The coffee maker I use was my father's. It's not a fancy coffee maker. It's a Mr. coffee. He had a spare when we moved from California back to Virginia. It was waiting for us in the little house we rented from them when we arrived. Covid had just shut down the country and they weren't supposed to be there when we arrived, but there was my father and my stepmother. And the coffee maker.

Every morning, I think about that. Every morning, I get up and remember their refusal to participate in Covid protocols. I remember how good it was to see them. I remember how frustrated I was to see them.

My father would pass away just a few weeks after we arrived. Congestive heart failure. He didn't want to go to the hospital because he didn't want to die there alone. So he died in his living room. He said he would. He said years before that we would be wheeling his body out of the house that he lived in for the last 30+ years of his life. And he did. And we did. In the deep of the night.

I have the coffee maker to prove it.

It's the day-to-day reminders that are actually our inheritance.

I love them. I can be sentimental. It's true. And it makes great coffee.

So when you hear about me drinking coffee in the morning…yes, I have a caffeine addiction. And my father still enables it. Ha!

That’s Monday morning.

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Today, I have to work on my day off. Sometimes, that’s just how it goes. I have two morning meetings to attend. I worked over the weekend, otherwise I wouldn’t mind. Life as the head of Richmond Hill can be demanding. It’s a constant effort to maintain healthy boundaries and to get one’s work done at the same time.

Life is a series of memories, of recollections played out again and again. Life has an anamnetical quality to it. We recollect and make the past real again by reentering the moment. Every morning I reenter that arrival to Richmond and the kindness of my father and stepmother. Every morning I reenter my father’s death. I reenter my stepmother’s death just a year ago. This is what grief and love look like. They are always bound together…

…in hand-me-downs.

The title for this evening’s sermon is “I Will Do It.” 

Jesus is the embodiment of the God of Promise, the Incarnation of Hope Fulfilled. What Jesus says God will do, God will do. Have faith. 

The readings tonight also include a verse that I believe has been misused again and again to claim a false exclusivity to revelation and faithfulness. It has been used to excuse murder and warfare, antisemitism, and even genocide. 

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

There is no one way to God. 

Such a claim is anti-Gospel. The God of Promise is a God of Promise for everyone…no matter how you get there. 

Yes, your Pastoral Director is a Christian Universalist. Sorry. 

The Lord be with you. 
Let us pray. 
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief and give us all the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.

“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?”

As some of you all know, I did not grow up in Church. I grew up in and around Richmond, yes, and there was that short stint in Florida, but I did not grow up in Church. 

I grew up in the Bible Belt. That's a different thing. 

The Bible Belt is not Church. Though we conflate the two all the time. The Bible Belt is a sociological or political term that makes a geographic claim on certain parts of the United States where a very particular conservative, even fundamentalist, interpretation of scripture is taken as normative. 

It is white nationalist Christendom, but it is not The Church. 

I grew up with Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell in my mind. You could not escape the Religious Right. They were a political force to be reckoned with in Virginia and in the nation. You could not avoid their theologies. You could not avoid the claims to exceptionalism and exclusivity. Jesus was the only way to salvation. And such salvation is American to the core.

I cannot tell you how many times one of my well-meaning classmates would come to me and ask me if I were saved. 

“Have you accepted Jesus into your heart?” 

Were they worried about my immortal soul or something else? Though I question even the veracity of their claims on salvation, I don’t believe they were worried about my soul. Instead, they were worried about my social standing and my politics. Or at best, they could not tell the difference. 

Yes, even in high school. Even in junior high school. Even in elementary school. We were teaching our children how to judge one another through a quasi-Christian lens from the very beginning.

But I digress. This stuff gets me worked up. 

It is hard not to get caught up in the negativity. It is hard not to lash out when one is told that they are unworthy of God’s love, that they cannot come to Jesus until they purify themselves when they are barely old enough to know themselves.  

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

This passage about Jesus being the way has been misused again and again and again. We who have used it as an exclusivist claim forget what follows. This is where Philip saves us. His confusion and doubt is a breath of fresh air.

“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?”

It is not obvious what Jesus is saying here. 

It is not obvious to his followers. It is not obvious to his best friends. They too are hung up on a definition of God that excludes others. They too are hung up on a definition of God that removes God from the human condition, a God that does not fulfill God’s promises. 

What Jesus is trying to say is that if you want to know God, get to know him. If you haven't seen Jesus do it, God won't do it. If you have seen Jesus do it, God will do it. 

Jesus never excluded anybody. 
	Not even those who disagreed with him. 
		He got mad. 
			He got frustrated. 
				He got sad. 
					He corrected. 
						But he never excluded. 

He welcomed. 
	He invited. 
		He forgave. 
			He died rather than exclude. 

He pointed people to salvation. And then claimed that salvation had come to earth and was for everyone. “Thy Kingdom come…” not the other way round. 

Saint John Chrysostom, the famous fourth century preacher and bishop claimed that this famous verse was simply intended to comfort the disciples who were afraid of the religious authorities at the time who were making their own claims about the identity of Jesus. Jesus was not talking about other faith traditions. Instead, he was comforting his friends essentially saying, “I have your back.” 

