Los Angeles Times
By Joe Mozingo
In his quest to have students experience firsthand how people around the world worship, Varun Soni, the dean of religious life at USC, did not start up some expensive study-abroad program. He just ventured a few blocks from campus.
Within a square mile, he and his staff discovered 67 places of worship. And that was without crossing the Harbor Freeway just to the east.
Earlier this semester, Soni started a weekly "Souljourn" to explore that religious diversity, bringing students of different faiths to churches of different faiths, from Hare Krishna to Tao to Pentecostal.
On Sunday about 10 a.m., four Wiccans, a Buddhist, a Sufi and an agnostic filed up the rickety stairs to the balcony of the Virgin Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Hundreds of congregants filled the pews, many men wearing suit coats, women wrapped in gauzy white scarves. They chanted joyously with the choir in Amharic, tended restless children and clapped the deep detonations of the kubaro drum.
With no English translation, the students took in the distinct mix of African sound -- the ululating and drums -- with the Western fixtures of votive candles, incense and stained glass.
"It was beautiful," said Jaclyn Kalkhurst, 23, who runs a Pagan-Wiccan group on campus. "We love the drums. We want to get one now."
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