Chapel at Milton in 2008
A point of view about relevance

My two years’ experience with the chapel program at Milton Academy has included thoughtful analysis of its status and its potential direction. Given Milton’s nondenominational status, and the diversity of its students, the chapel program must embrace a broad vision of spirituality, one that respects the plurality of faiths and explores the unique elements among them. My goals for the future of the chapel program focus on three separate, yet interrelated themes.

First, chapel is about education. Current events have dictated that the average individual have more than a passing knowledge of various faith traditions. Education about different religions involves investigation into each religion’s particular history, its relationship to similar faiths, its belief structures, and its current role in the world. In addition, I hope that the chapel program can engage critically with particular religions, acknowledging both the successes and the ills that emerge from religious faith. A second part of this education, in some cases, may also include a re-education. For those who see religion as limiting or irrelevant, the chapel program offers an opportunity to examine the differing ways of believing that are not as constrained as one may assume.

Second, the chapel program is about personal and spiritual exploration. Students or adults in the community can share with their peers a reflection of their own, based on an idea, their spiritual experiences, or an observation about some reading. As chaplain, I would like the chapel program at Milton to mirror the work that is accomplished in the classroom—an engaged, critical, personal questioning of what we read, study and experience. Spirituality is the process of figuring out what gives each individual a sense of meaning and purpose. This practice is not limited to the following of one religion, but rather may extend to all parts of our lives.

Third, the chapel program is about community. Sunday evening is the only time that the boarding community gathers as one group (or two groups, as the case may be). Chapel gives us a chance to share a space that is focused on reflection and togetherness. While each individual may get something different out of the experience, there is meaning and power in simply dedicating a separate time to community and being in each other’s presence for the sake of exploring what gives us, as individuals and a community, meaning in our lives.

Suzanne DeBuhr
Interfaith Chaplain

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Four Excerpts
Chapel talks by Suzanne DeBuhr, 2007–2008

On the search for personal spirituality, the role of inquiry

I directed my energies to questioning in an attempt to find answers. Since I was in college, it seemed natural to accomplish this through academic study—through reading philosophy, reading holy texts, studying Buddhism and learning the history of Christian theology. I wanted to figure out the truth—truth with a capital “T.” In a way, academic study became my spiritual path. I believed that through a commitment to learning in the pursuit of my questions, I would eventually discover the answer. Although every class I took and every book I read certainly helped to increase my knowledge base, overall, they frequently upset my purpose. Not only was I no closer to the answers, I felt farther and farther away instead, being consumed by more and more questions. Every question seemed to lead to another question.

Now what, you may ask, makes questioning a spiritual endeavor? I think it is a combination of the intent of the questions and the motivation for inquiry.

Questioning is spiritual when it involves the elements of wonder and mystery, when the questions seek to discover something that is beyond the objective world. We ask spiritual questions when the answers are not evident through observation or experimentation. In addition, I think we must ask yet another question: Why am I seeking these particular questions relating to wonder and mystery? For me, the motivation is personal. I want to discover what gives me meaning and purpose. I want to be aware of how I perceive the world and how best I can be effective within it.

On the search for personal spirituality, the role of experience

Darkness is a common theme in spiritual writings, as well as among the spiritual paths of various religions. Indeed, religions often offer a solution to the suffering that seems innate to human nature. As a spiritual metaphor, darkness is associated with negative feelings; it can mean evil, danger or suffering. It is often correlated with the unknown. Darkness seems to make us feel closed in, while light opens us up. Darkness makes it difficult to know where we are going, but light allows us to clearly see the path we are following. Paradoxically, we often need the dark moments to decipher what our paths need to be. Suffering tends to force us to figure out how to endure difficult times and, in the process, discover what gives us strength and provides meaning in the most uncertain moments.

On considering the interests of others

Whether we like it or not, we have all been born on this earth as part of one great human family. Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, belonging to one nation or another, to one religion or another, adhering to this ideology or that, ultimately each of us is just a human being like everyone else: we all desire happiness and do not want suffering. Furthermore, each of us has an equal right to pursue these goals.  

Today’s world requires that we accept the oneness of human-ity. In the past, isolated communities could afford to think of one another as fundamentally separate and even existing in total isolation. Nowadays, however, events in one part of the world eventually affect the entire planet. Therefore we have to treat each major local problem as a global concern from the moment it begins. We can no longer invoke the national, racial or ideological barriers that separate us without destructive repercussion. In the context of our new interdependence, considering the interests of others is clearly the best form of self-interest.  

I view this fact as a source of hope. The necessity for coopera-tion can only strengthen humankind, because it helps us recognize that the most secure foundation for the new world order is not simply broader political and economic alliances, but rather each individual’s genuine practice of love and compassion. For a better, happier, more stable and civilized future, each of us must develop a sincere, warm-hearted feeling of brother- and sisterhood.

On seeking fullness of vision and understanding

The example of the tree translates to the level of humanity as well. We recognize and identify our friends, acquaintances and family by their appearances, by what they look like. You know me as

Ms. DeBuhr perhaps because of my short, blond hair or glasses, or short stature, by the shape of my face, or by the kind of clothing I wear. But I am, as we all are, more than our appearances. We are defined by our mothers, fathers and siblings. We are defined by the geographical location in which we grow up, the religion or nonreligion with which we were raised, the books we read, the friends we make, the food we eat, the land that produces the food, the buildings in which we live, the contractors and builders who constructed them, the experiences we endure and the ones in which we rejoice. As Zen Buddhism states, our identities are empty, empty of an independent existence. Our lives are defined by interdependence, the interweaving of other individuals, the earth, and our own experiences.

Seeking more deeply the nature of reality means seeing things as they are and recognizing their emptiness and interdependence with the universe. Ultimately, we are all connected.

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