Together in Faith: NIU religious leaders reflect on mourning, healing

Northern Illinois University students Brittany Sheldon (left), and Christina Altergott (top), help Pastor Diane Dardón hang a poster Thursday for the Memory Wall at the Lutheran Campus Ministry in DeKalb. Beck Diefenbach – bdiefenbach@daily-chronicle.com

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When planning for this weekend’s sermon, the movie “Evan Almighty” was stuck in the Rev. Marty Marks’ head.

In one scene, the God character asks, “If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

A multi-faith reflection being held today is one opportunity to mark the tragedy experienced at Northern Illinois University on Feb. 14, 2008, when a former NIU student opened fire, killing five students and injuring another 21 before turning the gun on himself.

“It’s giving the community of NIU the opportunity to be here, not just to zap it to us,” said Marks, campus pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church.

At 1 p.m. today, about 10 campus groups representing a multitude of religions – including Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Earth religions – will get a few minutes to offer words of comfort from their individual faith backgrounds.

“It’s not one size fits all,” explained Jeff Hecht, the faculty adviser for Jewish student organization Hillel. “It’s something for all.”

That is the purpose of today’s multi-faith reflection at Northern Illinois University – a gathering of the faithful to mourn and reflect in their own ways, yet together.

“We want to acknowledge the fact that the families that have suffered the loss, they are in our hearts and our prayers. We want to acknowledge that we give them consolation from our holy book Koran,” said Atique Ahmed, faculty adviser of Muslim Students Association. “It says that we all are from God and we return to God.”

Hecht said that the Jewish portion of the service may include a poem or a prayer called the Mourner’s Kaddish, which is actually about life rather than death. Some groups, including Newman Center, will be bringing music to the event.

Ana Blechschmidt, campus minister for the Pagan Student Association, said it’s a time for personal growth.

“Even extreme tragedy or sacrifice gives you as a human being the ability to embrace that horror, altering or growing your soul, really, from the tragedy,” she said.

Campus ministers say they’re laying low in their own events, and are encouraging students to attend campus-organized events.

Some religious groups, like the Newman Center, Congregation Beth Shalom and Lutheran Campus Ministries, will be having their own services in between campus-sponsored events.

“We’re trying to respect what NIU has done and trying to participate in as much in the things they are offering as possible,” said Newman Center campus minister Denise Sanders.

Knowing how to remember is often a difficult line to walk, local religious leaders said. And their work with students over the past year has shown that while it’s important to remember, normal activities have mostly resumed.

“My impression, at least among college students, is that most of them have moved on,” Marks said. “But they don’t mind remembering.”

Hecht said it takes a balance.

“You don’t get over something like this,” Hecht said. “They don’t want to forget this happened but they don’t want it to rule their lives.”

One campus group that has used memories as a way to heal, literally, is Lutheran Campus Ministries.

One project students have begun is to put the cards and letters that came pouring in after the shooting into a scrapbook, and framing larger pieces on a memory wall within the center. Also, the six white crosses that stood outside the LCM Center immediately following the shooting have been melted into an altar for the center.

The idea is that “helping hands are healing hands,” campus pastor Diane Dardón said.

And while she and other religious leaders have acted as pillars of strength for the students they pray and worship with, Dardón needed her own way of healing.

She wrote a book. Titled “Why Six? Wisdom Whispers in Tragedy,” Dardón said it’s part of her healing journey, and that there’s much more to be written about her experiences over the past year.

However individuals are healing, today’s multi-faith reflection and other religious activities show that there’s more than one way to draw strength.

“We are all human beings,” Ahmed said. “It doesn’t matter what faith we belong to.”

If you go
What: Multi-faith reflection
When: 1 p.m. today
Where: NIU Holmes Student Center, Carl Sandburg Auditorium