Concordia University's Sir George Williams Campus. CATHERINE REYNOLDS/The Concordian
The organization is looking to reach out to the community and improve their services
The Multi-faith and Spirituality Centre (MFSC) gathered at the Hall building for a visioning event where students, faculty and staff were invited to come and voice their feedback regarding the centre’s operations. The MFSC is a student service offered by the University dedicated to providing a space for students to connect around a shared sense of faith and spirituality.
“The MFSC is a space on campus for students to explore their spiritual life or beliefs and values, reflect and build connections with others,” explained Rev. Jennifer Bourque, interim chaplain and coordinator for the centre.
Bourque explained that the service is open to all students as not merely a place for worship but as a space to connect, whether students follow a specific faith or not.
“We aim to serve all students, whether they consider themselves religious in any tradition, spiritual or secular, or they’re not sure,” she said.
The centre has two spaces, one on each campus: the Z Annex at 2090 Mackay Street downtown, and the Loyola Chapel.
Recently, the centre has been looking to improve their services and wanted to hear about what students think spiritual and religious life should look like on campus and how the centre could best support them. On Nov. 16, students and staff members were invited to sit with facilitators to discuss topics such as accessibility, inclusivity and faith.
A recurring theme was that people who used the centre’s services found it inclusive, open, and welcoming. Robert Toto, who considers himself secular, has been using the centre’s services for a couple of years and says it has become a home away from home.
“I have been welcomed at that space since I found out about it a couple of years ago […] and it became like a second family,” Toto said.
During the visioning, students in the group expressed their desire to see more events hosted by the centre to meet people from various faiths and beliefs and have discussions around spirituality. They also wish to have more prayer and meditation spaces — other than the Z Annex and a room on the 7th floor of the Hall building — that would make religious practices more accessible on both campuses.
Spiritual connection can be found in the most mundane places
It may seem peculiar to admit, but one of the spaces I feel the most unabashedly Jewish is in a chain grocery store.
I currently live in Outremont, my small apartment building nestled amongst the rows of beautiful houses containing large, lively Hasidic families. Between Lipa’s Kosher Market, Continental Deli, and the dozens of synagogues, I could definitely get my share of Jewish culture anytime I left the house. But, as much as I love a Cheskie’s black and white cookie, as a secular(ish) reform Jew, these aren’t really my people.
However, a forty-minute bus ride away, at an unassuming IGA, that’s where my people are.
My grandparents immigrated to Canada around 1953 as refugees of the Holocaust. The war broke out when my grandmother was a young teen, and after losing all of her family other than a sister and cousin, likely to Auschwitz but we’ll never know, she met my grandfather in a labour camp. After liberation, the pair were processed through Italy, went to Israel, then finally arrived in Montreal.
Our family began as working class Mile End Jews, as many post-War Ashkenazi immigrants did. In comparison to the more affluent “uptown” Jews of Westmount, who had already assimilated to Canadian culture through a couple generations of living here, “downtown” Jews like my family had a difficult time initially, adapting to two new languages and secular life, all while reeling from the most awful trauma imaginable.
By the 1980s, after moving through multiple Montreal boroughs, my grandparents, again following the trends of their Polish Jewish peers, finally settled in Côte-Saint-Luc. And there they lived until they passed — my grandfather before I was born and my grandmother this past summer.
Everytime my parents and I would travel to Montreal to visit my grandmother, a trip to the Cavendish Mall IGA was inevitable. Beginning as an opportunity to make sure my grandmother got all of her granddaughter’s favourite foods, and later because driving herself became impossible, the IGA factored into every family trip to Montreal.
Growing up in suburban Virginia, never had I seen so much Jewish food in one place. Or, honestly, Jewish food for sale in general, other than a lonely box of Passover matzah inexplicably stocked in a Hanukkah display.
The IGA has been a constant, not just for my family, but for the large Jewish Côte-Saint-Luc community. The store has a sizable kosher section spanning not only the Eastern European Jewish staples like knishes and verenikas, but also babaganoush and harissa to accommodate the more recent influx of Sephardic Jews into the neighbourhood.