Thus sayeth the Lord, “I have your back.”

How often are we like the disciples who see Jesus face to face but struggle to trust the God of Promise? 

How often do we hear religious leaders claim exclusive rights to revelation and forget the promise that Jesus made in this passage? 

What was his promise?

I. Will. Do. It. 

Your neighbor’s eternal salvation is not your business. In fact, John Chrysostom again, will remind us all that Jesus emptied Hell…and hell is none to happy. 

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

I love John Chrysostom. He got it.

I. Will. Do. It. 

This is how we say it in our Rule of Life here at Richmond Hill. 

Ecumenism: honoring all expressions of Christian faith respecting in Jesus’ name all persons of other religions and faith. 

Why in “Jesus’ name”? Because that is what Jesus would have done. Jesus respects all paths because it is what God would do. Jesus’ way only works if it is the way for everyone no matter what culture you were born into or what religion you practice. It is the way of love and reverence for all humanity, all creation. 

We at Richmond Hill live the rule of Ecumenism and not Exclusivity. We see the Imago Dei in all people. We find God’s voice in the words of all people. God does not only speak to the Christian. The God of Promise is too big a God for that. 

Jesus sets us free. Boundless. We will do greater works, the scriptures say. Healing. Restoration. Reconciliation. Resurrection…it is all available to us because Jesus is the way, the way that we are called to follow. His way, as someone has said, only works if he is the way. And his way is a way for all.

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 

Well, the way looks like God because Jesus looks like God. Get it?

Jesus offers a way. 

He offers a way through. 

He offers a way out. 

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I don’t know exactly where to begin this morning. Originally, we were talking about intersectionality and marginalized bodies. We were talking about how they show up in liturgy specifically. And the way that they show up in liturgy is also how they show up in community because our liturgies are mirrors that we hold up to better see community.

Our liturgies are mirrors we hold up to better see ourselves.

They are the interpersonal and psychosocial craft we create within the religious and spiritual milieu known as Christianity.

So we were talking about ways of confessing the complexities of what it means to be alive in the 21st-century and not falling into the pitfalls of progressivism. The fact that I am typing this post on a computer manufactured by Apple shows the difficulties we face. The sins of cheap labor and environmental extraction are almost unavoidable at this point. Billionaires are running the table.

And as consumers, we are culpable. It may feel like we don’t have choices, but I think we have more choices than we realize.

At any rate, I was gonna write about that issue and how we will engage this quandary in our liturgies. Then you walked out of chapel.

We wrote about that. You were gracious. I was apologetic and befuddled. There’s much more work to be done here as well.

The through line for us, however, is liturgy. How we worship can reinforce social sin. How we worship can reinforce interpersonal sin. We see this throughout the centuries. There is no escaping our sin even when we create liturgy.

Our holy rites are simply reflections of the state of our souls.

We aspire to be more than we are. We aspire to be children of God and reflect that identity in particular ways. And those aspirations show up in our liturgy.

So I want to take us back to the question of confession.

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How do we say, “I fucked up. Again. Perhaps in the same way I did last week.” in the liturgy?

And is what we are already doing sufficient? Many traditions include a confession before the Eucharist. “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sent against you in thought word, and deed…”

“Once again I have not loved my neighbor as myself. In fact, merciful God, I have totally made a hash of it. I’ve been a bastard all week. Or at least on Wednesday. On Wednesday I really fucked it up.”

How visceral does the language need to be? We have this kind of heightened language that we use in the liturgy in my tradition. But it is also very formal language. Does it capture the pathos of sin? Or is it so polite that we have whitewashed sin? I am afraid that we have done the latter.

I’m not saying that we have to put profanity in the mouths of worshipers. I like profanity. But I realize that mine is a minority view.

I have started many personal meditations with, “Dear Jesus, what the actual fuck…” This language doesn’t work for everybody.

And yet I cannot escape the honesty and forthrightness that comes with this kind of language. So what would it look like to clean it up a bit? Where do we allow for people to actually confess who they are? Do we need to teach on the nature of confession?

We can talk about the history of it. We can educate people on the nature of it. We can talk about what it means to keep silence after we confess, and before we offer one another the peace. But what we need to stop leaving out, if we are leaving it out, is the importance of taking a moment and reflecting on your life and admitting that we fall short all the time. We are not as kind as we wish we were. We are trapped in systems that make us oppressors. We benefit from these systems. We benefit from the oppression of other people. We benefit from purity culture. We benefit from sexism. We benefit from homophobia. We benefit from transphobia.

Who is this we I’m talking about? White men. A lot of of the time. But not all the time. Sometimes it’s more than just white men. But it needs to start with white men.

I benefit when intersectional bodies suffer.

This is why I talked about the intersectional body of Christ. It is easy to think that the body of Christ looks like me. It is easy to think of the body is Christ as privileged and white. It does not come easily for me to think about the body of Christ as being a marginalized and intersectional body. The body of Christ is a trans queer black woman. How can that be? She is impure.

