Ingrid Mattson – NACUC Conference 2020
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
In 2012,
From here, it was very hard to leave
Hartford but I really made that move when
I
had an invitation,
to take a new chair in Islamic Studies
at, Huron University College because it was close
to my family. I have a big family.
I have a big nuclear family, a big
extended family. It was, I mean if I
have any riches it's my family and I
really
was not benefiting from that. I know so
many people who don't even have brothers and
sisters so to have all of this wealth
and
not benefiting from it seemed like almost an
act of ingratitude
to God in a way.
So, very fortunately, God guided me back there
and so I was able to immediately
move into my mother's house
and spend,
the next few months with her until she
died. She died within 2 months of the
diagnosis, actually. Went from 100% healthy to,
to returning to her Lord.
And,
you know, our family had been through a
lot. My father died suddenly,
when,
my mother was 43, both of them were
40 3 years old. They had 7 kids
between the ages of 10 20
at that time. So my mother lived exactly
twice as long as my father did.
We lost our youngest brother in a tragic
kayaking accident,
20 years before and then my daughter had
just died just,
you know, only half,
half a year earlier.
So we'd gone through a lot in our
lives and through it all, I have to
say that, you know, our mother really was
our teacher.
She was,
an incredible
person who had
such,
modesty, humility,
generosity,
strength
and allowed each of her children
to,
realize their God given capacities,
and those included their spiritual capacities. So
somehow, our family found ourselves in the position,
of having
a Jewish sister,
a Catholic sister, a Muslim sister,
a couple of atheists,
and, some,
who just kind of undecided
undecided.
But we, you know, we all she kept
us all together and we were all kind
of afraid what would happen when mom would
die because she was really she was the
glue.
But I tell you, those in those 2
months
and and it may sound strange to people,
but you're chaplains, so I know you're gonna
understand
what I mean when I say this,
those 2 months
for all of us were the best 2
months of our lives.
While my mother was losing
all of her capacities, her physical health, her,
you know, slowly fading away,
she
she made more and more room for each
of us.
And in that time, it was extraordinary
because
here we were I'm the youngest so at
that time I would have been
55
or so.
The oldest was already over 60.
But the gifts
of each of my siblings that unfolded
during that time
were
a revelation.
I mean, we could see my oldest brother,
Hal, who was just
constantly
focused
on every aspect of the situation.
My sister Peggy who would
she would was so physical.
She would jump into bed, you know, in
the hospital bed right beside my mother and
be right beside her, but she couldn't touch
the medicine.
So my other sister and I, we were
the ones who were able to administer
the medicines right till the end, you know,
the sub q morphine.
The brother with
the beer shirt, yes,
who was like like some kind of like
like one of those ancient Greek,
like half animal, half human who's just like
at the at the threshold
forbidding any, you know, any evil presence from
coming through. He was there whether she was
in the hospital at home, he was on
the couch or on the
chair right in front and to make sure
that nothing would pass that was a problem.
So it was an extraordinary moment.
And then
she
she left.
And we said prayers in every faith and
we sang songs and we
we
told stories, we recounted, you know, the family
stories over and over and over.
And I remembered to do that because my
mother had done the same thing for her
mother 20 years ago when she and her
sister and brother were gathered around their mother
as she died actually from the same form
of cancer in the same home
in the next room. And I remember her
telling me about her brother just
even when when,
my grandmother was unconscious
She taught me that, she told me that.
I have to tell those stories too. She
taught me that. She told me that. I
have to tell those stories too.
And then she was gone.
And all of that
that growth that we experienced
remained.
And now we were 6 new people
and we had a new kind of relationship
after having you know, 50 to 60 years
together already.
Our relationships were new.
So it taught me a lot about what
it means to prepare people for their life.
And
when it is imp what it means to
be present
and what it means to be absent.
And both states are necessary
at different times,
and God will prepare us
for those states.
So I was thinking about that really,
when I'm thinking about what is the purpose
and the place of chaplaincy.
Now, I've read some of the reports and
some of the statements and,
you know, that that,
you know, younger generations are are less religious
and more spiritual
and maybe, you know, is our purpose shifting
and are we still relevant?
But I wanna say,
this is
the most relevant and the most purposeful,
thing that anyone could do
at a university,
at a higher education institute where people
are coming into their capacities, you know, coming
into their emotional, physical,
spiritual,
intellectual
capacities all together. How important it is
to be that shepherd? Let's how are we
how are we going to the next slide?
Here we go. Alright. There we go. Okay.
We'll see.
More than you Clicker?
Oh, nope.
Nope.
Well, that's the end.
Okay.
Oh. Boy, let's see.
Nope. Okay. Let's start at the beginning again.
Maybe.
It's not quite the beginning. How do I
go back?
There we go. Okay. Now if I wanna
go to the next one yes. There we
go. All right.
Yes.
Okay.
So I wanna talk a little bit about
the path, the
well worn path, the almost tired metaphor of
the path, but stick with me for a
few minutes.
The metaphor of the path is widespread
among religious and
the path is widespread among religious and spiritual
traditions and other disciplines as well. The Quran
says, For each community, we have established
paths and roads.
