Another year done!

This is my last post on this blog as Interfaith Youth Core Fellow, next year, I will continue coordinating the blog however, as Secretary of the Spiritual Life Council. Next year, this blog will be again tracking the work of the Better Together Campaign and will also be a face of the Spiritual Life Council. We will be hosting guest blogs from Spiritual Life Council members, members of next year’s B2G steering committee, and EC Community members to continue working to make interfaith cooperation the social norm at Elmhurst as the college moves into a theme year focusing on Democracy and Civic Engagement. If you are interested in becoming a guest contributor or working on the campaign or with SLC, let me know!

Rachel (“Rae”) Nelson is a junior at Elmhurst College, pursuing a major in Political-Religious Justice Studies. You can follow Rae on Twitter at (@PhosphrescntRae) where she posts about faith, gender and sexuality, and American Indian issues in addition to interfaith matters. To see more of Rae, please visit the Elmhurst College Interfaith blog at ecinterfaith.wordpress.com.

I have been honored to work with IFYC at Elmhurst this year, organizing my peers and community to make a difference in the world using our shared faith and philosophical values, beyond doing physical service work at the People’s Resource Center throughout the spring semester’s Better Together Campaign, we also built relationships through conversation about and exploration of one another’s values and faith and philosophical traditions at the What If…? Speak In last fall. I especially loved that, this year, my college was able to interact with the larger Elmhurst Community around faith and interfaith issues through the Still Speaking: Conversations on Faith lecture series of the College.

The year has been full of social events, like Western Night, during Orientation, and the Bon Fire in October, events around education, like Got Faith? Week, many SLC meetings, and the What If…? Speak In. The fall of 2010 was all about asking questions, while the spring was focused on service and action work, like Dr. Ray suggested to us at the opening SLC meeting of the school year.

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Better Together Bash and Benefit

Thank you to all those who came out to the Elmhurst College Better Together Bash and Benefit last week! We had some good conversations about poverty, faith, and what we can do. We also gathered lots of donations (which I am taking to People’s Resource Center THIS WEEK Thursday- so if you still have money or maxi pads or diapers to donate, let me know as soon as possible at ecinterfaith[at]gmail[dot]com.

Peace,

Rachel Nelson

Rosa Parks Internship

This is a piece written for the Elmhurst College student Newspaper, The Leader. It is about my experiences thus far this year as Rosa Parks Intern for Social Justice with the Niebuhr Center at Elmhurst College— a center at EC that “encourages social engagement among faith-motivated individuals from diverse religious backgrounds through a variety of programs and activities.”

Several years ago, the NAACP had a marketing campaign that included posters reading “Rosa Parks was nobody special…until she took a stand by keeping her seat.” Unpacking that, Rosa Parks knew of injustices happening around race, but she was a bystander, a normal, everyday person– until she decided not to be. Each year, the Niebuhr Center guides two students to work on our campus around Social Justice work- the students are supported as interns, one focusing on international issues (named the “Gandhi” intern) and one focusing on domestic issues (the “Rosa Parks” intern). In accepting the Rosa Parks Internship with the Niebuhr Center this past year, I had two goals: I wanted to learn more about violence in American Indian Communities and produce academic research around this topic so I can begin to take action around the issue, but I also wanted to make sure conversation and action around social justice issues continued to be in the fabric of our college culture. I wanted to help my peers understand that we are all “nobody special”…until we take a stand in something we believe in.

Yes, commitment to social justice and upholding of values is part of our college’s mission and values statements, as well as the strategic plan, but how are those values shown in the day-to-day of student life? I’ve noticed, in my 2.5 years at Elmhurst that there is a deep passion for truly making change in the world and defying the power structures that perpetuate injustice, but this passion only comes to the surface- to visible action in a small handful of students. I challenge you: what do you care about? What could you speak out about to make the world a more whole and just place?

Better Together Bash and Benefit!

RSVP Now! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=208385349188117

Women’s Panel Discussion on Faith

Yesterday evening, three Elmhurst alumnae who work in ministry—Sr. Lisa Polega ’91, Syeda Kamran ’01 and Rev. Kelly Stone ’03— spoke as a part of a panel exploring dimensions of interfaith cooperation in their work. This panel was a part of Women’s History Month goings on and the “Still Speaking: Conversations on Faith” series of the College, the conversation was moderated by Associate Chaplain Michelle Hughes.

Two attendees were kind enough to briefly reflect on the event

“As a passionate “lobbyist” for social and environmental issues, there is a lot of confusion and uncertainty as I am catapulted into the world. While I came here as a follower of Christ in true faith, I now live ambiguously in terms of spirituality. Hearing these three passionate women of different [faiths] talk about uncertain, but fulfilling paths is very encouraging. Passion leads where passion fits for each crazy individual, even if a specific faith in God doesn’t exist to cling to.” -Sara Schroeder (a leader of the campus Amnesty International chapter who has blogged previously for EC interfaith)

“It’s great to see that three powerful women from three different faith backgrounds can come together an talk about how their faith, as well as others, are important in their lives. Also, hearing that Elmhurst College was an inspiration for their desire to promote interfaith [cooperation], as it has been for me is awesome” -Emily Mohney (a photographer for the college newspaper The Leader, and the College)

In America, We are Better Together

If you are a regular attendee of Spiritual Life Council (5pm Wednesdays in the Blume Board Room!), you may remember that last fall, in solidarity with the Cordoba Center/Park 51, we made posters that read “In America, We are Better Together” and other similar slogans to post around campus.