Early in the COVID-19 lockdowns, the Cavendish IGA briefly closed its doors to shoppers. IGA’s parent company Sobeys stated that their decision was made to limit the amount of times residents were leaving their houses. With Côte-Saint-Luc’s especially elderly population, this call was made in an attempt to protect residents from disease. However, the move created a backlash from older residents, who either did not have access to or proficiency with computers and online ordering.
On top of the accessibility concerns of online shopping, closing the Cavendish IGA limited the social aspect of shopping for not only the older community, but Jewish Côte-Saint-Luc residents in general.
Much has been said about food and cooking as community-making, but why do we not extend this thought to the grocery shopping experience?
In Côte-Saint-Luc, the IGA has become somewhat of a cultural hub for the community, as, especially during the pandemic, it’s one of the few places community members, mostly older adults, will get a chance to see their neighbours.
I don’t go to the Cavendish Mall much these days. Since my grandmother’s passing, I’ve only been out to Côte-Saint-Luc a few times to help clean out her apartment. But I went this past week, partially to have an excuse to get some reading done one the bus, but mostly because in the stress of exam season, I was craving the warm embrace of Jewish carbs.
Once I passed the extensive bakery section, I was greeted by a giant Hanukkah display. “A bit early?” I chuckled to myself, thinking about the cliché of Christmas decorations popping up as soon as Halloween passes. Then, I realized I didn’t even know when Hanukkah begins this year. Turns out it’s Nov. 28, so the joke’s on me.
But after the twinge of pain knowing that Hanukkah will have come and gone before I’m even done with finals, I thought: where else would I come face to face with a kiosk full of dreidels, menorahs, and adorned with an image of a yarmulke-clad cartoon boy?
That’s the thing about the Cavendish Mall IGA. The mundane fact that matzah ball soup mix is sold all year (in a section that actually corresponds to the correct holiday), that it’s the only place I’ve ever found kasha varnishkes outside of my dad’s kitchen, that I can walk around on a Friday early afternoon, see a box of candlesticks in my fellow shopper’s cart and share a knowing look.
Though I had no real reason to go to the IGA recently, even without my grandmother to guide me to the good gefilte fish, the experience still ignited something comforting in me that I can’t quite articulate. Maybe it’s God, maybe just good chicken soup.
Everyday I wake up to an increasingly bizarre and cryptic notification from my Co–Star astrology app. Today’s message was a simple, “Are you starting shit?”
I don’t think I am. I’m barely starting the mundane things I need to do, let alone stirring any sort of proverbial pot. Should I be starting shit? Maybe this was a call to disrupt my typical routine and do something more impulsive than my typical bed-to-desk-to-bed quarantine routine. Maybe Co–Star wanted me to engage in some sort of civil unrest, shake up the system a little bit. Regardless, it got me thinking.
Astrology is often proclaimed to be pseudoscience; simply New Age spiritualism packaging itself as fact. That is, of course, to the dismay of astrologers who never claimed it was a science to begin with. This argument assumes that for something to be useful and impactful, it must be scientific in nature in the first place.
Many also argue that leaning into astrology and horoscopes is harmful, since they make it seem like our lives are predestined and we have no control over our actions. In this view, those who follow astrology must believe they are all fully guided by the stars, unable to control their impulses to act due to whims of planetary motion.
While I am not one for disregarding the idea of free will and skepticism, I think this notion is pretty flimsy. Are there not a myriad of forces in our world that limit our freedom to act as we truly wish? We’re born into a slew of conditions that form who we are and who we can be, for better or worse. Race, nation, year of birth, sex, family and more shape who we turn out to be. So are the stars really the system we need to question?
Additionally, astrology doesn’t make us more removed from human impulses; it could actually help bring us in dialogue with them. It’s human nature to view yourself as a sort of “main character” in your life and to have trouble truly understanding the complicated idiosyncrasies of others. There’s even a word for the phenomenon of realizing that all the people you pass by have lives just as extensive as your own — sonder.
Astrology could help fight this impulse. By knowing that all people have detailed charts showing how they love, how they fight, how they think and how they dream, it reminds us that everyone is just as complex and flawed as we are.
The current age is filled with uncertainty and insecurity, from a pandemic to contentious elections to economic downturn — It’s no surprise that people have decided to turn to a belief system to help guide them. There are many more dangerous paths to go down when looking for answers to life’s big questions than downloading Co–Star or hiring a chart reader. Astrology is a belief system like any other, and your ascription to it is as personal as what religion you may or may not follow — and that won’t change no matter how much people tear it down.
