Last week, our Executive Director, Prof. Najeeba Syeed, joined a group of scholars from around the world who were invited to the Bahamas by the Templeton Religion Trust.
The gathering included interfaith thought leaders whose insight could shape the future of the Trust’s grantmaking. We look forward to continuing to contribute to local, national and international conversations!
Our executive director Prof Najeeba Syeed and President Paul Pribbenow were quoted in the Star Tribune newspaper this past week! In the article, they shared reflections about interfaith solidarity and connections made across the Twin Cities. These relationships have been especially important in the past year, and new connections continue being made, as reported by Minnesota journalist Mara Klecker.
“Minnesotans turned to faith communities to help during the ICE surge. Some stayed for Sunday worship.”
Prof. Najeeba Syeed has written a reflection “In Defense of Awkward Spaces”:
The spark that ignites understanding, before the magic of humanizing one for another comes through the space that feels hard, feels unnavigable, it pulls on our imagination.
I spent much of my summer as a steward of awkward space. Teaching mediators, leaders, students, university administrators, community organizers and others to *hold* that space.
The flourishing silences, the unpredictable exchanges, the fumbling moments, the times when we pray our tongue is untied for others to understand us (that is a prayer of Musa (Moses) that I shared this summer with others from the Muslim tradition.
Leadership needs us to to be vulnerable and awkward. Maybe we need to hold our selves as examples of works in progress not just paragons of perfection, and to hold others when they fall apart, maybe just a little maybe sometimes a lot.
I am here for your awkwardness I embrace it and you. I hope you will do the same for me.
Together I believe it’s the only way we will all flourish.
It can be helpful to model awkwardness as a facilitator. I know this is counter intuitive when you want to seem the expert, I’ve learned people respond much more to authenticity. Share a story of what didn’t work in the past, be honest about a time you were nervous about a conversation.
Facilitators who’ve had to navigate awkwardness together and came out of the tunnel as closer colleagues and friends are often a great team to lead these kinds of spaces.
And remember every space is awkward for someone in the room.
Maybe it’s time we all embrace, and even celebrate those awkward moments.
Prof. Najeeba Syeed was interviewed on the podcast Bigger Than Belief with Adam Duxter, produced by WCCO, the local Minnesota CBS affiliate television station. The episode covers a range of topics: “Facing a Cancer Diagnosis: Najeeba Syeed on Faith Across Differences & Finding Peace in Uncertainty.”
As WCCO writes, Prof. Najeeba Syeed “challenges the idea that religious differences must divide us. Instead, she argues that authentic faith should expand our capacity to love our neighbors, engage conflict with courage, and build meaningful relationships with people who see the world differently. The conversation takes an unexpected and deeply personal turn when Najeeba reveals she is awaiting results from a biopsy and facing the possibility of a cancer diagnosis. In that vulnerable moment, she reflects on prayer, uncertainty, and the surprising people who have shown up for her—including friends and colleagues from different faith traditions. Her story becomes a powerful reminder that our deepest connections often emerge not from shared beliefs, but from shared humanity.”
Timestamps
Today we were so honored to meet Ms. Halima! She graduated from high school this year, now in her seventies. As she said today, “it’s never too late to pursue your education.”
As a Somali American woman, and community leader in Cedar Riverside, she is a shining example of what is possible at any age.
We crossed paths with Ms. Halima at Bryan Coyle Center as part of the West Bank Restorative Practices Collaborative. We serve as a trainer and evaluation partner with Cedar Riverside Athletics & Enrichment, Pillsbury United Communities: Bryan Coyle Center, and Daryeel Youth MN. Learn more about the collaborative and to access services on this website.
Interfaith Institute Executive Director Najeeba Syeed was featured in an Augsburg spotlight in the Sahan Journal.
Founded in August of 2019, the Sahan Journal is a nonprofit digital newsroom dedicated to reporting for immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota. Education reporter Becky Z. Dernbach provided a window into community care on campus: “Caught in the crosshairs: How Augsburg University mobilized to protect students during the ICE surge.”
Read more in the article ➜
The podcast Created in the Image of God, hosted by Wade Fransson, invites guests to
discuss human nature and the role of religion in our society.
Our Execuitve Director, Prof.Najeeba Syeed, was a recent guest, sharing about her childhood experience as a Muslim girl in Indiana, and the development of her career in peacemaking. The interview is featured in episode 237, which was posted on April 13, 2026.
By: Jerilyn Miller, Sr. Benefactor Relations Specialist
There was a moment during the Interfaith Symposium—Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves—when the room grew still.
Rev. Jen Bailey, the keynote speaker, began with a story. She spoke about her grandmother, who worked the sugarcane fields of the American South in the 1930s and 40s, in the shadow of Jim Crow. Despite the violence and inequity around her, she cultivated dignity, community, and life from the land.
In that story was something deeper—the connection between soil and survival, between land and liberation.
Bailey named what many are already feeling. We are living, she said, in a time of “toxic soil.” Not only environmentally, but relationally and spiritually. The fractures we see—climate crisis, political division, loneliness, mistrust—are not isolated problems. They point to a deeper disconnection: from one another, from the earth, and from our shared humanity.
“This is not just a political crisis,” she said. “It is a relational crisis… a spiritual crisis.”
And yet, she did not leave the room in despair.
Instead, she offered another image: sunflowers.
Drawing on the concept of phytoremediation—plants that draw toxins out of the soil—Bailey described the slow, patient work of healing. Even damaged soil can be restored. Not quickly. Not easily. But through sustained care.
Healing, in this vision, is not a grand solution. It is a practice.
With native flower seed packets in hand, participants turned to one another—sharing ideas, hopes, and the ways they are already tending their communities. For Augsburg senior Zuko Buechler ‘26 an urban studies major, the conversation felt both personal and practical.
“I’m learning a lot about practices with the land and healing,” Buechler said. “It’s making me think about how I can plant these seeds at my grandmother’s [home] and share in her love of gardening —a connection that has shaped me.”
Bailey closed with a simple invitation: a daily discipline of choosing to plant something life-giving, even when there is no guarantee of what will grow.
Over lunch, the conversation continued—grounded in honesty about life experiences and resilience. Bex Klafter of Lutheran Social Services reflected on what stayed with her most:
“All land is good,” she said. “There is value—even when the soil needs to be amended.”
It is a simple idea, but one that shifts the frame. Healing does not begin with perfection. It begins with what is already here.
At Augsburg, that kind of work takes shape in real time—in conversations like these, in shared practices, and in a community willing to stay with what is difficult and choosing to tend to what is possible.
We’re delighted that Augsburg University President Paul Pribbenow utilized our Executive Director, Prof. Najeeba Syeed’s writing on a lived theology of neighborliness in his recent piece for the Martin Marty Center at University of Chicago Divinity School.
If there is a blessing to be wrestled from the wreckage of Operation Metro Surge, it’s that our students have received an indelible education in what my colleague Najeeba Syeed calls a “lived theology of neighborliness,” one that is likely to shape their lives forever.
Read his full piece here:
https://martycenter.org/
