So sometimes I follow through with plan. Here I am with an update that is actually weekly. Go me. Though type of post is morphing into what is a reflection on my thoughts for the past week than necessarily an update on my tasks (which are rather monotonous and boring).

The paradox of human life, the complexity of being human hits home when I think to myself: yes, a win for me. And then, turn around and contemplate all the death and failure littering my landscape. If anything is being driven home to me over the past couple of years (what day of March 2020 is it?) it’s the necessity of finding stability in the midst of uncertainty, and that finding said stability can happen. I’ve joked in the past that me running a church is like a local parish version of Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. Every step is uncertain and the only certain steps are the ones I’ve taken (both successfully and unsuccessfully). But this type of uncertain stepping is growing familiar, so is stumbling when that step gives way and the thrill of security of stone beneath my feet.

Everything begins to be redefined when you walk like this, nearly in place but making strides forward nonetheless (sometimes, it’s good to turn around and see just how much progress you’ve made, it’s more than you realize). For me, contemplating concepts like hope and faith, love and grace, fear and anger, take on different complexities today than they did three years ago. All that we have is now and it is what it is are my go to phrases and mantras. New foci come to the surface in these times, walking with such intention and being forced to be so present where you are. For me, someone so oriented on tasks and deeds (read: books and writing) I’ve become more and more aware–in a visceral way–how important people are. I don’t think it helps that I’m waist deep in Dorothee Sölle’s work, a true theologian of the people for the people. (More on her another time, if it’s so desired.) But seriously, people matter. YOU matter.

So, as begin to see how much people matter everything around me becomes about people: does this thing cause people to thrive or does it hinder them? If it hinders their thriving (and especially if it hinders their survival) do we need to eliminate it, redefine it, rebuild it? These questions are important, and we have to ask them because people are dying. And none of us should be okay with that. So, how do institutions like the church and the academy (two institutions I love and serve (in some form)) participate in the people’s thriving or death? If as a priest and academic my works do not bring life and liberation to people, then I must reevaluate and ask why? I must look at the rituals and rites, the demands and expectations, the traditions and tasks, the building and the presence, of both and at how I participate in each realm in perpetuating death and violence and life and liberation.

I must ask hard questions here:

What is the Academy? What is the Academy for? For whom does the Academy exist? What does it mean to be a scholar? What does it mean to be a professor? What is a scholar? What is a professor? What is my focus here? Is it me and my scholarship? Or is it those whom I’m charge to teach and educate? Where is the institution causing unnecessary burnout through too much bureaucracy and administration?

What is the Church? Who is the church? What does it mean to be a priest? A deacon? A Bishop? Are all these rites and rituals necessary? Where do they bring comfort? Where are they bringing death? What does power look like here? Should we even have “power” held by humans in the church? Where has our hierarchy gone haywire? Where are we serving our own spiritual wantonness as leaders of the church rather than the beloved of God? Why are roles being abused? Why has the church been so willing to lose it’s story? (Here I can only ask this of the Episcopal Church, of which I’m an ordained priest.) What do we even believe? Why exist as the c/Church?

What traditionalisms must be put to final rest? What deeds bring the most life? Where is fear running rampant? Why is fear even present here? Where did we lose our way? Where have we (as leaders) gone wrong and astray? Where is our humility? Where is our confession? Where is our self-awareness? Where are we placing unethical financial demands on people? Why are we doing this? Why are we demanding archaic adherence to activities and deeds that worked before Covid happened but no longer work? And, did they ever work before Covid? Where are we still serving patriarchy, abelism, capitalism, selfishism, autonomy, heteronormativity, sexism and racism? Why are we still serving these things? Why and where are we, the leadership of these institutions, further burdening really burdened people?

Where are we stuck? Where are we growing? Are we growing? How do we become unstuck? To what desires must I die? Where am I putting myself too much ahead of others for no good reason? Where do I need to relearn? What do I need to relearn? What do I need to unlearn? Where am I forcing people into my own ideologies and ideas rather than allowing them to self-express and self-determine and self-realize?

Anyway, there are so many more questions we can be asking right now as we walk through this moment in history. My heart breaks as I watch two institutions struggle to maintain what was rather than embracing the transition through death into new life. I know we need something new in both arenas; I don’t know what that looks like. I do think that if reformation doesn’t come to both, they will continue to hinder life and liberation more and more and the bodies will continue to stack up. We cannot continue for too much longer with the way things are. I’m finding it harder and harder to uphold and honor commitments to both when I see people being more and more wounded and sacrificed on the altar of Mammon.

For the love of God, in the name of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, people matter, God’s beloved matters, YOU matter. And for you, I’ll fight.