Simrit Kaur embarks on an international tour, sharing spiritual chants with the world
Drawing soulful harmonies from the Greek Orthodox chants she grew up with, Simrit Kaur and her ensemble make music that will take you on a spiritual journey. Their album, Songs of Resilience, stems from a variety of different cultural influences, including Greek, West African, north-western Indian (Punjab) and classical American-European folk music. Simrit’s ensemble consists of Shannon Heiden, who plays the electric cello and guitar; Salif Bamakora, who plays the Kora, a 21-string West African instrument; Tripp Dudley, who plays the percussion, and Jared May who plays electric bass. Kaur plays the harmonia—a pump organ—and sings. May also sings background vocals and, together, Kaur and May sing the harmonies.
Their international tour begins on March 25. Heiden will also open for their show, performing a 15-minute solo piece at every concert. Kaur has been around music her whole life. “I started studying and playing music since I was very little. I sang at the church choir since I was six years old, I learned to read and write music—it’s always been in my blood and definitely in my soul,” Kaur said. However, her music career only began four years ago. “Once I realized I had serious drive to do it, I was super motivated so I put all my energy into it,” she said.
The music of Kaur and her ensemble is all about bringing a variety of cultural sounds together. “We all bring a strong set of influences,” Kaur said. “This music is nothing we’ve ever heard before—it’s incredibly powerful and unique. It inspires you to re-evaluate your ideas and values.” Songs of Resilience, which was released in the fall of 2016, was inspired by the resilience of people. “It’s about life, people, my own resilience—I had an interesting life and I’ve seen and experienced my own resilience in myself. I’ve seen how I’ve grown stronger because of challenges, and I can relate with people because of these challenges,” Kaur said.
She said the songs on this album not only reflect her own resilience, but the resilience of others throughout history. Various peoples, such as the Greeks, First Nations and the Irish have gone through a lot, but they still stand strong, she said. “We carry the blood and lineage of our ancestors. We are no different than they were 1,000 years ago, we are just in a different time,” Kaur said. “This album shares compassion for human beings living on this planet—it’s not an easy place to live.”
Simrit Kaur will be touring across North America and Europe this spring to promote the album, Songs of Resilience. Photo by Ingrid Nelson
One song on the album is called “Prithvi Hai.” “Prithvi” means “the Earth,” and “Hai” means “is” in Gurmukhi, a 500-year-old sacred language from north-western India. “It’s the balance of the heaven and the earth that is within all of us,” Kaur said. “It brings out a state of balance and neutrality in all of us.” “The words from the song will help you to feel happiness,” Kaur said.
According to Kaur, all these chants have the ability to enhance our state of being. “It depends on the person and what kind of state of mind they are in,” she said. The chants in “Prithvi Hai” bring out the greatest power we have on this planet: “the power of the heart,” Kaur said. The song “Sat Narayan” is also sung in Gurmukhi, and represents the element of water. We are 75 per cent water, she said, and so this chant balances the water element within us. “It is a beautiful chant from the heart,” Kaur said.
Another chant from the album, called “Pavan Guru,” another Gurmukhi chant from the album, evokes a supreme life force. “If you need more energy, this is a great chant—you can get a lot of energy listening to this chant while singing it,” Kaur said. The ensemble has toured together many times over the last few years. “I couldn’t ask for a better band. As far as the musicianship, everyone is a master in what they bring. They are incredible people, and that translates into our music. We really enjoy being together on tour,” Kaur said.
Kaur said she is looking forward to the international tour. “I’m eager to be meeting all the amazing fans and the people who are moved by our music,” Kaur said. The ensemble will be performing in Kaur’s hometown of Athens, Greece, on April 14. “We are super excited to go to Europe to experience the ancient buildings, structures, the sights—it’s a beautiful thing to experience all that,” Kaur said.
This will also be the ensemble’s third time performing in Montreal. “We love Montreal, it’s an amazing place. One thing that gets us everytime we go is all the murals everywhere. The murals are incredible, we’ve never seen anything like it,” Kaur said. Kaur and her ensemble will be in Montreal on April 2 at the Cabaret Lion D’Or for a soothing afternoon show at 2 p.m. Tickets are available online for $35.
