Moments of serenity. Students sit cross-legged, breathing in and out, reflecting on the twists and turns of college life. MindfulNU offers spaces like that for Northwestern students. The evidence-based program, which teaches techniques of meditation and mindfulness, is set to launch its six-week winter cohort Wednesday. The launch of the new cohort will mark the.
Northwestern students and Evanston residents gathered in Alice Millar Chapel on Sunday morning for an unusual service. It began similarly to a mass, with a choir singing hymns and lectors reading scripture, but unlike typical services, dogs also filled the chapel with barks as they found seats in the pews and aisles typically reserved for.
As part of the 40 Days of Spiritual Wellbeing, the Broadway soundtrack of “The Color Purple” plays softly in Parkes Hall. Guided by writing prompts, students filled their notebooks with their life stories. The Office of Religious and Spiritual Life organized the series “40 Days of Spiritual Wellbeing.” The program, which runs from Feb. 1.
The Religious and Spiritual Life department is celebrating Spiritual Ecology Month to promote a more reciprocal relationship with the Earth.
The department is dedicating May to hybrid programming that gives students ways to connect with and care for the environment.
“(Spiritual ecology is) thinking about how we’re a part of the natural world, not just people who are designed to use it in a combustible way,” Kristen Glass Perez, the executive director of the Religious and Spiritual Life department, said.
The initiative was created by Glass Perez and RSL Associate Director Eric Budzynski after they learned about the growing field of spiritual ecology. Glass Perez said the department organized programming the month after Earth Day to “continue and deepen” conversations about human relationship to the Earth.
Queer faith leaders discussed LGBTQ+ identity and religion in a virtual panel co-hosted by Northwestern’s Rainbow Alliance and University Christian Ministry on Thursday.
The conversation was moderated by UCM Campus Minister Rev. Julie Windsor Mitchell and featured Rabbi Rachel Weiss from the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, NU’s Associate Director for Religious Life and Chapel Music Eric Budzynski and Juan Pablo Herrera of the Cosmopolitan United Church in Melrose Park. The panel discussed their journeys with their faith and queer identities and answered questions submitted by the audience before and during the event.
For Herrera and Budzynski, who were both raised in religious Christian households, embracing their queerness was a necessary split from the religious paths they were raised on.