Devotional difference

One of the things I love best about teaching in a divinity school is that there are many opportunities to worship. At least once, and sometimes two or three times a day, groups of students, staff and faculty gather to pray, meditate, share the Eucharist, chant and dance. Sometimes I'm among them—Thursday morning Eucharist is the gathering to which I'm most faithful. Usually I just get a quick peek at what's going on in the chapel as I move back and forth between meetings and classes. Catching a glimpse of another's devotion is a blessing on the day, a reminder of the love that undergirds our best work.

On Wednesdays at noon we gather for community worship organized by a student steering committee and the director of religious and spiritual life. When I first came to Harvard Divinity School, the weekly community worship service was deeply ecumenical. While the shape of the service was recognizably Protestant, it also possessed a flexibility born of a desire to create a welcoming, open space for people of different theological and religious backgrounds.

Over the years, as our school has become more multireligious, our students have urged us toward new ways of gathering for community worship. Even the most welcoming service can obscure our distinctiveness, they told us. We want to be with each other as we truly are, they said. We want to be present for each other's prayers and rituals and practices. We want to be led in Torah study by the Jewish students and in Friday prayers by the Muslims; to listen to a dharma talk with the Buddhist students and hear a sermon with the Baptists; to be with the Episcopalian students for the Eucharist and with the Hindus for puja; to light Advent candles with the Roman Catholics, offer prayers at the flaming chalice with the Unitarian Universalists and keep silence with the Quakers.