If you’re active in the Interfaith world, you probably heard about the nasty protests of ICNA in Orange County last month (if you didn’t, it’s on the blog). So obviously the world hasn’t gotten the message that we are better together yet.

This Wednesday at 4:30 before SLC (which is 5pm Wednesday in the Blume Board Room!) we are writing letters of support for some of those pained by the OC protests, letters of rebuke to those politicians who spoke at the protests, letters to our local politicians asking them to support the richness of a religiously diverse society when the opportunities come up with regard to faith based and neighborhood partnerships and anti-hate crime legislation.  There will also be opportunities to encourage our own community to support interfaith work and multi-faith education by signing onto letters to members of the Education Department among other departments that can encourage diversity education.

I encourage you to come and reiterate your dedication to building a more whole community, not just here at EC, but in our larger community.

(Following the 4:30 letter writing, at 5pm, we will be meeting with Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, of the World Council of Churches)

Essay Contest Announcement!

A message from Chaplain H Scott Matheney

This is an open letter from our chaplain that is appearing in several forms to our campus community in the coming days. You can email Rev. Matheney at hscottm[at]elmhurst[dot]edu.

Today at Spiritual Life Council, we discussed similar issues as Scott references in this post (with regard to Islamophobia and religiously-based hate). Next week we will be writing letters to the politicians involved in the protest, as well as in support of several select Muslim communities. This is the first of several actions around these issues, as part of a national movement spurred by the urgency brought forward by the Orange County protests (as mentioned in my last post)

To our Elmhurst College community,

Today, March 10^th, our House of Representatives in Wash. D.C. will open hearing on home land security,  home-grown terrorist activity and Islam.

The implications for this review are far-reaching and have attracted international media coverage. As a college community rooted deeply in core values that inform our life as an academic institution, I raise this moment as one that needs your attention intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. We are not naive to the climate of fear and hate that permeates our society coupled with so much misinformation. This college has committed itself to a different course of actions then stigmatizing a particular people or religion, and so, as these hearing shall commence this day, we are each responsible to listen and speak with a degree of civility born of wisdom, not ignorance. I am especially concerned for my Muslim brothers and sisters who shall bear this scrutiny. There will be many big questions asked of all of us in these hearings and it is imperative that this college of learners and scholars find moments to reflect with the critical rigor that demands our best now. Indeed, the times that these hearings begin serve as a spring board for our critical reflections and sustained actions.

Dialogue and response to Islamophobia in America– At Home

Tonight at Spiritual Life Council at Elmhurst, we will be pursuing a discussion of the hateful protests in Orange County and combatantence of Islamophbia in America.

We will be watching the following video and reading different perspectives on the subject (including biographies of the speakers at the conference and the protest).

My friend Chris Stedman put it well as he said “If you still believe that interfaith work isn’t imperative to the health of our society, or that anti-Muslim bias is not an epidemic, please watch this video of a protest of a Muslim relief organization’s benefit dinner for a battered women’s shelter … Hearing them chant “U.S.A.” alongside “terrorist,” “go home,” and “Muhammad was a pervert” made me more ashamed to be an American than I have ever felt before.”

 

Please join us at 5pm in the Blume Board room for this discussion and planning of response.

Blog for International Women’s Day

Today’s blog post is in honor of International Women’s Day 2011. You can follow IWD blogging on Twitter #BlogforIWD.

I had the honor, during an internship last summer at Arise Chicago of working with many people of faith who chose to use their faith to engage society on many occasions- but the most gratifying experiences came from, my coordination of the Labor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar program.

Working with the speaker and congregation participants for the program opened my eyes as to why the two communities must work with each other. Meeting with the volunteer speakers, I heard stories of how the individuals feel representing the laborer is God’s work, and how it is not only good for the economy to have a middle class, but also good for the community. I experienced the passion when one speaker, Ramon, shared that as a child he learned in church “do unto others”, so even though he is an elected official now, he is vocal about his support of the laborer.

You have probably heard of Wisconsin’s recent issues targeting public sector workers through union busting and Governor Walker’s rejection of collective bargaining rights. Dana Goldstein recently pointed out a sexist side to these attacks that I had not considered— she makes the point that many of the professions being targeted by the busting are predominantly female professions. “About 80 percent of American teachers, for example, are female; at the elementary school level, nearly 90 percent are women. Nursing is 95 percent female. Nationwide, the majority of public sector union members, represented by AFSCME and other groups, are women”, Goldstein points out.