By Alana Aamodt ’18
The eighth annual Coming Together Conference, a national interfaith conference for students from across the country, is happening on campus right now, Feb. 16-19. The CC Chaplain’s Office is hosting student representatives from more than two-dozen colleges joining 53 CC students on campus this weekend, gathering to engage in spiritual discussion and practice. An exploration of what it means to be a spiritual community in an academic setting, the conference has been hosted at places such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities and the University of Puget Sound.
Colorado College Chaplain Kate Holbrook, the driving force behind the weekend’s activities, says she wants to “highlight what we do well,” referencing CC’s contribution as conference host. “The focus is the intersection between interfaith dialogue and contemplative and embodied spiritual practices,” she says.
In other words, this conference aims to expand beyond intellectual conversations and include actual engagement in various spiritual practices. In a world as fragmented as academia, Holbrook emphasizes the importance of “finding ways to connect our heads, our hearts, and our bodies,” in an effort to “integrate the whole person.” From “praying five times as day to walking barefoot in the grass,” she says this connection can be done through traditional and nontraditional practices, both of which will be featured and discussed at the conference. The result will be a weekend of diversity, intimacy, and rejuvenation.
The conference will be take place in three segments. The first focuses on interfaith engagement and contemplative education as spiritual practice, the second on rest, renewal, and the Sabbath, and the third on disruption, compassion, and social justice. To facilitate these themes, teachers and practitioners in Qigong, Five Rhythms Dance, Jewish mysticism, Sufi mysticism, and Christian monasticism will gather in various places around campus, marking the first time CC has hosted the annual Coming Together event.