Of course,
Sharia
in Islam means the way towards the divine,
Muslims pray and every prayer guide us to
the straight path.
A legal school of which there are many
in the Islamic tradition is called a medheb
while the countless Sufi schools of spiritual practice
are known as tariqa
which means a path. All
different words for path. Somewhere in those waters.
These guys are listening so intently. They're not
paying attention to my request.
Alright.
Now
the diversity of paths mentioned raises the question
of whether all ways lead to God. This
is a deep and contested theological and metaphysical
issue. This is one of those questions that
will remain perpetually
the topic of discussion and debate.
But while theologians and metaphysicians
will debate this question,
I ask what is the relevance for the
spiritual counselor, the pastoral caregiver, or the chaplain?
The pastoral caregiver or the chaplain?
The Quran says,
you do not guide whom you like, rather,
it is God
who guides whom he wills
to the path.
God guides, we do not.
Our purpose and our place
is illuminated
in the statement of the prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him, who said,
removing harmful things from the road is an
act of charity.
So helping others by removing obstacles that block
their path to God is at the heart
of spiritual
and pastoral care
as is advising them on the equipment,
getting them in shape,
maybe helping them carry their pack along the
way.
What can block the path
to God? What can block the path
to fullness of oneself? What can
block the path of those who seek
what is good and right?
All too often, it is other people from
one's own community
who put up illegal roadblocks.
These vigilantes of religion claim they have the
authority to prevent others from moving forward.
How many times have I heard from students
that they began a good project only to
be told by one of these
self appointed religious police,
another student,
that they were not allowed to speak or
act in one fashion or another.
So where the space is
completely unregulated,
very often, it's the strongest,
the most pushy,
the
most obnoxious
who will get their way.
So what is our responsibility?
Our responsibility
is to
deconstruct
the authority that these people claim to have,
to perhaps
We have
knowledge of history, theology,
ethics,
ancient
and more recent teachings,
as well as logic and legal disputation
to show that the road is wide.
And if they can't take down the barriers,
sometimes they can just walk right around them
and remain headed in the right direction.
People
can become diverted
and distracted from moving forward
by loud and disturbing events,
by frightening scenes,
by new situations.
They become frozen with fear or fascination
and might stop moving completely.
The spiritual caregiver can put the distraction into
perspective
and draw people's attention back to the path.
An Arabic proverb says, the dogs bark but
the caravan moves on.
In these situations,
we can help remind people to give proper
attention to threats,
not to become paralyzed by them.
In concrete terms, this often means paying less
attention to
some social media troll or the latest loud
mouth self styled expert on the news,
and more on one's spiritual and educational goals,
the needs of one's family and community
building.
We all know that the best thing that
a teacher can do is to equip
students
with the tools to clear the path themselves.
Unfortunately,
many religious leaders and even those who are
caregivers
engender dependency
and those who have come to them for
help.
This is a complex process
because the relationship is often initiated by those
who are so disempowered they have no confidence
in their own abilities.
What they seek as a father or a
mother figure to carry them forward.
The confidence and admiration they have in the
religious figure is flattering.
This is where one's sincerity is tested.
The goal of the pastoral caregiver or the
spiritual caregiver
should not be to attract followers,
but to help others build up their strength
and learn what they need to move ahead.
Certainly, there will always be particularly
treacherous places along the way that require
specialized training to surmount.
In the life of a believer, these include
deep trauma,
breach of trust in families,
and making decisions on complex
ethical issues.
The religious leader should be, and the pastoral
leader should be on call
to help resolve these harmful situations,
but then should be able to step aside
to allow people to continue on their way.
As pastoral caregivers,
all pastoral caregivers
have at their core
a deep natural impulse to intervene.
When we see something wrong or notice an
opportunity for improvement.
But without
self awareness,
without supervision, without knowledge and skills,
we can become nothing more than agitators or
busybodies.
Without humility and an awareness of our own
limits,
we can be end up being demagogues
or even bullies.
But none of us can see who we
are without looking in the mirror.
The prophet Mohammed said a believer is a
mirror
to another believer.
So the caregiver who does not want to
become a pothole in the path of others,
don't worry, I've almost exhausted this road metaphor,
needs to seek plenty of feedback
from others.
It can be scary out there.
But there is a role for us.
For those, this is my teacher
and then my successor
in,
leadership at ISNA.
And when I I love this picture because
when I look at it, I know that
each one of us who has
who all served in the same role at
one point or another
have completely different leadership
styles,
different grounding and education,
very different personalities,
but there's a place I believe
for every style of service
and there are those who need different kinds
of people. None no one will be the
right person or the right supporter for everyone
even if
we try very hard to do that.
Who are we?
Who are the pastoral caregivers? Who are the
spiritual caregivers?
They are the shepherd,
Bilal Ansari,
your master's thesis, very good one,
on shepherding the community,
the warm host,
hospitality,
chaplaincy,
Greg?
Greg Boyce from New Zealand.
