Love never meant much to Dorthy Beemon as she was growing up. The Saginaw native was born into a life with a mother who struggled with a dependency on drugs and an alcoholic father. At age 6, Beemon was out of her home and into foster care, eventually ending up at her grandmother’s house. After her grandmother died, Beemon said she felt like she was living with no guidance and no purpose.
“I just assumed it was how life was for everyone else,” she said. “When I would see my father, he would say he loved me, but since he wasn’t there, it really didn’t mean much to me. When people would tell me that they loved me, it didn’t faze me. I didn’t believe it, I didn’t trust it and I didn’t care much about it.”
Beemon started attending church after she moved into her aunt and uncle’s house during high school. In a life void of role models, she said God became her only stabilizing factor.
“Christ came at a time when I felt like I had completely lost everyone,” she said. “Then someone was telling me about this heavenly father and he became a parent to me.”
Beemon, a higher, adult and lifelong education graduate student, is the first member of her family to go to college and is one of many students at MSU trying to balance their academic and spiritual lives. Although some consider the lives of religious people to be saturated in archaic rituals and observances, religion continues to be one of the most important aspects of life for many at MSU.
Coexist
After millennia of crusades and holy wars, religion often has been treated as a means for conflict rather than a reason for peace, said Nada Zohdy, an international relations senior.
Zohdy is co-chair of the Interfaith Council, an assembly of religious students who believe individuals’ religious identities shouldn’t prevent them from helping others, she said.
“It’s a great opportunity to not only help bring together people of different perspectives to learn about each other, (but to) help students deal with religious issues with the administration,” she said. “Of course religion is often used to divide people, but it can also be a really powerful way to bring people together.”
The council is completing its first semester of operation and welcomes students of any faith, Zohdy said.
This semester, the council has addressed the Israel-Palestine conflict, sexuality in religion and differences in religious texts.
“When you really look deeper than you can through reading and really talk to people about practicing, you realize there’s more in common than you may initially think,” said Geoff Levin, an international relations junior and a Jewish member of the council. “If we can’t coexist at a friendly and wonderful place like MSU, then there’s not a lot of hope for coexistence elsewhere.”
Spirituality of the sexes
Zohdy, who practices Islam, decided to change the way she observed her religion when she made the transition to college.
Zohdy began to wear a hijab, which is a traditional head covering worn by many Muslim women. The hijab covers much of the head and face, which Zohdy said leads many outside the religion to wrongly consider it a means of restricting and oppressing women. Wearing the traditional clothing allows her to be judged on her intellect, as opposed to her body, she said.
“For those of us who do choose to wear it, we see it as something that’s very liberating,” she said. “As a woman, just by distracting attention away from your physical being and your body, you can find the message that you respect yourself and that you want others to respect you, too.”
Similar to how Zohdy made a change when she entered college, going to school is a time when many religious students examine how their religion works for them, said The Rev. Sarah Midzalkowski, the chaplain of Canterbury MSU, an Episcopalian organization for MSU students, faculty and staff.
Midzalkowski works closely with many Christian students and said she often is approached by lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender students who struggle with the belief that homosexuality is a sin. Christianity has received a reputation for being against the LBGT community, but not every Christian shares those beliefs, she said.
“If God makes us to be who we are, then there’s some folks who are gay and God has made them that way,” she said.
“We celebrate whoever they are.”
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Hospitality business sophomore James Rudolph has been going to church his entire life and said God played a major role in helping him get through difficult periods, such as coming out to his parents.
Rudolph said it is asinine that — by only acting as God made him — he could be labeled a sinner.
“It’s a flawed mentality that they have,” he said.
“They’re taking small pieces that they want to see and putting it in front of all this other text that says it should be about love.”
God is love
Since Beemon has chosen to embrace religion, she said her life has changed for the better. She’s stopped drinking, stopped partying and started caring about more than just herself, she said.
“I pretty much hit bottom,” she said. “I didn’t see a purpose in living. Just knowing there was someone else who loved me more than I could ever love myself and that person being Christ or God … it just helped me get through that whole situation.”
After growing up in an atmosphere in which she didn’t know what the meaning of love was, Beemon said her relationships now are more meaningful than ever.
“It’s not just a feeling anymore,” she said. “I show people how much I love them, and in turn, they show that towards me.”
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