The touch of the priest’s fingertips on the middle of my forehead left my skin tingling. I had stood in front of him with my arms crossed over my chest to receive a blessing instead of communion. I attended Mass for the first time at the Catholic Newman Center with UW senior Rochelle Borthwick, who has been a practicing Catholic since birth.

“I was raised Catholic, and I always knew what I believed. I just didn’t know why until I got to college,” Borthwick said. “It’s like when a blind man sees for the first time.”

College is a “time of flux” when people tend to seek religion, said James Felak, associate professor of history at the UW. Dealing with death, as I have been doing in the past few weeks, or having children can also lead people to evaluate — or re-evaluate — their beliefs.

“[Religion] gives meaning and purpose to your life,” Felak said. “It’s hard to find meaning in your life unless there’s something greater than yourself. [It] gives you an order, a coherence to your life.”

I grew up without that order, without that coherence. I celebrated Christmas and Easter, but neither one had a religious significance to me, and I have only attended church three times in my life. During elementary school, when I was trying to find something to believe in, I was repeatedly told I was going to hell because I didn’t believe in God. Well, I didn’t believe in hell, either.

I attended Mass with Borthwick and later a Buddhist ceremony because, after 19 years without faith, I genuinely wanted to find out how the other half — the religious half — lives, so to speak. Specifically, I chose to explore Catholicism and Buddhism because my mother was raised Catholic, but I’d always had an interest in the Buddhist belief of reincarnation.

My childhood was very different than Borthwick’s, who was confirmed in high school and became involved at the Newman Center when she started at the UW.

“Being Catholic is like my very identity,” Borthwick told me. “My beliefs play a role in every decision I make.”

The Mass I attended was very formal. The priest read from the Bible, the congregation sang, and the service ended with communion. I wasn’t bored, but I wanted a more individual experience, which I hoped to find in my next religious encounter.

Melody Rynerson, a second-year graduate student in genome sciences, had parents who were Nichiren Buddhists, so she was raised in the religion. But it wasn’t until she became a teenager that being a Buddhist actually started to mean something to her.

Nichiren Buddhism, developed by Nichiren Daishonin in 1253, is “peaceful but not passive,” Rynerson said.

“I found that having a practice or philosophy made me happier,” she said.

The type of Buddhism that Rynerson practices requires chanting twice a day from the Lotus Sutra, the final written sutra — scripture recorded from the Buddha’s oral teachings. Within the practice and the Lotus Sutra, it is said that each person contains Buddha inside of him or her and is capable of obtaining Buddhahood.

“It’s something you can’t buy,” said Jill Oshiro, who occasionally hosts Buddhist meetings at her U-District apartment. “Someone can’t give it to you; it’s something you have to do in your own life.”

Each week, small groups gather at someone’s house or apartment to chant and talk about their individual practice. Two weeks ago, I was able to attend a meeting at Oshiro’s apartment. The chanting of “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo,” a mantra central to Nichiren Buddhism, began as the last few people trickled into the apartment. Parts of the Lotus Sutra were recited, along with silent prayers. The chanting was rhythmic, almost droning, but constantly changing and full of energy. Most of the 12 people there rubbed beads together in reverence. Then, the chanting stopped and discussion began.

Because not everyone knew each other, they each spoke of how they began practicing Buddhism. Some talked about the three pillars of Buddhism: faith, practice and study.

UW alumna Yuri Sagawa recalled her two-hour-long first experience with chanting.

“When I got up, I felt lighter,” Sagawa said. “I felt happier than I had in a really long time.”

To me, religion seems to be more than just bringing happiness or purpose to life, as Felak mentioned. It gives friends, relationships and, most importantly, a sense of community and belonging. Having attended both the Buddhist ceremony and Catholic Mass, I was able to see that they were so different that it’s hard to even lump them together in the same sentence, but there were moments in each where I felt the same overwhelming sense of faith and hope.

While “sampling” these completely different religions, I dealt with my own time of change. After a close friend passed away unexpectedly, I was able to find answers in two different realms: the security of knowing that he might be in heaven or the happiness that he will forever be a part of this world through reincarnation.

Religions require you to believe in things beyond the earthly realm, whether it’s something inside of you or everywhere.

“Every religion is weird from an earthly perspective,” Felak said. “God actually gives you the power to have faith,” which is something that most people don’t realize through their search for religion, faith and meaning.

Through this, I’ve figured out that it takes an open mind to find religion, but faith finds you: You cannot be converted; you cannot be convinced.

Reach reporter Ella Williams at features@dailyuw.com.