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Category Archives: Interfaith Matters
MLK & Justice, Identity, and Social Change Initiative (Part 2)
After the opening remarks on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the American Friends Service Committee hosted two panel discussions on racial justice. I was proud to moderate the first panel of student fellows for the Justice, Identity, and Social Change Initiative … Continue reading
Posted in Interfaith Matters, Social Justice
Tagged identity, interfaith, race/racism
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MLK & Justice, Identity, and Social Change Initiative (Part 1)
Over January Term (or J-term), two students participated in a fellowship for with our Center as part of our Justice, Identity, and Social Change (JISC) initiative. These students, Raven Fowlkes-Witten and Lucy Tucker, serve on our JISC advisory board. The … Continue reading
Posted in Interfaith Matters, Social Justice
Tagged black lives matter, identity, interfaith, race/racism
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The Justice, Identity, and Social Change Initiative:
Spiritual Life Meets Social Justice
It feels like the World is burning. This is what Sensei Ryumon Baldoquin, Community Religious Adviser, said at our first “Peace Meal,” a gathering for dialogue and discussion of difficult problems. Certainly in the last few weeks, with the … Continue reading
Posted in Interfaith Matters, Programs & Events, Social Justice
Tagged black lives matter, identity, interfaith, race/racism, spirituality
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Our Inescapable Network of Mutuality
Amidst the cacophony of all that I am reading, hearing, and taking in response to the verdict in the Ferguson Grand Jury deliberation,—which I am, like many of us, just barely beginning to sort through—I have little, if anything, different or new … Continue reading
Posted in Interfaith Matters, Social Justice
Tagged black lives matter, Christianity, identity, interfaith, politics, race/racism
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Interfaith Awareness Week: What Do We Serve?
We are what we pay attention to. Sadly, most of the time we are not attending to the world or ourselves. Psychologists estimate we have sixty thousand to seventy thousand thoughts a day, 99 percent of which are more or … Continue reading
Posted in Interfaith Matters, Programs & Events, Social Justice
Tagged Al-Iman, food, interfaith, Islam
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SWANS: Beyond Atheism, Agnosticism, and Religion to Spiritual Intersectionality
The first week in February was the United Nation’s “Interfaith Harmony Week”. While Smith will be commemorating this week later on in the semester, this is a good time to begin to talk about the what and why of “Interfaith Harmony.” Three … Continue reading
My Black Friends Laugh When I Tell Them I’m Black
30 Poems In November
I’m black! … your skin is light but I’m black! … well your hair is too curly but I grew up around all black people … yeah but you got mad Spanish cousins and y’alls accent gets too thick when y’all talk fast Anyways what chu know about being black? What chu know about slavery Your people didn’t go through Jim Crow or the middle passage Martin Luther King wasn’t your king. Rosa Parks did not sit for you. So what chu know about being black? You don’t even smoke weed! Or perm your hair When’s the last time you got a weave? If you can still get tan in the summer then you ain’t realllllyyyyy black You said you put sofrito in your ramen… Man you ain’t black! … Continue reading
Is God “One?”
Earlier this fall I read this story about a group of Muslims in Peshawar Pakistan who made a human chain outside a church where Mass was taking place, standing in solidarity with the worshipers when a nearby church was recently destroyed … Continue reading
Posted in Interfaith Matters, Social Justice
Tagged god, interfaith, spirituality, world news
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Untitled
30 Poems In November
by K Dymek ’14
Vulnerable is selfishness severed from greed, pure frailty, pure need for anyone’s touch or finger- brush, anyone’s milky- synthetic feeding—Vulnerable plants itself in the ground and squalls new breeds of desire: pouting iris’ hung with orange seed— Vulnerable is in … Continue reading
Companions Without Maps
30 Poems in November
Hot embers seemed to lick her skin Each time her acquaintance proposed the question “Remind me, where are you from?” Repeated as if it were an anthem To indicate disinterest in the prospect of friendship. Instead, the forgotten details symbolized … Continue reading