The wise elder,
coming from Canada where I live now,
this is a very strong presence
in our country, our indigenous elders in particular,
to the point that
the example or the role model of an
indigenous
elder
is being,
embraced by many in the Muslim community as
well as a term that they like more
than chaplaincy
because after all, the word sheikh simply means
elder
and sheikha,
elder, woman, man, and woman.
What is the elder? The elder is the
person who carries the stories,
who's able to tell you what happened
and how they did it and what they
heard.
And the narrative tradition
of the elder is so powerful because it's
never
it's never direct. It's not it's not directive.
It's not instructing people
that they have to do something but it
allows for this imaginative
displacement
of self
in another
scenario
where one then can
travel through
those the example or the experience of previous
people and through that
start to embody some of those qualities
and learn empathy by standing in the shoes
of the people that came before them.
Really, we would call this in many ways
a wisdom
tradition.
We have teachers who pass knowledge,
and knowledge is important
because
the only
correction
or medicine
for disinformation
or for untruth
or for fake news
is knowledge, is truth. And there's a lot
of it out there.
There's a distinction
in Islamic ethics between
simple ignorance and complex ignorance. Jahal Balsid
and Jahal Muraqab.
Jahal Balsit is simple ignorance is just someone
says, you know, I don't know anything about
this.
Complex ignorance is where someone
believes they know something,
what is right, what is wrong, what are
the rules, what is allowed or not, but
it
is incorrect.
And
to deconstruct
knowledge,
to let people
to help people give up
what they've
actually
physically
to correct misinformation
than to learn new information because we're building
new pathways, right?
So So knowledge
is key but it's not always,
you know, the problem is not always lack
of knowledge
or misinformation
and so knowledge is not enough.
So we have the teacher passing knowledge, we
have the guide, as I said,
showing people how to prepare for the journey
and how to navigate obstacles, keep moving.
We have the watcher,
the one who pays attention, who sees
and this is a big
quality
of being,
a pastoral caregiver, a spiritual caregiver, or a
chaplain in a community setting.
To pay attention to how people are
interacting and behaving with each other,
how they're moving.
I think my I have a big beautiful,
shepherd mix dog who does just that. I
mean, I think that that that kind of
attentiveness, if someone wants to learn how to,
in a group, pay attention
to what's happening and to understand the dynamics,
just just watch
the shepherd
dog
watching
the people.
Every they they they see
before an action happens what's going to happen
because they pay such close attention
to the body language, to the tension,
the energy
that is relaxed or tense.
So we have the watcher.
We have the listener.
Oh, boy. That's so important as you know.
When everyone is so busy today
that they don't have time to wait for
the troubles
to be unpacked and laid out. It takes
time
to unpack those troubles and
we're in a rush.
What is the purpose of chaplaincy?
Huge purpose is listening.
Because so many people
have no one to lu who will listen
to them.
The advocate when things are unfair
and that happens
the convener of the present,
the facilitator
to the future.
The chaplain is a sign, one of god's
signs.
1 of the great spiritual masters of Islam
says,
by the existence
of his created things,
he points to the existence of his names.
And by the existence of his names, he
points to the existence of his qualities. And
by the existence of
his
essence.
In other words,
a chaplain is a person,
and we are people
who need
people. We are persons who need other persons
who show us, who embody to us, who
are present with us
so that we can
move forward.
Resilience
is I know there was a talk today
on resilience I saw on the schedule.
Resilience is not just what you think,
but what you
not just what you think, but what you
have.
And I really like the statement of how
many of you have,
read anything by Michael Unger?
He has,
there's the Resilience Research Center in Halifax
in Canada.
It's amazing center. The work that he's done
is really,
I think, very extraordinary.
It's about resilience that is not
not just about ideas, not about what you're
thinking,
but actually what you have. And I love
his 7 principles
for,
building resilience
in community.
And I think it applies very much
also
to higher education chaplaincy.
So Ungar says,
these are the 7 pillars of building resilience
in community.
1, building relationships.
2, encouraging
powerful
identities
3, providing participants with opportunities
for power
and control.
4, promoting social justice.
5, improving access to basic material needs like
food, housing, and safety.
And we're gonna talk a little bit more
in chaplaincy, in higher education chaplaincy,
what all of these things, what examples would
be.
6, developing a sense of belonging, responsibility
for others, spirituality, and life purpose.
And Michael Unger does not,
you know, he's talking about,
the the pillars of resilience in any setting.
It doesn't have to be in a religious
setting. So this works
for, you know, for for students or members
of the community
who have a who might have a faith
or might not have a faith tradition or
might not affiliate
with a religious tradition.
But everyone has,
an ability to connect with,
a sense of purpose.
And 7th, a sense of culture and historical
roots.
So that
his center has done so many scientific
studies that shows that, you know, it's really
important to understand,
unlike those who are just trying to sell
us on a very individualistic
sense of wellness,
that
wellness
is about being connected.
It's being connected with the past, with the
present, with having with being embedded and enmeshed
in relationships,
and with having resources.
It's not just an attitude.
And certainly,
I think it's important to begin
when we think about the resources for,
higher education chaplaincy
is
to to really begin with religious freedom.
Because I think this is something we take
for granted.
