Higher Power

I suppose I should start this by saying I don’t consider myself to be religious, do I believe in something beyond us? sure. Do I have faith in something? yes. Is that a thing a single saviour/ being? for me, no.

My nan is religious and periodically will ask me if I’d like to be baptised, to which I politely decline. I go to Christingle and midnight mass with her every Christmas because I see the joy it brings her and I know it’s important to her. & that’s kind of how I feel about religion- if it adds something to your life- thats great. But I just don’t feel a need for it personally. For me what it boils down to is connection, or at least that’s the part I can say is positive- the part I can say should be taken into the classroom. Fostering community and belonging and compassion. Because in my very limited experience, that’s what religion is about. Don’t get me wrong I’m not naive to the fact that the very belonging religion can bring in the confines of its members can also bring exclusion, otrasisation and often much worse elsewhere, including at university.

That’s what we’re always trying to do as humans right? connect? I used to hang out with a Hare Krishna called Praymer in my home town. I was about 15 and Straight edge and drew big black crosses on my hands every day to prove it. That’s how Praymer and I got talking – because apparently lots of Hare Krishna’s listen to punk bands because of some of the common values – that connection again! He saw my crosses on my hands and we began talking about music, Minor threat, Fugazi, and so on. & of course Krishna seeped in too. But the thing we were doing was connecting over some shared language/ experience/ belief system- in this case Music.

So to acknowledge the importance of connection and building an eco system which my team and I talk about a lot, I also have to acknowledge the beauty of difference. This zine could be a really nice tool for exploring that with students. Or using to build resources that explore that.
I’m really interested to hear from the belief and religion champion – which I was unaware of until reading the zine so will definitely looking at inviting them to our team meeting to see if there are ways we could potentially work together or co-design resources in this area.

I do a lot of work with students around their values and ethics but think there is room for me to also open up the resources and dialogue here to include religion more and be more inclusive in that way. I think that I’ve probably been cautious to be explicit about it and its been more implied but I think it needs to be talked about. It could potentially have a big impact on their professional life and with 50% of UAL students identifying as religious I think I need to look at what I’m doing more critically and make sure I’m not doing those students a disservice.
First stop I think is re-reading this really interesting book I read years ago: