I've learned a lot these past four years, but strangely enough I've learned a lot more these past four months. I've been to more panels, lectures and religious services since January than I had in my previous seven semesters at Duke.
Looking back, I had been oddly oblivious to what went on around campus. This semester, calendar.duke.edu became my guidebook, plugging me into campus events and groups. My planner was suddenly filled with reminders about visiting speakers and panel discussions.
While researching for this column, which focused on religious life on campus, I met people I never knew before, and learned about people I already knew. It was as if everyone's private religious lives were suddenly open to me, and all I had to do was ask.
But that's the thing: People just aren't usually asking.
A panel discussion titled "Called to Kill? Rethinking Violence in Christianity, Islam and Judaism," featuring Dean of the Chapel Sam Wells, Muslim Chaplain Abdullah Antepli and Rabbi Michael Goldman was so crowded I had to sit on the floor at the back. In a particularly significant moment on the panel, each was asked what a common misconception about his faith was.
One misconception offered was that God hasn't done enough and that we must finish the job. Though it doesn't really matter which faith leader said it, it was Dean Wells. That one response encapsulated so much of history, including the present, that I haven't been able to shake it all semester.
Moments like that remind me of the gravity of these issues. But I am also reminded that we are fortunate enough to have panels devoted to constructive dialogue that acknowledge realities and genuinely search for solutions.
Watching Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders sitting side by side participating in a discussion on violence in each of their faith's history, I couldn't help but be appreciative of this university's commitment to open academic discussion.
And it seems when I wasn't at lectures, I was at religious services. I realized early on that attending another faith's religious events is not at all like taking a course about it. Gone is the academic barrier, absent are the readings and the tests that structure learning. This was all real.
I sat inside the Duke Chapel for the second time since convocation, this time without a large column blocking my view, and listened to Father Joe Vetter speak about the importance of faith during difficult economic times. The economy was a consistent theme throughout the different services, with the general message being that fulfillment is not found through wealth or possessions.
Most importantly, I stayed during the awkward parts: When a Muslim imam spoke of gross injustices towards Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, when I waited in the line with students receiving communion at Mass and as a Shabbat service flew by in Hebrew.
I began this journey surprisingly na've about what I was getting myself into. Religion plays a role in some harsh realities, and I don't think I fully considered that. Yet I had to put myself in those situations to realize the magnitude of religion, even on this very campus.
I said in the beginning that I didn't want to save you. I still don't. All I wanted was to show that religions are alive on campus and that you didn't need to be a believer to read about it.
And now, as I slowly get ready to graduate, I realize my reflections on my time here at Duke have changed as a result of this experience. To me, a recently spray-painted swastika on East Campus means that we are a more ignorant campus than we think we are.
I'm reminded of the anti-Israel messages I saw scrawled on the East Campus bridge when I visited Duke during my senior year of high school, and I wonder if things have really changed since then. For all the panels and lectures promoting respectful dialogue, maybe the message isn't reaching everyone.
I wonder about the world we are graduating into, but, and forgive the expression, I have faith. I have faith that people like Antepli are more than just panelists and that they have the power to create change on this campus. I have faith that students are actually listening to what goes on around here and aren't afraid to challenge ignorance with dialogue. I have faith that students will continue to question their perspectives.
After all, I did.
Stephanie Butnick is a Trinity senior. This is her last column.
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