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From the Alumni Journal of the
Syracuse University Magazine
Spiritual Quest
As a student choir director at SU’s
Hendricks Chapel, Katherine Wachter Engel ’83 was unsure how she could combine
her love of spirituality, people, and travel with a bachelor’s degree in music
education from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. In search of an answer
she traversed the North American continent, living in Michigan, Alaska,
Virginia, and Florida before settling in Minnesota. “I lived in many places,
taking jobs at different churches as choir director and acting in local
performance troupes,” says Engel, who later earned a master’s degree in voice
performance from Eastern Michigan University. “I was living the starving artist
life.”
After making her way to
Minneapolis, Engel took a new direction in life. In three years, she witnessed
five close friends and family members die. Dealing with her losses transformed
her, and the need to explore her personal spirituality became stronger. She
researched her options, and discovered an interfaith program at All Faiths
Seminary International in New York City. “I always had an interest in going to a
seminary,” she says. “A friend convinced me to go. I completed the accelerated
program and was ordained.”
Engel is now the choir director of
Spirit United Interfaith Church in Minneapolis, and the founder of an adult
performance group, InnerVoice. Through concerts, plays, and poetry centered
around a common theme, the members of InnerVoice aim to promote healing and
encourage inner peace. “We consider a concert successful if we have reached
someone—encouraged someone to pause, reflect, consider a position, smile, laugh,
cry, or in any way feel a little more deeply and be aware of those feelings and
the world around them,” she says.
As a minister, Engel offers
interfaith services for weddings, commitments, funerals, memorials, baptisms,
and namings; gives spiritual counseling; and blesses homes and offices. “I am
happy and fulfilled because I’m doing everything I love,” she says, crediting
her success to years of performing and exploring, and to her time at SU. “Those
were good years for me,” she says. “I loved being there. It was the foundation
that helped build who I am today.”
—Ashley Sterne
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