This is precisely the reason why I have stated on multiple occasions throughout my career as a public theologian, preacher, and miscreant, that Christianity is an impurity cult. Jesus was not establishing a new purity cult. He was trying to blow up the category itself. So I like to play with the language and say that Jesus was establishing an impurity cult.

What I think of as pure is not holy. What I think of as impure is actually holy.

This is the Beatitudes in Luke. Blessed are the poor. The poor are impure. If they were pure, they would be wealthy. But here is Jesus saying that they are actually blessed. They are actually pure. It is those of us who are wealthy who are fucked. This is as good as it gets for us. Our second or third car… Our second or third house… What passes for upper middle class in the United States is as good as it gets for those of us who enjoy it.

And as you have stated so clearly, life in America is based on falsehoods and abuse. Where are we strip mining the materials needed to make my computer? My computer, my precious technology, that I fashioned as a blessing in my mind, is not blessed.

So again, back to the liturgy.

We have to be more rigorous in our honesty. We have to be uncomfortable. What would that look like? As others have written, and I’m thinking of Annie Dillard, if our liturgy is an escatological gathering, how do we show that? Dillard said we should be wearing helmets when we gather on Sundays. But nothing in our liturgy suggests that we need a helmet. Quite the opposite.

So today, I am thinking about liturgical language and rigorous honesty.

Thank you for these conversations. Let’s keep them going.

How long to we let this list grow? and I have been writing back and forth for a little bit now, and the conversation has been rich and helpful. Hopeful, too. You can catch up by reading the linked posts below.

1. Part 1

2. Part 2

3. Part 3

4. Part 4

5. Part 5

6. Part 6

Have you ever seen disaster coming and done nothing about it? Maybe you haven’t. It’s a bizarre feeling. Heartbreak, complicity, and all manner of anger, outrage, and furor rush through your system. My system, I should say.

Yesterday at our noon chapel service, I neglected to do something that I normally do. I neglected to read the Pauline epistle assigned in the lectionary before the service started. I do this because so much of the Pauline corpus has been used to promote anti-semitic doctrines and social policies throughout Christian history. I find that to be theological malpractice. So, I have occasionally been known to explain the difficult passages, to situate them in some way. I’ve done this during Advent, too, when Revelation is assigned. But I’m only able to do this when I’ve read ahead of time.

I did not do this yesterday. And I just kept reading as I saw the sky falling and you walking out of chapel. Again, I am deeply sorry. I am sorry that my tradition is tone deaf. I am sorry that I didn’t simply stop and switch it up somehow. Or, as suggested, preface the reading with something about how the passage has been used to encourage genocide. Please accept my apology.

There are difficult and hurtful writings in the Bible. We encountered one of the worst yesterday. We read 1 Thessalonians 2:14-20.

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

I feel a particular responsibility because you are my friend and a member of the Richmond Hill community. As “abbot” of an urban monastery, everyone in the Richmond Hill community, whether they be resident, staff, council, or part of the wider community, is my responsibility in some way.

The Rule of St. Benedict has a lot to say about the roll of abbot, but let me highlight this little tidbit. Benedict had some strong feelings here.

And let him know that he who has undertaken the government of souls must prepare himself for rendering an account. And however great the number of brethren he knows he has under his care, let him recognize for certain that he will have to account to the Lord for all their souls in the day of judgment and without doubt for his own soul in addition.

Our salvation is wrapped up in one another. The harm done, the good done, the kindness and love shown, the cruelty and spite shown are all a part of what it means to share life together in community. And the Pastoral Director is responsible for the spiritual health of the community. The Pastoral Director is responsible for creating, directing, and maintaining the rhythms of Richmond Hill.

I failed you yesterday. It would have been so easy for me to say, as you suggested, “Creator, we confess that the text that we are about to read has been used to justify hate in the name of Jesus…” I would continue with something like, “Redeem us as we hear again this word from our brother Paul. May we find grace and forgiveness for what evil has been done on our behalf and in your name. Amen.”

I could have invited us into deeper conversation with one another.

I wrote elsewhere that when a tradition has been used to harm someone, it is up to the practitioners of that tradition to change that tradition. It is not the responsibility of the harmed to make that change. When people are harmed, have advocated for themselves, and have not been heard, we repeat the harm done. We underscore it, turning it into doctrine and, eventually, “right practice.”

My tradition, Christianity, can be anti-semitic. And, as you stated so clearly, “Requiring graduate-level textual criticism to undo the formation a text is doing in real time is not a pastoral burden we can reasonably place on anyone.” But that burden is upon those who have been given charge over the community. If you have the education, and I do, should you not do something about it?

So, this is what I propose at Richmond Hill. We will adopt liturgical language, a kind of early warning system that reminds us that harm has been done on our behalf and ask for grace and forgiveness in the face of this truth.