And one of the reasons why
we should be somewhat careful
about how we talk about
chaplaincy
and not be too quick,
you know, not everyone's religious
but
at the same time to hold on to
the religious
chaplaincy is that religion is protected.
It's a protected right,
right? So there are there is a right
to religious
freedom and accommodation
that
one might not necessarily have in terms of
a personal spiritual practice. Have in terms of
a personal spiritual practice. Now that this is
a legal matter
but I do think we have to be
very careful because much of what has been
built up,
in terms of chaplaincy
has been
on the basis of the law
and many times lawsuits
and it's supported by that.
And so
it doesn't mean that we have to put
every
form of chaplaincy into the religious box but
we shouldn't give it up. That's a it's
a really powerful
foundation.
And,
it is the most important
for most people because whether they wanna affiliate
with 1 of the student groups, 1 of
the faith based student groups,
or whether they want
to take advantage of the chaplaincy
services or not,
in the end they should have
freedom and facilitation.
And it's being taken away in many places
and we often think, you know,
by now we know we can't say, oh,
it wouldn't happen in America.
We've just lived through the last couple years
where there's so many things that we think
couldn't happen in America.
So
religion,
spirituality,
perhaps,
wellness.
Same setting,
people moving their body in a public outdoor
space,
a group together. But
very often, this
scenario
or this manifestation
of someone bringing their whole self to that
space
will make people uncomfortable
in a way that no one will bat
an eye at for this.
And I think this shows,
you know, I'm not going to tell people
what they think,
but I do know from conversations
with many students is that they will say
they're spiritual not religious
not because they're not religious,
but because they think that people don't like
religious people.
And so they're packaging themselves
in a more palatable way.
And again, there are those who are not
religious and they absolutely mean, you know, what
they say,
and trying to present it as something more
palatable.
We need religious freedom. We need safety.
Our students need safety. They need safety
today. They need safety on campus.
It's not just the feeling of being unsafe,
but there is a reality of not being
safe.
And
if any institution, if any administrator at a
higher education administrators don't think that this is
a problem.
We could go through a very quick list
just over the last few years.
Why is it important to have
a safe space?
And it's safe in terms of physically safe,
It's also safe in terms of emotionally safe.
Now I'm not saying no free speech.
What I'm saying is there is so much
hateful speech.
That is the the
you know water that many are swimming in
when it comes to religion, that there does
need to be
spaces that are
faith positive
or religion positive,
and not just, you know, as an individual
but I belong to a religious tradition
or faith tradition,
this faith community.
And to feel that there's,
you know,
there's there's an acceptance of that, there's a
welcoming of that, there's a celebration
of that space.
No matter how much people want to,
you know, the tendency in society is to
make everything about the inner self, the
individual,
people have group feeling
as Ibn Khaldun said.
We're social beings. We are we will find,
a community.
And
there are some really ugly,
identifications
that people
can be attracted to.
Our history, our culture, our identity,
right?
It is there's a lot of ugliness out
there
and when we displace the religious feeling and
again, you know, some people are religious, some
people aren't, that does not displace the need
for purpose and meaning in our lives.
And sometimes
it is,
you know, unfortunately,
one of the most powerful
group feelings is that,
engendered by war.
With all of its religious
kind of metaphors like
he will live in our heart forever
or the eternal flame
or the greatest sacrifice.
And not to
dismiss those sacrifices
or those struggles or those people
but to say that,
it's unrealistic
to believe that,
it's enough simply to
support people in their individual growth and not
pay attention
to the collective
dynamics
of
meaning,
meaning making and purpose making.
Of course, chaplaincy
is all about
welcome,
making a welcoming space,
making
you know, why do
I love the I love the word cozy,
and you just see so many people in
search of coziness,
right? What are all those Scandinavian
words that mean cozy?
So what is what is that? What it
means is that people
people wanna feel like at home and
sheltered
and welcomed
and like the coziness is also
you know how,
I'd always
I always found it so remarkable that when
my kids were little and we'd be at
our family cottage with all their cousins and
there'd be like maybe 15 cousins and you'd
walk in the room, there's 3 couches there.
All 15 are sitting on 1 couch.
Like 2 of them are empty and there's
just like the others are all just piled
on top of each other and squeezed in.
Why? Because
it's we need
that like physicality, that coziness,
and it's hard to get that in many
places
in the university or the college. You know,
sitting in rows
in the classroom,
these hard desks, in the library and like
where are they getting that?
So I think that this is a, you
know, a simple
but a really important
part of,
of making people feel
just having that that place
of of rest, of relief, of
feeling
safe
and
in community.
Our
religious traditions
that we can help students connect with if
they
are interested.
The religious and spiritual traditions
are very, very rich.
I mean,
there are there is such a great heritage.
So much art,
poetry,
music,
architecture,
the richness of this tradition and what's
what's amazing is that,
different people get different things out of these
traditions.
Some are focused on the knowledge,
some are focused on the ambiance,
some are focused on the aesthetics,
and
we,
you know, all of these things are studied
in different departments at the university,
the Fine Arts Department, and Literature, and Architecture,
and
but
when we come together for those moments
of of being in community, in a faith
community, religious community, a spiritual community, even a
humanistic
community,
there's an integration that happens.
