By the Haupt Pond, people from all faiths looked up at the sky to stargaze. Bundled up in sweatshirts and blankets, the Christain Fellowship, Hillel, Muslim Student Association and Newman Club co-hosted a stargazing event to shed some light into this pandemic.
On that humid night, Sept. 25, everyone sat down on the hill to trace the constellations, predict the lunar calendar based on the phase of the moon, and admire the stars together. Each club shared a poem or scripture from their religion – most were about the nighttime sky.
On that night, Olivia Rosenblum ‘22 from Hillel said of the sky, “The longer you look up at the sky, the more stars peak out and around.”
To Rosenblum, the faith clubs planned a stargazing event because each religion has their own philosophies about stars. “There’s a lot of different beliefs on who or what God is,” Rosenblum said. “But a lot of beliefs are that God is above us looking down, so the stars are him shining down on us.”
All the faith clubs at Skidmore share some of the same aspects (specifically the three major Abrahamic religions), which is why they wanted to co-host the event, according to co-president of the Christian Fellowship Lizzie Druke ‘22.
However, while they may have some of the same stories, to Khaly Diagne ‘21 who read a chapter from the Quran, each one has its own outlook.
“It’s always good to get different perspectives from different religions because at some point they are interconnected,” he said. In the Quran, the chapter Diagne read talked about God sending a prophet to be there for its people; it’s the passage he reflects on every time he prays.
To Druke, Christianity is part of her everyday life, and club events like stargazing are what get her through times like these. “It guides the way I live every aspect of my life, from what classes I take to what I do on a Friday evening,” Druke said. “Something that faith does is it gives you someone to trust in and believe in, knowing that God’s ways are above our ways.”
A lot of people look to religion for answers, according to Rosenblum, which is why the Hillel club read a poem by Hannah Senesh about light in a dark place. “It talks about the importance of light amongst the darkness, which is important as people are spending a lot of time alone right now," said Rosenblum.
For Sam Charwat ‘22, a board member of Hillel, the event was not just about religion but also meeting up with friends while following COVID guidelines. “It’s a way to share the outdoors,” Charwat said. “We like to get to know other clubs and bring communities together.” The stargazing event gave her a moment to breathe, much like religious services do for her.
To many, religion gives one a community and a feeling that one is not alone. In this pandemic, as churches were one of the first to close, and Emily Theisen ‘22 from the Newman Club (a Catholic club on campus) believes that religion was what got her through it.
“We all have this trust in God and even though we might not understand some of the things that happen in this world, we can believe that he’s looking out for us and we know that whatever happens He always has our best interest in mind,” said Theisen. Over the summer, the Newman Club kept their community together through Zoom and were able to all meet up for the first time at the event.
The Newman Club read from the book of Sirach in the Bible, a chapter about nature to complement the stars. “It has this nice ending where it says God has created all of this, which is a good reminder for us,” Theisen said. “We’re out here in nature and we can see all these things and all these people and the bare bones of it is that these are gifts God gave to us and we appreciate them and we love Him.”
The night ended with everyone, friends both new and old from all faiths, thinking about the stars – and while this was the first interfaith event this year, there are still more to come.