And, I want to go further. In the Christian east, for example, you will not find Revelation in the liturgical lectionary. It is considered hermeneutically too complex and potentially harmful to just read aloud without profound explication. So, they deploy it in other ways liturgically. What if we…I…worked on creating a lectionary that was more self-aware of the harm done to marginalized groups, intersectional people(s), to the benefit of the privileged? The lectionary is not sacred. It is simply a tool that is designed to help a community hear as much of the scriptures as possible in the course of a year…or three. It was designed by a committee. I studied under some of those people. It can be redesigned by their academic inheritors. See: me and my nerdy friends.

Side note: Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney has written a womanist lectionary. That would be worth looking at as well. We are not beholden to the Presbyterian or Episcopal traditions to use their lectionaries. We are not beholden to the World Council of Churches to use the Revised Common Lectionary. We have the freedom to do something else entirely. And I think we should.

It’s time for me to make the coffee. Thank you for your graciousness in continuing this conversation. I’m grateful.

Affectionately,

Tripp

and I have begun exchanging letters. We’re talking about what it means to be human in an age that seems to be losing that art.

1. Part 1

2. Part 2

3. Part 3

4. Part 4

The porch gets a lot of afternoon sun. It is a comfortable cozy place in the morning, but in the afternoon it can get right hot.

I am tying up some loose ends with my preaching class. Again, I am teaching under the auspices of CDSP, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and their Center for Anglican Living and Learning or CALL. We have a lot going on entering week four. The course begins with a fairly traditional Anglican understanding of preaching but branches out midway into other theories of preaching. By “traditional Anglican” I mean, I’m using a Lutheran who quotes Anglicans. There is no one specific Anglican theology or approach to preaching. Anglicanism is a big tent. So, the theology of and practice of preaching reflects local culture more than any overriding Anglican vision of preaching. What you find in Hartford, Connecticut is different than what you find in Accra Ghana. And that’s important.

I encourage students to understand the culture of their parishes before they decide what preaching is supposed to be. I also have them do a deep dive into their own cultural or personal assumptions. It’s good fun.

The online Episcopal Dictionary offers the following:

The event and act of proclaiming the Word of God through a sermon or homily. Preaching interprets the gospel tradition in light of faith and in the context of the liturgical and pastoral occasion of the service. The sermon draws together the life of the parish community, the life of the preacher, and the lives of those who hear the sermon. Preaching is to reflect God’s presence, love, and guidance in a particular moment of the church’s life. The sermon is not an abstract statement of truth, and it is not just a personalized commentary on scripture. The sermon must engage the faith and understanding of the one who preaches and the ones who hear. The Christian story, the congregation’s story, and the preacher’s story can be the one story of God’s love that is proclaimed in the sermon. Preaching in the Episcopal Church is typically liturgical preaching. The BCP calls for the sermon to follow the gospel at the Holy Eucharist, Confirmation, Ordination, and the Celebration of a New Ministry. A sermon or address follows the gospel at the Consecration of a Church. The sermon follows the gospel or the peace at a baptism. A homily may follow the gospel at the Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage and at the Burial of the Dead. At Morning and Evening Prayer, a sermon may be preached after the Office or after the readings or at the time of the hymn or anthem after the collects.

It’s a rather functional definition. I find it shallow and frustrating.

Where’s the sacramentality of the preached word? Where is the eschatological nature of the gathered ekklesia? We speak the Kingdom into existence. We hear the Kingdom into existence. We embody God’s Revelation in preaching, both in the offering and in the receiving. Functionality is just the tip of a big iceberg.

For a tradition that prides itself on a robust theology of the Incarnation, this is disappointing.

Why do I care so much?

Well, I could say that I just like them. That’s true enough. I personally depend upon the sermon to be challenging, both pastorally and prophetically. But I assume that sermons come as a group over time. I do not expect each individual sermon to do All The Things. But I do expect that a preacher will over time do All The Things in their preaching. They should love the congregation through their preaching. They should call us to repentance and repair in their preaching. They should lead us in their preaching.

There’s much more that could be said.

Sermons don’t need to be a specific length. Let the occasion dictate that. Let the culture of the parish dictate that. Some communities expect a tidy 12 minute sermon. Other communities feel cheated if you don’t speak for at least 30 minutes. Know your community.

Sermons don’t need to be on the Gospel passage every time. That’s a misnomer. Preaching the Gospel does not mean “Preach only from the Gospel passage.” It means preach like Jesus. It means preach what Jesus preached. Or preach about Jesus.

Sermons should not be about all the lectionary readings from any given Sunday. The readings are rarely connected intentionally. Their organization is not topical. The lectionary is designed to walk the congregations through wide swaths of scripture over the course of a three year cycle while at the same time being attentive to the liturgical year.

Finally, sermons are embodied theology. A sermon is not an essay on a page. What is on the page should support the preacher in offering the sermon, but it is itself not the sermon. The sermon is the moment in the liturgy where the preacher offers to the gathered ekklesia the revelation they have received from God.

But I digress.

Someday I might write a book about what is Anglican or Episcopal preaching. That we don’t have an established doctrine bugs me.

I know. It’s a problem I have.

Y’all be excellent to each other.