An integration through lineage,
through history, through heritage
that is
that allows,
you know, again, if we're if we're, you
know, this is not my main goal, but
I know that that sometimes we have to
justify
chaplaincy in higher education.
How often I know as a professor how
often
are we being told that one of the
outcomes of education
is to have this like
integration of knowledge and there are all these
really artificial ways academically that it's being done,
but it can be done in a more
embodied,
holistic natural way
through spending time in these spaces,
where all of these things are integrated.
Some people
as you know are just gonna need to
fly free. I mean, that tradition,
that
heritage,
that,
authority,
that knowledge is a burden to them.
It has been
something that has been,
used in a way that has that has
blocked their capacities and those people need to
be,
you know, able to fly free.
And that's also the role for chaplaincy
because
when people have been spiritually harmed
or harmed by how how the religious tradition
is being presented
to them,
that very often, and I see it with
many students in higher education,
there's a sense of guilt,
there's a burden, there's a they feel they
need to separate at least for some time
or from some spaces
but they feel very burdened by that and
guilt ridden by that many times.
And and it's one of the important roles
is to help people detach in a healthy
way when they need to do that.
And I think that
that really
coming from within the tradition and being able
to have those examples, there are always those
examples of those who just
you know needed to be a part whether
it's the monastic tradition or the retreat tradition
or those
you know those wandering aesthetics
or even
the wandering you know partiers, whatever it is
like there's different ways to do it. Sometimes
people just need to detach and I think
that the the chaplain
can facilitate that in a way that
when someone does it on their own, they
still,
you know, often carry this burden with them.
And it's very heavy and they might seek,
mental health care for it.
But the tools and the knowledge
for for helping that person feel more liberated
are often very limited in that context.
Of course,
tying into the intellectual
inquiry which is going on all over at
the university but not all of our students
are studying theology or religious studies or these
traditions.
They're studying other disciplines
but they need opportunities
to connect with
intellectual inquiry,
some academic studies, some ongoing
development in the community because most come from,
you know, their,
parochial setting
and they haven't been exposed
to much of the really exciting
new interesting
studies and literature
that will help them,
again,
mature as a spiritual person.
I'm getting near
the end. Of course, we're all here and
everywhere.
We are all,
big fans of connecting with our
extended family of faith,
which is how I I think of interfaith
work.
I I always think of my faith community
as, like, my nuclear family of faith and
the interfaith or multi faith community as
my extended family.
And, we may not,
I spend more time with my immediate family,
my nuclear family, my siblings,
but I'm gonna go hang out with my
cousins every once in a while, you know,
or go visit my aunt. I just went
cross country skiing with my cousin the other
day. She called me up, we're so happy.
It's been a kind of a blowout as
a winter for snow. So we had enough
snow that we went went, skiing on the
golf course. So that was, you know, I
connect with her
a couple times a year, but it gives
us broad
this this expanded sense of self.
And that expanded sense of self is becoming,
you know, fortunately for many of us certainly
and for increasing numbers of our community, part
of their religious or spiritual identity
is that they have
they have these, you know, circles of of
spiritual and faith community that are expanding out.
And that is
such an important part of,
how this,
this profession
and this way of being in the world
has
developed over time
because we really, you know, we really need
to have,
have a sense that we're not just
on the margins, you know? It takes away
that sense of marginalization
and isolation
which can be very problematic
because it can lead, you know, it can
lead to all sorts of behaviors that are
and ways of seeing oneself
that are not very healthy.
And I'm I'm gonna wrap up here. I
wanna say that,
I do think that
I don't know how many of you do
this but when I
follow a lot of,
I see my students,
I see them,
you know, in later because I'm also a
community leader,
so I see them
after they've graduated,
you know, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years,
10 years down the line. And one of
the things that I see is that
we're not necessarily,
doing a great job all the time preparing
them for what comes
next. So what comes next is that cozy
feeling
will you're not gonna gonna have the same
intense environment, you know, the crucible of the
university or college atmosphere.
And very often what they'll do is
they'll they'll blame themselves, they'll say Oh you
know I don't have the same enthusiasm
that I did when I was in the
university
or they blame
others or like what's wrong with people? People
used to be so good and they used
to care about each other. But
not really understanding that they're in a different
context, right? And also that their responsibilities
have changed,
and then also
like who
is who is helping them prepare? Now, you
know, some students
have very strong,
families,
they have faith communities,
but I think we could do a little
bit more,
especially in that, maybe the last year, of
helping
helping those who come to campus chaplaincies prepare
for the future,
prepare for the inevitable
kind of,
a little bit like,
you know, maybe going from this this intense
feeling to being less so, but that's okay.
And and just
explaining
what it's gonna look like
over the next,
you know, 5, 10 years.
I get texts all the time
or emails or messages from students who are
just really
often looking back and saying, Oh, those were
the great days, those were the best days,
because I feel that they just went, they
just transitioned
from their higher education setting
to,
you know, the broader community
and they didn't necessarily have the skills.
So we need,
we need to do that.
