Muslim students to turn when these incidents occur. In the administrative email response there were no specific resources listed for affected students, which can only lead me to assume that the administration expect students to be affected by this incident, and therefore implying this incident is not as hateful as it is. I feel that this is a minimizing of the situation, which makes me feel as though my anger is unjustified. There was no suggestion of counseling or conversation for affected students, and so I am left wondering if there is space to express anger – was this incident significant enough to foster discussion of feeling targeted? I asked myself if maybe I was overreacting, and I came to the conclusion that no, I am not overreacting, and if anything, I am under-reacting; I have a right to feel safe and secure, and if my college cannot provide that, then that is a failure of the college. I should not have to be on the lookout, something Dean Mahoney asked of me when she urges us to “be on alert this weekend.” Why should I be on alert in my own home where I am supposed to feel safe? Is administration afraid of a repeat of last semester, or do they really not think that I should feel devastated when I read that email? Even if they are afraid of a repeat of last semester, is that any reason to isolate and stifle the anger and hurt of the community members suffering? Throughout the following week, there was absolutely no discussion about this incident; I did not hear any of the students bring it up, and somehow, I am surprised. Why should I be surprised that students aren’t talking about an act of bigotry on their own campus where their own community members were attacked if administration is trying to minimize the event? Is an email sufficient, and should I be content with the handling of this situation?
My heart goes out to those students on the receiving end of these slurs and everyone else affected because I know what it feels like to hear hateful slurs about something you hold dear to your heart and to have a part of your identity attacked and have no support from the people who are supposed to be watching out for your well-being. My religion, Islam, has taught me to be a better person, and it keeps me grounded, so when I hear people saying hurtful things about it, I am left to wonder why, along with another million questions.
When I read Dean Mahoney’s email, I read, “Some men said some hurtful things about Muslims to some Smith students, and that was not nice. That’s what happened, and we can’t do anything to undo it. Watch out because other people may say bad things about Muslims.” I hope that there can be a recognition of the inadequate handling of the event, and I hope the administration can learn from the events that transpired after Mehndi Night so that if something similar should happen again, students aren’t left confused and angry again. Although I would have preferred for there to be no biased incidents against Muslims on campus or off campus, we can take this event as an opportunity to foster discussion about being Muslim in America and the injustices Muslims face.
Wed 7th Nov, 09:34
Religion and the Election, from the Huffington Post
Tue 6th Nov, 20:11
Thank you to all those who planned and participated in the candlelight vigil to recognize all those effected by Hurricane Sandy, on the one week anniversary of the storm, 11/5/12.
On this election eve we are inspired by the Interfaith leadership on our campus and beyond, and grateful for all those engaged in the process of making change—and most importantly not loosing hope.
Please read below this amazing post by Dean Walters!
Matilda Rose Cantwell
Tue 6th Nov, 20:06
"I am interested in exploring the idea that an interfaith life is a legitimate “faith life” — not an impoverished shadow of a real (legitimate) spirituality but a rich, interesting, and valuable way to draw close to God, to others, and the world."
-- Jennifer Walters, Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life
Considering an Interfaith Life
Tue 6th Nov, 20:02
I’ve been dean of religious life at Smith College since 2001. I’m not sure that makes me an Expert anything. I spend my days trying to be useful. To observe, listen, ask questions, try things out and try again.
When I was in college, I had a pretty haphazard approach to research. Armed only with a topic assigned by my professor and a hunch about how to answer it, I’d head to a section of the library, maybe with a catalog number or title scribbled on the back of my hand - a result of preliminary efforts.Once I located the desired volume, my eyes would stray to the title on its right, and then the one below, and before long I had an armful of books I wasn’t looking for.
Many of my sources did not make it into the final essays and I was often frustrated with my lack of efficiency. I have come to learn that I traded efficiency for the pleasure of looking at something from many points of view.It was deeply satisfying to immerse myself in the conversation across time and cultures. Those armfuls of other people’s ideas changed not only my essay answers, but also my questions and at times, my choices.
Today — still — I seek multiple sources to give me direction when I am figuring out a problems or answering a question: as mundane as what to say at a Smith College Convocation or a deep moral problem presented on a November ballot.
Here at Interfaith Matters, I will mostly write about interfaith approaches to everyday problems and questions. Because of my upbringing and education, Christian language, ritual, and scriptures have formed and inform me, but there are many more books on the shelf when I go searching. I’d like to reflect on and explore “interfaith thinking.”
I am interested in exploring the idea that an interfaith life is a legitimate “faith life” — not an impoverished shadow of a real (legitimate) spirituality but a rich, interesting, and valuable way to draw close to God, to others, and the world.
I look forward to the conversation.
-Dean Walters
Tue 9th Oct, 19:44
Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into
-Mahatma Gandhi
Mon 8th Oct, 17:11
An Inspiring Story of Interfaith Leadership
At Interfaith Council Meetings and at the ORSL in general we have been talking a lot about “intersectionality”—that is, the various parts of our identity that are different and intersect. In our interfaith work we aspire to acknowledge the ways our religious and spiritual commitments both interact and sometimes collide with other parts of us, and find ways to grapple with and reconcile these collisions.
Check out this link from the Huffington Post on a particularly inspiring story!