A couple of weeks ago, we started this conversation by looking at the practice of confession in the liturgy. I wrote an open letter, you responded with a challenging foray into all that we need to confess in some fashion. It is perhaps short sighted for us not to look at the vast array of social sins, institutional barriers, and personal limitations that we engage in.

Being anti-racist, for example, is laudable. Recognizing all the ways we fail, however, is more necessary and gives a more accurate picture of just how we relate to one another in this world.

Last week at Richmond Hill, we hosted a group of “early career” preachers from a local seminary program. I helped out by leading worship for them. was the guest preacher and instructor for the weekend. It was a powerful experience. One of the aspects of the services that stood out for me were the two different versions of the Lord’s Prayer that they used.

On Thursday they said this version from the United Church of Christ…

Our Mother, in heaven,  
may Your name be honored  
and Your kin-dom come,  
where all people are free and loved.  
We pray that Your will be done,  
not only in heaven, but on earth,  
as we work to dismantle  
systems of oppression and injustice.  
Give us this day our daily bread  
and the resources to share with our neighbors. 
We ask forgiveness,  
not only for our own wrongs,  
but for the wrongs done against us,  
as we work to heal and reconcile.  
Lead us not into a path  
of self-interest or complacency,  
but deliver us from  
the destructive power of power itself.  
For Yours is the kin-dom,  
and the power, and the glory,  
forever and ever. Amen. 

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On Friday, they said used the version from A New Zealand Prayer Book…

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker,
Pain-bearer, life giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name
echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the
peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will
be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb
from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation
and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For your reign in the glory of the 
power that is love, 
now and for ever. 
Amen.

Once again I find myself drawn to liturgical language to help us have this conversation. Liturgy is the stated theological practice of Christian communities. It is both creedal and confessional. It is descriptive and aspirational. Liturgy states, “this is who we are.” The response of the worshiper needs to be “now, what do I do with it?” Ion Bria, an Orthodox liturgical theologian and ecumenist, called this the “liturgy after the liturgy.” The liturgy invites us to live in the world a certain way. The work we have to do is to ask and answer, “What is the way?”

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Both of these prayers compel the worshippers into a “what’s next” way of thinking. They encourage an eschatological mindset. We are, as Christians, all about the fulfillment and fruition of God’s dream for the cosmos. This is what it looks like for both individual Christians and Christian communities to engage in the world.

You wrote…

Richmond Hill’s willingness to make racial reconciliation its mission is only saying yes to a very long journey that will never end. It’s acknowledging that when it comes to black bodies, white people can never be the ones to lead that charge. While those white people are asked to step aside to make space for black bodies, they are also gently reminded that it is their job to openly protect those same black bodies.

Racial reconciliation is therefore implicitly connected to trans liberation, i.e., without racial reconciliation, there can’t be trans liberation.

I agree.

And I think we have to be not just aware of this particular anthropological truth, but be actively engaging relationally with the intersectionality of the people we hope to serve…both black and white people, per our mission, “…to seek God’s transformation of Metropolitan Richmond through prayer, hospitality, racial healing, and spiritual development.”

This is a theological and an interpersonal challenge.

And it calls us to do a metric ton of spiritual work.

Thus, at Richmond Hill we pray…

Ground of all being,
Mother of life, Father of the universe,
Your name is sacred, beyond speaking.

May we know your presence,
may your longings be our longings in heart and in action.
May there be food for the human family today
and for the whole earth community.

Forgive us the falseness of what we have done
as we forgive those who are untrue to us.

Do not forsake us in our time of conflict
but lead us into new beginnings.

For the light of life, the vitality of life,
and the glory of life are yours now and forever.

Amen.

“New beginnings” are intersectional. All of our privileges, our sins, our identities…And we are always in conflict whether we know it or not. You name this clearly.

We tend to vilify just one evil so we don’t have to look at the other atrocities we commit daily.

We chant “free Gaza” without chanting “Free Nagorno-Karabakh.” We demand an end to the mining of cobalt in the DRC without demanding an end to the mining of nickel in Indonesia. We criticize the use of AI in water units, while eating one beef patty emits as much CO₂ as tens of thousands of AI queries.

The problem is that we latch onto one objective evil (Gaza, DRC, or AI) and utilize that as an abstraction layer to distance ourselves from the other effects our lives have. When we put on eyeshadow with mica, little children die in the mines of Jharkhand and Bihar; when we water our lawns, communities go thirsty; and when we post this Substack, we devastate communities in Inner Mongolia.

It is time for me to get my son ready for school, so I need to put a pause on this.

But this begins to frame my understanding of what we face.

I look forward to what you have to say.

Peace and All Good Things,

Tripp

Maybe we should call this the Gospel According to Bobby McFerrin.

From Matthew’s Gospel…

26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Pray with me.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Make these words more than words and give us all the spirit of Jesus. Amen.

The year was 1988 and I was a Freshman at the University of Richmond. I was hanging out with the kind people of the Baptist Student Union and the chaplain at the time, The Rev. Judy Bailey, asked us to pick a verse as a “theme verse.”