And
I'm just simply gonna end here with
just some nice pictures because I like these
pictures.
Because
look, you know, faith, spirituality,
it's about awe, it's about joy,
it's about connection.
We have to be part of this
creation.
We have to take time. We have to
notice. We have to
look out the window sometimes. Sometimes we're so
busy, you know, in our meeting that we
don't look out the window or we don't
step outside.
So,
and very often when people disappoint us,
the living creation, the living beings of creation
and life itself
does not fail to
to disappoint
and can
make us understand that as the Quran says,
God has made the whole world a mosque,
a place of prostration,
a place that is pure
and for prayer
and for remembrance of God so that as
we step outside
of the campus
from this crucible
of spiritual formation and development
that there's a big world and it's scary
sometimes, but it's also beautiful
and it's also where we belong. We never
are,
we're never lost. We're never
not supposed to be in in this world.
So with that, I'll end so we have
some time for discussion.
Thank you very much, Doctor. Matson. I'm going
to invite, Imam Suhayf Sultan to offer a
reflection and question to get the conversation started.
You want people to And then after you
offer some initial conversations, we'll, open it up
to the floor.
Greetings of peace and blessings to all of
you.
It's my,
great honor
and privilege
to be offering some words of reflection. I
know that
what I was called upon was to respond
but I don't think
I can ever
really be a respondent to my teacher, doctor
Matson. I can just reflect on some things
that she has said.
And the first thing that I'll say is
that,
her words
today, you know, went to the heart of
what we do as chaplains.
It was both inspirational
and descriptive
and it was prescriptive at the same time
and it reminded me as to why I
missed this place being a student at Hartford
Seminary,
spending
a lot of hours and days in the
good company
of my teacher, Doctor. Matson.
And so it feels really nice to be
back home and it feels really nice to
be in the presence of so many people
that I love including
the people on the stage.
And so,
unlike our previous morning session
where
the respondent
had the paper from beforehand
and had a chance to think about what
they were going to say,
doctor Matson,
you know, I I one thing that I've
I've come to know about Muslim teaching and
preaching is that we love to do it,
you know, off the cuff and, you know,
and and it comes off when it comes
from people like doctor Matson, it's brilliant. When
it comes from people like me, it's rambling.
But,
but but
what what I'm gonna do today is basically,
go through my notes
and,
offer some thoughts. I tried to circle some
things.
So I hope you'll bear with me patiently.
You know, I wanted to start with where
doctor Matson started,
this idea of
thinking deeply about the storytellers of our families
and about the power
that our elders have taught us
about being people who carry stories and transmit
stories.
And what you shared, Doctor. Matson, was just
so
moving.
And,
it reminds me that very recently on my
own campus,
I asked my father
to come and be in conversation with me,
and we called it, stories from my father.
You may have heard that title before,
but hopefully it's not copyrighted.
But
we did that because as some of you
know,
my parents actually live with me in our
humble home with my wife
and our 3 year old daughter for the
last 10 plus years.
And it's a multigenerational
home and a multigenerational
experience
filled with a lot of joy and a
lot of challenges, to be very honest with
you.
And,
oftentimes, my father and I
share beautiful moments because
he is the one who taught me to
love my community.
And
being able to share what I'm doing at
work every day with him and my mother
is really powerful. It's also challenging because he
and I often misalign on our visions for
what the community should look like.
And sometimes we have very different notions
of how things should be done, and sometimes
we have these clashes. And so one day,
my father and I were standing in the
kitchen for almost an hour,
unexpectedly
engaging in a very long debate
about a matter
of communal importance. I'll just leave it at
that.
And my wife who, is an Instagram
master,
suddenly,
unknown to either one of us, started taking
pictures from the side
and, posted it on her Instagram page and
said,
father and son in debate.
And, you know, my father was very posed
and dignified and I was like this and
like that. You know, I looked like a
complete fool.
So thanks to my wife for that.
And so somebody in the comment section said,
you should bring this live. You should bring
this,
you know, you should bring you should you
should you should bring this out to the
community.
I didn't think that was quite appropriate, but
it did make me think about the fact
that probably one of the greatest
resources that I have in my own personal
life
is the
life of my parents
and the fact that they're still present
and able.
And so I decided to,
have this conversation and
it was a really really beautiful thing to
be able to just ask my father to
share the stories to my community that I
grew up with.
And there's a few stories that he shared
that I had never heard of. And I
said, I know you never told me these
stories, and he said you never asked.
So
so that was a lesson as well.
And,
it makes me think about
this idea of, I think the quote that
I'm gonna take away from doctor Mattson's talk
is
what it you know, chaplaincy is about what
it means to prepare people for their life.
Right? I think that's something
to think about a lot
and to remove obstacles from the path.
Right?
And I think that so much of it
is about
having this model of conversation.
You know, when I first came to Princeton
University,
fresh from Hartford Seminary, fresh from,
you know, the classroom of doctor Matson,
you know, I used to host this
event series that used to try to educate
people about Islam and I used to always
bring people to come and give lectures, you
know. And after a while I started to
see that that this that this was almost
a very academic model and there's nothing chaplaincy
about it,
right? Somebody just comes and gives a talk
and, you know, everyone goes home.