Sara Terreault is a part-time faculty member in Concordia’s theological studies department. Photo by Ana Hernandez
A pilgrimage through the life of a part-time professor
As I enter the room where I will be interviewing part-time faculty member Sara Terreault, I can’t help but notice how strikingly different the rooms in the theological studies department look compared to other departments on campus.
The paintings on the walls and the many books on the shelves seem to mirror Terreault’s life, while the room’s beautiful wooden furnishings give a rich perspective of theology in contrast to the sterility sometimes prevalent in modern academia.
“God, the G-word—a naughty word in academia—you’re allowed to use it here and take it seriously and understand both historically and in contemporary contexts what that means for people,” Terreault said.
Terreault is a professor of theology and Irish studies. She has taught eleven different theology courses at Concordia, including a class on Celtic Christianity.
“I think something that distinguishes theology and makes it very rich and attractive to a lot of students is that we ask those existential questions while allowing a horizon of transcendence,” Terreault explained. “You’re allowed to ask questions that include ultimate questions.”
Terreault had not envisioned herself teaching theology when she was younger. Despite her Christian upbringing and lifelong involvement with the Church, Terreault initially planned to be an artist.
From the age of 13 to 19, Terreault apprenticed with painter Helmut Gerth, focusing primarily on watercolours. “I convinced my mom to get me these private art lessons, and I just took to it like a duck to water,” she said.
From there, Terreault enrolled in Dawson’s Studio Arts program, where she was able to practice studio art, including painting and sculpting. However, Terreault eventually pursued art history at Concordia—a decision influenced by her travels and year living in the UK. “I went to Europe and saw lots of art and loved it,” she said. “So when it came time to pick a major, I picked art history.”
Though spirituality and Christianity had been important parts of Terreault’s life, she became distant from this aspect of her identity when she started her undergraduate degree.
“At that time, religious things were, in that academic environment, uncool—and the worst of all was Christianity,” Terreault said. “I towed the fashionable line and sort of let that all go.”
But spirituality was never far from Terreault’s mind, she said, even if she wasn’t actively thinking about it. “I did a lot of literature and classics for electives,” she said. “They were all sort of sideways, backdoor ways of getting at that same sort of [theological] area.”
Terreault moved to California in 1988 when her husband was offered a job there. She lived there for seven years, working as a stay-at-home mother for her two boys and running an in-home daycare part-time.
Terreault had a moment of spiritual clarity when she gave birth to her first child. “Having kids really helps you start thinking about what really matters, and I guess I just got the balls to say [spirituality] is what I really care about,” she said.
After being out of school 10 years, Terreault decided to move back to Montreal to complete her undergraduate art history degree and to pursue her graduate degree in theology at Concordia. She is now a part-time professor there, teaching on average one to two courses per semester.
Her favourite course to teach, she said, is THEO 234 Pilgrim Bodies, Sacred Journeys, which allows students to undertake personal pilgrimages or participate in an organized class pilgrimage. She has travelled with students to the Camino de Santiago de Compostella in Spain, across Ireland, and to the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk reservation to explore both Christian and Mohawk traditions of spirituality.
Terreault has undertaken many personal pilgrimages as well, particularly around Ireland and the UK. Her favourite pilgrimage, she said, was one she made to Iona in Scotland.
“I’m interested in those early Celtic saints—their lives and their wishes and dreams and values,” she said. “I really feel like there’s a kind of communion with them when I’m in places that they were in, or where they’re buried, or where others have walked towards them.”
Most of the pilgrimages Terreault does are on foot, though she said this does not have to be the case for everyone. “For some people, the journey is the whole thing. For other people, the end point is the whole thing—they might fly as close to their destination as possible and then take a car,” she said. “I would say, for me, it’s both.”
Class pilgrimage to the Kahnawake Mohawk reservation in 2016. Photo courtesy of Sara Terreault
“There’s a lot that goes on when you walk long distances in a sustained way over days upon days. Physiologically, it changes the body. Psychologically, it slows you down,” Terreault said. “In a walking pilgrimage, the journey becomes part of the point, and it provokes existential questions and reflection.”
Teaching, and her ability to engage with students, she said, is what she is most proud of. “They are just wonderful people to hang out with, and when you get a sense that you’ve contributed something valuable to them, that’s pretty darn fulfilling.”