“What verse,” she asked, “best represents your life and your relationship with God?”

Now, this is a fairly tame exercise for the college student. It asks them to consider the Bible in a personal way. It asks them to look for direction from the Bible or at least explanations from the Bible for why they think like they think.

Trouble was that I knew nothing about the Bible. I wasn’t raised in church. I didn’t have a theme verse. I couldn’t have told you how to find the 23rd psalm except that it was probably in the book of Psalms and it was number 23. Beyond basic deductive reasoning I had no way to navigate the Scriptures. I didn’t have anything highlighted. I didn’t have anything marked. There was no flower pressed in the book of Proverbs like in my great-grandmother’s Bible. We had lost those traditions.

So, as my friends started reciting scripture to one another I started frantically flipping through the New Testament. At the time, it was my best guess to find something that I could talk about for 10 minutes. I landed on the gospel of Matthew. A curious choice. I looked at the Beatitudes. Interesting, but certainly not something I related to at that time in my life. I found instead this little tidbit of life advice from Jesus.

For better or worse, this little verse became essential for me. Not because I think it is the sum total of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But because it met me where I was at the time.

As a young person, I wrestled with suicidal ideations. I was in therapy. This was before they had a lot of pharmacological options to help you navigate that kind of depression. So I was in a lot of therapy. And, truth be told, I was imploding. My studies were suffering. My relationships were haphazard and chaotic. I didn’t know what to do or where to turn more often than not.

I don’t want to get superstitious about the Bible, but this little verse has helped me throughout the years. It is curious that I found it and that it stayed with me.

And, as another form of confession, the song by Bobby McFerrin was playing in my head all the time. Bobby won the Grammy (three of them, actually) that year for “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” The song displaced Guns and Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine” as number one on the top 40 chart.

I cannot imagine Axel Rose was pleased.

As a result of McFerrin’s popularity, I bought the album only to discover an entire musical form.

Improvisation.

Creativity.

Play.

I ended up collecting much of McFerrin’s music. I was inspired by his musical vision. I still am.

Several years later, I was at a Bobby McFerrin concert in San Francisco. I stayed backstage so I could meet him. I’m a nerd that way.

While we were all standing there, someone else asked him why he didn’t sing “Don ‘t Worry Be Happy” as an encore. He told us that he never sings it anymore. Songs, he suggested, come into your life for a time and leave just as mysteriously. The song had propelled him into stardom, put his kids through college, and made his very impressive career as a jazz vocalist possible. He was grateful. And he was done.

He had sung it too much. It had gone too far. I think he might even agree with some of the critics who said that the song simply made things worse when you were depressed. It was supposed to be a bit of fun. But it took on a life of its own.

I wonder if Jesus had similar feelings about what he offered that day when he first said the words “do not worry for your life.” I’m sure it was meant well. It certainly suited his theological aesthetic. He had no place to lay his head. He depended upon the kindness of strangers. He depended upon the generosity of his friends and strangers alike. He didn’t have a stable income. He wrestled with doubt. And in the end, his ministry would come completely undone.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

What are we to do with this gospel passage? How does it juxtapose with the tradition of lamentation in the Scriptures? How does it juxtapose with Jesus’s own lament?

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

This passage is, according to scholarship, principally about possessions and how they possess us. Jesus was not a fan of the prosperity gospel. Anything good that comes to you comes from God. That is true. But this fixation on wealth, this striving to keep up with the Joneses, and this constant effort to get ahead is contrary to Christ vision of the kingdom of God.

Would Jesus wear a Rolex on his television show? No.

The Kingdom of God…Jesus does not want us to worry about what we shall wear or what we shall eat. Not because we should walk around nude and starve to death, but because if we are living in the kingdom ethic with one another these things will take care of themselves.

We are to seek the kingdom first.

We are to seek each other’s wellness first.

The kingdom is an ethic and a people. We are to look out for one another. We are to care for one another. We are to love one another.

As some of you know, I live in a monastery. One of the things we struggle with is our possessions. What do we do with the food? What do we do with the building? Whose apartment is larger and why? Were those my Oreos you just ate?

We struggle. It is hard to live a kingdom ethic, even when you decide collectively to live a kingdom ethic. I know that you all know this as well.

What do we do when one of us is sick? How do we handle mental illness? I still wrestle with the demon of mental illness. And I still depend upon other people to help me do so.

This is what Jesus is inviting us too in this passage. We are not to abdicate our responsibilities for one another. Quite the opposite. We are to take them on. We belong to each other. We are, as McFerrin suggests, to live a life of improvisation, creativity, and play. This is not a solo act, but a communal practice. Give assistance. Ask for help. Do not worry for your life.

In the dog eat dog world of late capitalism, this seems like foolishness. It would’ve seemed like foolishness to Jesus’s contemporaries as well.

Heal yourself or be exiled. Your depression is a sign of your sinfulness, your inability to rely on God to sustain you, your unwillingness to follow God.

I heard it all. I imagine you have as well in your lifetime.

But listen to Jesus. Hold one another. Find blessing in community.

Say “yes” when someone offers help.