Tue 2nd Oct, 14:08
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
From Conflicting Reponses to Acts of Faith
Tue 2nd Oct, 14:04
Two weeks ago in our Friday “Soup Salad and Soul” discussion, the topic was this: Sometimes we have a positive visceral emotional response to a work of art or a religious representation of some sort, but we disagree, cognitively and ideologically, with the “message” embedded in that art or representation. The student who led the discussion is a sophisticated reader of poetry and prior to the lunch discussion she and I talked about how Christian themes are prominent in the work of one of her favorite poems. As a Jew, she feels an internal rumble—some of these poems that move her so deeply frame life’s questions in terms of the poets’ deep (and fraught) and lifelong relationship with a Christian God as represented in Jesus.Part of her feels the profound solidarity evoked in us by great writing, part of her feels she is a visitor in another country.
I thought this was such a rich and fascinating topic to pursue for several reasons.
First, this is such a theme within religion and spirituality for so many of us. Many people feel drawn to the liturgy—that is, the actions, rituals, and music—within a tradition but cannot have what feels like a true experience of spiritual sustenance through that tradition because the institution in which that liturgy is contained represents such a radically different worldview. Even if (sometimes especially if) the institution belongs to “their” (or “our”) religious tradition.
Second, and perhaps on a deeper level, so many have been nourished by a religious tradition but then find themselves alienated by it. Every day I am reminded that people all around us; our colleagues, our classmates, our house mates, ourselves; are nursing fresh wounds caused by a stance that a religious institution has taken…We are a progressive liberal arts community, and we have access to new paradigms and even the capacity and positioning to change paradigms ourselves—yet it feels as though at least once every day on the Smith campus someone is registering the pain and confusion of the dissonance between their sexual orientation or gender identity and the mores of the religious tradition of their childhood.
In our Soup Salad and Soul discussion the student facilitator listened graciously and followed the discussion along its rich and complex trajectories, and we eventually moved from the deeper, more artistic and literary dissonances to our “conflicting tastes,” when it comes to all forms of media. For example, what about reading, and loving, fashion magazines yet being aware that there are messages being aimed at our sub-conscious as well as conscious mind—about how we should look,what we should wear, and how our worth is defined by the consumer gaze? What about the lyrics of some rap music that stirs us and even inspires us, while flying in the face of other values we hold dear? A Buddhist student pointed out that we are permeable but sturdy. We are not immune to what we take in, but on a cosmic, energetic level, we are also able to have an effect on what we see, depending on how we respond.
In many ways then, how we “take in” works of art and representations of all kinds involves an “act of faith.” We have faith that we have a “whole self” that is large enough not to be taken over by something that part of us is drawn to.
So, this Soup and Salad and Soul was an interesting and relevant topic because it touches upon the deep truth that we are never just one thing, and thus our tastes, proclivities, and even loves manifest in multiple ways. Accepting that we are many things and hence have complex, and even sometimes conflicting responses, is part of the confounding adventure of being human.I think that a thoughtful, curious process of “going with it” and having the sort of conversation I describe here, is a sort of act of faith—one way of “Living the Questions” that Rilke speaks of.
Tell me what you think!
(Soup, Salad and Soul meets every Friday at 12:15, and delicious homemade lunch provided. ALL WELCOME!)
Matilda Rose Cantwell
mcantwel@smith.edu
Thu 20th Sep, 13:26
"In most traditions, faith was not about belief but about practice. Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. Its a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy…."
-- Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase
Tue 21st Aug, 14:43
Tue 21st Aug, 14:18
"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them, he cried, “Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?” God said, “I did do something. I made you."
-- Sufi saying
Multifaith Fellowship Begins with a Threefold Question
Thu 16th Aug, 11:22
My name is Matilda Cantwell and I am honored to be the new Multifaith Fellow at Smith College. The Fellowship was designed to provide an opportunity to undertake a project(s) which would enrich religious literacy and interfaith collaboration. Thus I am asking myself, and inviting us at Smith to consider this threefold question: What might we gain from knowing more about our identities as spiritual beings? What should we know about the religious traditions of the world when we graduate from Smith, and how will that knowledge help us to navigate the multicultural, multiracial, and mulitreligious contexts in which we find ourselves? What resources are there in our spiritual orientations that help us confront issues of social justice?
Religion, which is connected to, though not inextricable from, spirituality, can be hard to talk about. Like race and class and sex, is not a very portable topic of conversation — that is, we cannot bring it up, like the weather, anywhere we go. But in our attempts to not tread on the sacred ground of each other’s religious traditions or secular commitments, we often avoid dialogues that might lead to greater understanding. More and more we are learning that religious literacy and what interfaith leader Eboo Patell calls “appreciate knowledge” of world religions is a crucial, and long overlooked, part of multicultural and global understanding. Author of New York Times bestseller Religious Literacy Stephen Prothero says religious illiteracy is at least as pervasive as cultural illiteracy and more dangerous, because “Religion is the most volatile constituent of culture, because religion has been, in addition to one of the greatest forces for good in world history, one of the greatest forces for evil.” Therefore in order to be responsible citizens of the world, we would do well to commit ourselves to learning about the religious traditions that we encounter; on the news, on our study abroad programs, and next door to us in our residence houses. Thus I hope you will join us in stepping out into this rugged, but fascinating and deeply important terrain.
The staff here at the Chapel has been prioritizing interfaith programming and collaboration, and looking at ways that we can meet student needs and incorporate student voices. As I join this exceptional team and embark on this two year fellowship, the most important resource I have for addressing the aims I listed above are your voices. So please talk to me in the fall or before about your thoughts, feelings, and ideas about the role of religious and spiritual life here at Smith, join us for our programming where all are welcome, and stay tuned to this website for more conversation. In particular look for information about participating in the Multifaith Council, which is gearing up for more intense dialogue and programming in 2012-2013.
Matilda Rose Cantwell
mcantwel@smith.edu