Some people go home. Right?
And and so and so I started thinking
about how should I be putting on events
that are not just reflective of the academic
atmosphere that I'm in but are reflective of
the chaplaincy training that I have.
And so after a few years, finally, you
know, something clicking, I said no longer will
people come and give lectures.
People will come even if they're
the most well known thinker and scholar out
there. They're gonna come and be in conversation.
And I'm going to model,
I'm gonna try to model
what it looks like to have a respectful
dialogue and even difference,
and then open it up to our audience.
So I think this idea of allowing our
our students
space, I think that's one thing doctor Matson
talked about, you know, giving people space. Right?
Just like her mother gave
her children space to be their best,
to come into their own. We need to
give
students space, and that space happens
when there's conversation, when there's exchange, when there's
hospitality,
when there's intimacy,
it doesn't happen from
the pulpit to
the congregation.
Speaking of hospitality, I think that one of
the greatest challenges that we as campus chaplains,
I think often face
is how to, on the one hand, have
a ministry of hospitality.
And with hospitality
comes a level of intimacy, right, because
you
share your home and your food and
your drinks
and all of that with people who you're
trying to draw close to and to whom
you wanna be close.
How do you, on the one hand,
have that ministry of hospitality
and at the same time offer the type
of pastoral care that's based in confidentiality,
a pastoral care that's based
in
people sharing their deepest and darkest secrets,
and then
experiencing those same people in community,
and
also being
also doing other things
as a religious leader
without
ever allowing them to feel
that you are violating their trust
or violating some confidence that they have
put in you?
For example, when you're preaching from the pulpit,
right, or you're preaching
in any particular setting,
How do you talk about issues of concern
in the community
while also
maintaining the confidence of people? So I think
this is something that as I think about
chaplaincy as hospitality,
it's something that I both love and that
I'm also challenged by. And I'd love to
hear all of your thoughts about that as
well.
In all of the things that doctor Matson
was talking about that it that that makes
up a chaplain,
one of the things that I had never
heard of before but makes a lot of
sense is the watcher.
Right? I really like that.
You know, just kind
of watching and just kind of taking it
in and seeing how people in your community
are doing and and being very observant of
body language,
right? I think that that is that is
the mark of a good chaplain that they're
aware of what's happening in the community.
And, I remember recently there's a there's a
freshman,
who,
you know, is struggling to fit into the
community
partly because he lacks certain social skills.
And this is actually quite common at a
place like Princeton University,
Because
right? Because it's like if you made it
to a place like Princeton,
you've definitely missed out on something.
Right?
Right? You can't you can't you can't make
it to Princeton and,
you know, also have everything else. Right?
And a lot of students really struggle with
social skills.
And I remember this student, he came to
me once and, you know, he he said
to me, I just feel like nobody
nobody here wants to wants to talk to
me.
You know?
And and and and and I and I
said to him, you know,
I love it when you smile,
and I'd love to see you smile more.
Maybe
maybe if you smile more, people will smile
back at you, and that'll be an invitation
for people to talk to you. You know?
And so now every single time he sees
me, he always looks in my direction and
he smiles.
You know, so this idea of being the
watcher,
being someone who can then guide people
based on what we've observed
out of that
sincere love and compassion for them and doing
it in a way that's gentle, that makes
them feel
that their dignity has not been violated, that
they've been helped along, and that roadblocks, maybe
internal roadblocks,
have been removed.
I want to
think together about this idea
of spaces on campus where people feel faith
affirmed, feel faith positive.
And there's no doubt about the fact that
these spaces are so essential and so necessary.
And I think this is a conversation I
would love to engage more and more in,
is to what should our spiritual and religious
centers and places look like?
What should they feel like?
You know, certainly we we heard about this
idea of aesthetics,
about beauty. We certainly heard about this idea
of hospitality.
One of the big questions I think right
now in college chaplaincy
is whether these spaces should be multi faith
or should every faith community or at least
every major faith community on a campus have
their own space
out of which they are inviting others to
be in relationship.
And this is, I think, going to be
a very difficult question. When I first came
to Princeton University,
I asked, you know, the key student leaders
who were involved. They said,
you know, if we're successful in 5 to
10 years from now, what would be our
mark of success? And almost unanimously, they said
we're going to have a center for Muslim
life.
And I said, why?
And they said because there's a center for
Jewish life.
And I said, okay.
That doesn't sound like a good enough reason.
Right?
Right?
So basically, their model was there's this other
significant
religious minority on campus,
and
they are
their mark of success has been
is having this really gorgeous, beautiful
center to which they're able to invite people
who are able to learn about Judaism and
Shabbat and about all these rich traditions
of the Jewish culture,
and we should have a space like that
too.
Right?
But at Princeton University, like many other call
many many of your campuses, we also have
a multi faith center. And there's a beauty
about the multi faith center, which is in
our context called Murray Dodge Hall in that
every single day the Buddhist has to encounter
the Muslim
and the Hindu has to encounter the Christian
and the sick has to encounter
the agnostic who's just wandering around.
Right?