Bobby McFerrin is in his 70s now. And some of you may know that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. He doesn’t move as well as he used to. There is a stiffness in his body that he cannot manage.

But what he has done in response inspires me.

He has not turned inward. He has not become a hermit. These are all things I would do. Instead, he started a new vocal group and gives regular concerts and workshops at Bay Area venues and a local church.

When asked if the Parkinson’s has affected his singing, he remarks “of course it has.” But he leans on improvisation, creativity, and play. He gets together with his friends. He makes new friends. He depends upon them to help fill out his musical vision. Each morning he gets up and sings. He doesn’t know what his voice is going to do that day, which notes are going to be available to him. So he explores his limitations. Then he improvises with them. He writes songs with in his limitations. He makes beautiful music.

The invitation of the gospel passage this morning is not to sit back and pretend your life is fine when it’s not. That would be lying to yourself and to your community. Instead, we are to find one another.

We can improvise.

We are to be creative.

We are to play.

We are to discover within ourselves and in our communities, the kingdom ethic that Jesus proclaims.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

— Rumi

There are some things which cannot be spoken…
				…or blogged about. 
						Over the years, I’ve developed
						a pattern of sharing much of
						myself online. Not everything, 
						but a great deal of myself. 
This morning, however, I find myself struggling with boundaries. There are griefs and longings that cannot readily be shared. So, I will start from where I often do - with my surroundings and just check in. 

I am seated on the back porch. The city is beginning to stir. The Night Shift is turning in in the morning shift is showing up. I can hear a garbage truck in the distance. Traffic is starting to pick up on the turnpike. There is a cool breeze. I am grateful for this old sweatshirt that keeps me warm on such mornings.

I am looking to the week ahead. I have a sermon to prepare for next Sunday. I am preaching at Ginter Park Baptist Church. But before that, I will be attending the retirement ceremony of a friend of mine who is, after many years, retiring from the Air Force. He is kindly asked me to deliver the invocation. I’m honored to do so.

We have a retreat group that starts earlier than usual and our week. Some folks arrive on Tuesday evening. Others on Wednesday. It is a retreat for “early career preachers.” They will be spending four days with us. I like it when they are here. There is a good energy in the building.

I still believe in the craft of preaching. I still believe in the power of the spoken word. I still believe that God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus all show up when someone dares to stand before others and say, “this is the kingdom of God with us.“  Certainly there are pitfalls like the human ego. The preacher is no less sinful than the hearer of the word. Pedestals happen, however. And they must be addressed. But this doesn’t undermine the power of the craft, of the call to preach.

I am teaching preaching online again right now. I have 21 students in my class. I’m a little behind, but this seems like a really good group of folks. The next couple of months will be fun.

I started this post with a Rumi quotation. Some mornings it’s all I can do to not take down an instrument and play. But I get up so early that I don’t want to disturb my family or the neighbors. I’m not certain that they would appreciate banjo at 4:30 in the morning. So I imagine playing. I let the mirror neurons do their best.

I have not made it yet, but I have discovered an Irish session in my neighborhood. I need to play throughout the year. I need to do more than just show up to Chicago and hope for the best. I want to contribute to the world as a musician. Music is Spirit. It is the composition of time and sound. It communicates the depths of human experience in ways that other disciplines simply cannot. It’s not better, it’s just different. And in that difference is Grace.

It is often nonverbal. Which is different than being non-linguistic. Is that even a thing? All I know is that Rumi is asking me to communicate with God in a different way than I might normally. I get up, and I write. It’s an excellent practice. It’s a helpful discipline. But getting up and playing music asks a different part of me to awaken. It asks me to get out of my cerebral malaise and to open my soul to the possibilities of what God may have to offer this day.

God offers Presence. Holiness. Grace.

Going to pour myself a 2nd cup of coffee. I hope you have a good day. Take down your instrument play. Write something.

A train whistle sounds in the distance. I can hear the rail cars rumbling down the track. Their music is a cacophony of screeches and rattling. Metal upon metal. 

Y’all be excellent to each other. 

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It is Friday morning and I’m in a mood. I’ve been up since 3:30. That’s not bad thing. I go to bed early enough that I still get seven hours of sleep when I wake up before the dawn, but it does mean that I sit in the dark a lot. The sun is not yet risen, but my brain is spinning.

It is 5:30 in the morning now and I am on my 3rd cup of coffee.

The cat sleeps in my lap. The city is quiet. My son turns 11 tomorrow. There will be cheeseburgers. And cheesecake. Burgers and cake. The cheese kind. What is not to love?

Although high in calories, cheesecake is one of the few desserts I get to enjoy because of the protein content due to all the cheese in the cake. Who knew?

This morning, I want to talk about leadership. Leadership is hard. Leadership is about being unpopular. It is about being unpopular and putting that lack of popularity to work. When they say it’s “lonely at the top“ this is what they mean. Just because you are at the top of some pyramid, does not make you the most popular person in the room. In fact, it might have the exact opposite fact. You become the lightning rod for everything that people dislike about the organization or community that you serve.