However, being a part-time professor has been challenging for Terreault. The hardest part, for her, is the lack of recognition and funding. “Funding, if you’re part-time, is a lot harder to get for research,” she said.
But the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association (CUPFA), she said, has been a saviour with regards to her research. “CUPFA has simply been a lifeline in terms of allowing me to do research in these ancient pilgrimage places,” Terreault said. “They’re completely supportive of research, and there’s not much help for that elsewhere in the university unfortunately.”
However, Terreault still struggles. There are semesters when she is given no classes to teach at all. “It’s a small department, and courses have been cut over the last few years with budget cuts, so there are fewer offerings,” she said. “I would certainly love to teach more, but sometimes the courses just aren’t available.”
During these times, she said, finances can be a struggle. “Food bills and mortgage payments and things like that, you’ve got to meet them.” Though she’s thought about getting another job, she has no real plans to do so.
“This is what I love to do,” she said. “I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to get enough that it keeps me going.”
The classes she teaches now attract a very diverse group of students—and that’s how she likes it. “If theology is about what it means to be human in all dimensions, then all the different disciplines have something to say to that question,” she said.
Terreault works hard to welcome and incorporate all students’ experiences and value orientations into her classroom, whether they are religious or not. “I invite students to bring their experience and understanding into the conversation. You don’t check your beliefs at the door—you bring them in and learn how to look at them critically and in a historical context or cultural context,” she said.
Terreault says her classes are widely popular. Interest in theology, she said, has become less taboo since her university experience in the 80s. Any given class she teaches will include students from many different departments.
“I would say it’s spread pretty evenly across the disciplines,” she said. “I think they find that balance between intellectual orientation and that sort of holistic orientation of theology which speaks to them in some way that’s valuable.”
Terreault said she always tries to bring her curiosity and care to the classroom. “I care about learning and I care about the students. I love them. I think I’m pretty open-minded, but at the same time, a pretty disciplined thinker.”
Outside of her Concordia classes, Terreault has worked as a spiritual and community animator for the English Montreal School Board. In this capacity, she helped students tackle spiritual and existential questions, and incorporated each student’s spiritual and religious beliefs into counseling.
Unlike psychological counseling, which focuses solely on the individual, spiritual animation, she explained, focuses on students’ well-being in a wider community context. At the same time, it gives students the space to think about life’s big questions and what they mean to them.
“Some of my students, I would meditate with them. For some of them, they may want to pray,” she said. “It may, for some, have a religious component. For others it may not. And it’s also a way to give them a space to sort of think about and act on those questions and concerns, and also a way of getting them involved in community action.”
Terreault on the Pilgrim’s Way to Holy Island of Lindisfarne, in northeast England, a location of the early medieval monastery of Saint Aidan and Saint Cuthbert, in 2016. Photo courtesy of Sara Terreault
One year, Terreault’s students put on a music concert and invited a retirement community to come watch. She says activities like this help grow students’ combined spiritual, personal and community identity.
Terreault said her work as an animator allowed her to work with students from a variety of backgrounds, from Judeo-Christian students, to Muslim students, to Sikh students and even irreligious students. “The school I worked in was complete diversityland,” she said about her work at Holy Cross Elementary. “It was a wonderful, wonderful environment.”
Outside of teaching, Terreault enjoys gardening, travelling and going to art museums. “I still love my art history,” she said. “There’s something about that combination of art and theology.”
Although it’s been awhile since Terreault has painted seriously, she said she hopes to get back into it in the future. “[My eldest son] has sort of gotten interested in painting, so he and I are thinking of setting up a little studio in the basement chez nous, and he’ll come over and we’ll do some painting together,” she said.
Still, spirituality plays a big role in her personal life. Terreault attends Church and engages in what she calls “classical practices revamped to fit [her] lifestyle,” such as meditation and fasting.
She said most of the things in her life are guided by spirituality. “I consider a lot of the things I do, both in the classroom and outside, spiritual,” Terreault said.
“Teaching and learning and connecting with students and discussion is really spiritually important to me,” she explained. “The same goes with engagement with art and gardening and getting your hands into the earth—that whole generative, beautiful thing about gardening—I think it’s all pretty spiritual for me.”