And I remember that every single time,
you know, the Buddhist meditation room and the
Muslim prayer room are on the same floor.
And so Muslims, they tend to be very
chatty after prayer. You know, like, after they
leave prayer, they're just like, hey. You know?
Right? They're very loud. Right? And the Buddhists
always were meditating at 4:30 PM
on the same floor. And we were finishing
our early afternoon
prayer around that time.
And, you know, inevitably,
you know, there was this clash
between the Buddhist meditating in silence and the
Muslims so happy that they just finished their
prayer, you know, and excited to chat about
that for some reason. And so every single
day at Ashram, like,
shh, be quiet be quiet. We're gonna get
in trouble. Right? But we had to negotiate
how we were going to be together as
Buddhist and Muslims
at 4:30 PM on the 3rd floor of
the multi faith center.
Right?
And I don't think that we would ever
have that experience if we had our Muslim
life center.
Right?
But of course then there's other things that
we're missing out of by not having our
Muslim life center.
You know, this space isn't entirely built for
Muslim worship
and contemplation. It's not even built for being
a 21st century multi faith center.
Right? So
this is a big question that I think,
you know, emerges in
chaplaincy
for us. Alright. I'm almost done.
What did I write here?
Oh, yes.
You know, I really, really
enjoyed
thinking about this piece, doctor Madsen, that you
talked about, which is the idea that part
of what chaplains do is to help people
detach
and to help people go into retreat
and that all of our traditions, all of
our religious and spiritual traditions have this notion
of,
you know, going away. Right? But how does
the chaplain and I would love to
talk more about this with all of you
about what are the methods? How do we
teach our students to do this? How do
you detach and then reengage?
Right? There's this beautiful
tradition in
Islam regarding the spiritual biography of the prophet
Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, that,
you know, God takes him on this
incredible journey through the heavens
and ultimately to a meeting place with his
Lord.
And after a while he comes back
to the world.
And many of the Islamic philosophers including
our Alama Iqbal, one of the great South
Asian poets, he said that the difference between
the path of the mystics and the path
of the prophets
is that if the if Mohammed
upon him be peace was only a mystic
and not a prophet, there's no way he
would ever come back.
He would be like, I'm in meeting with
my Lord, I will not come back.
Nothing can bring me back. Right? But the
way of the prophets is to have those
brilliant encounters
by yourself in retreat and then to come
back and infuse that energy
into the world.
So I'd love to think more about that.
You know, how do we help our students
who need to take a break? You know,
this I it's so unnatural,
right, to go from k
to 12th grade and then straight to call.
It's just so unnatural.
I think I often tell my students, the
the ones that I'm close to and who
will understand where I'm coming from, I told
them that college is wasted
on a lot of young people.
Right? It's like 1,000,000 of dollars are wasted
on giving young people resources and all these
young people need is a break.
You know? And so how do we create
a culture which okay to take a break?
I feel like at Princeton University, for example,
when someone takes a break, they're almost punished.
You know, you're no longer part of your
class. If you're no longer part of your
class, you lack social cohesion,
you're not graduating on time,
and there's this taboo.
People are ashamed that they had to take
time off. People are ashamed that they had
to have a mental
not that they had to have a mental
breakdown, but they had a mental breakdown. Right?
There's so much shame around that,
but it's only natural
when we put people through,
you know, such an unnatural environment.
So I'd love to think more about that.
And
the last thing that I'd say that I
really loved
is this idea of preparing people for the
future. And so
in fact just last year after all these
years it's like what was I doing right?
But after all these years
finally my wife and I
hosted the senior class for 4 dinners at
our home
and we called it
adulting,
Right?
Right? And over the course of those 4
dinners, we talked about marriage. We talked about
finding a spiritual and religious life after you
graduate from college. We talked about,
we we talked about
how to be in the workplace, challenges and
struggles of being in the workplace, and we
talked about other such things.
And we brought people from the community who
could help them.
And I think that that's a really great
thing to think about, how to prepare
our students, our beloveds for the future.
The last thing that I'll say, which I
would pose as a question to doctor Matson
is that, you know, you said a lot
about,
you know, our role
toward our students and toward the campus community.
But I'd love to hear more about
what is now commonly being referred to as
self care among chaplains.
And I personally find
just to vent for a moment, right? You
know, it's almost impossible
to go to a mosque
or a Muslim religious place
just as a normal worshiper and devotee and
just to kind
of right?
Like every time you go, oh, you're here,
come lead prayer. Oh, you're here, come say
some words. No, I just wonder,
right? So that's challenging.
And then I think there's also the reality
that so much of our work involves
listening, being present,
putting our heart energy into
our our work and our students and all
of the people we're in relationship
with on campus and then
going
home and having to do that for our
families
when maybe all we need to do, all
we really, really need and want
is to just
relax.
But when you come home
and your
3 year old daughter takes you by the
finger and says, let's run up the stairs,
how can you say no? Right?
But at the same time, you know, there's
that fear that at at some point this
light is gonna burn out,
right? And so I'd love to think more
with about that with all of you.
Thank you for being patient. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Imam Suhayb, for a
fantastic,
fantastic reflection.