Of the many components of training for our Resident Assistants at King’s College, perhaps the most formative and impactful session was brought to our students through our Theater department. After hearing about the success of a workshop that some of our RA’s attended, we in Residence Life at King’s College approached Beth and Jahmeel Powers and suggested the possibility of their leading a workshop for our RA’s. As we spoke about the possible workshop, it was clear that the skills required for performing improv aligned very closely with the skills necessary for responding to the needs of students as an RA. What I didn’t realize right away was that this session would become an introduction to spirituality for many of our students.
So many of our students at King’s College come from an un-churched background. They are no longer the first generation away from an experience of church, but a second or even third generation removed. Along with this separation, though, comes an openness. Because they haven’t opted out of church themselves, they have an openness to receiving what we have to offer.
I am always looking for ways to invite students into their first steps of spirituality while they are with us at King’s. The goal I have for many of them is not so much to bring them into the Church while they complete their degree at King’s, but to invite them into their first encounters with God. And this can be a challenge given all the many distractions of modern life. God encounters us and speaks to us in the present, but in the college environment of essays to prepare, internships to plan, and careers to start, sitting in the present moment and attending to the still, silent voice can feel like a task totally foreign.
Beth and Jahmeel started our students off with a 15-minute guided meditation – an experience of releasing their concerns about the future, putting to rest their worries about past, and attending to the present. They followed up with multiple improv activities that require active listening – activities that fall apart if you slip into thinking about your to-do list or your worries about the year.
So too, our preoccupations with how we appear, sound, and are received block our ability to open our true selves to the God who loves us. A couple of the improv activities required a complete letting go of worrying about how we would be perceived or received. Once somebody became too concerned with that perception, the entire flow of the activity became disrupted. So much of the experience of college is wrapped up in thinking – classes, exams, social standing, futures, to-do lists, clubs, work – that we often forget what it means just to be. To be still. As the psalms say,
“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
Beth and Jahmeel had experienced the deep peace that comes with the ability to let go of our thoughts and to be still with God. They found that their experiences doing and teaching improv had helped them grow in their own awareness of God’s presence.
Without naming their session as an introduction to spirituality, our theater professors were able to introduce spirituality and an experience of God that moves from the head to the heart. They have provided many of these students with the essential building blocks for a relationship with God that we will continue to cultivate in their experience as Resident Assistants.
Br. Jimmy Henke, C.S.C.
Published 21 August 2024