You know this already

So do I.

And right now, things are going really well at Richmond Hill. There is a lot of love. There are positive feelings all over the joint. We are getting a stronger sense of our mission. And we are making more sense of our resources.

Leadership is about being unpopular. It is about being unpopular and putting that lack of popularity to work.

It’s an old building, so we have to make sense of our resources all the time. One of the facets of work at Richmond Hill is the preservation of 250 years of history. More, actually. The building I live in was originally constructed in 1811. It has been remodeled and tinkered with over the years. I want us to enter into a preservation phase with this building. We utilize it for retreats and meetings, and that is as it should be. But it is also a structure that represents an important period in Richmond’s history.

How do we preserve that history while still putting the building to work?

Similarly, the dormitories and chapel are a century old and need a specific care. They do need preserving.

The addition that was constructed in 2004 is actually where we see the most challenges. Much of that construction has hit its shelflife. So, we find ourselves having to make repairs all the time. We need to get ahead of this curve. That’s the plan. I think it’s a good one.

What does this have to do with anxiety and frustration? Nothing really. Except to say that managing a facility that houses a community when both are in constant flux is challenging work.

I am a people pleaser. I like to be liked. It’s a thing. The trouble is that both of these desires that I have of pleasing others and being liked, have no utility in this position. In fact, they become a handicap. My ego can’t be wrapped up in any of this. The success of Richmond Hill cannot be a reflection of how good I feel about myself. In fact, the success of Richmond Hill May demand that I disappear in some ways. Or at least my desire for approval diminishes significantly.

So I’m frustrated. I am disappointed. I am anxious. And I am very angry at my inability to explain what I want to see happen here.

It’s one of those situations where it seems really obvious to me what needs to happen here. But it is not so obvious to everybody. So I become frustrated when I cannot adequately explain what needs to happen. I become frustrated at myself when there is a lack of clarity. I get angry at myself.

Yes, as you know, I have a Mean Therapist. I also have a really good spiritual director. They are helping me process all of this internal turmoil. I don’t want you worrying about me. But I wanted to share my frustration this morning so you all have a sense of where I’m starting from and where I’m headed.

Richmond Hill needs to be right sized. This endeavor cannot be a supernatural attempt at fixing the planet. It has to be human sized. Think of it in terms of the buildings. How high are the the ceilings and why? How much space do we need and why? The building is large because when we are busy, there could be 60 guests in the house. We have 42 beds for overnight guests and space for many others in the Refectory. These guests are as much a part of our community as those of us who live here. That’s what hospitality is. It is the recognition that your community extends well beyond the people you spend your daily life with. Community is other people.

I need to write a reflection for the newsletter. I’m not sure what to write about because all of these other things are on my mind. So I am using my blog here on Substack to process all the other things I’m thinking about. I know that this processing is public. That is fine. I need people to know what I’m thinking about. I know that some people will make judgments or infer a crisis. There is no crisis. People should feel free to make any judgment they want to. I am an open book. As well I should be.

Leadership in this day and age must be candid and transparent.

Keeping one’s cards close to one’s chest undermines success.

It creates distrust.

Interestingly, with trust comes conflict. Conflict is not a bad thing. It is a hard thing, but it is not a bad thing. Conflict is the rich soil for growth.

And with that, I’m going to sign off.

Y’all be excellent to each other.

Open for me the gates of righteousness; 
I will enter them; I will offer thanks to the Lord.

Tonight’s sermon is about belief and how we simply cannot get there from here. Belief, you see, is a grace. No more. No less. 

It is a gift. But it cannot be taught. 
	Instead, it is formed within the human heart. 
It is not a premise we agree to. 
	Instead, it is a relationship we develop. 
It is not a liturgical to-do list. 
	Instead, it is a response to a vast Mystery that seeks us out. 

The Lord be with you. 
	And also with you.
Let us pray. 

Lord, I believe. 
Help my unbelief. 
Make these words more than words,
	and give us all the Spirit of Jesus. 

Open for me the gates of righteousness; 
I will enter them; I will offer thanks to the Lord.

I promise that I won’t begin all my sermons with a story from back in The Before Times at Richmond Hill, before air conditioning, before the cloister was built, before the bell was taken out of the tower. 

But I gotta begin there tonight.

This is a portrait from the 1990s. 

You see, I was standing in the lower parking lot with Ben Campbell, talking about nature of belief and how hard it was for me to say the Creeds with any sense of integrity. I might have been 24 years of age. At the time, Richmond Hill was using the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer in chapel. So we ran into the creeds a lot. The Apostles Creed. The Nicene Creed. I don’t believe we ever recited the Athanasian Creed, but it is also in the Book of Common Prayer on page 864. We have several copies of the BCP right down the hall there. Feel free to check it out after tonight’s service. 

I hated saying the Creeds. The liturgy put words in my mouth, words I did not believe and could not recite with any integrity. 

At any rate, this might have been the one time when I refused to agree with Ben Campbell. 

I was really wrestling and he looked at me and said, “You need to be a fundamentalist for a little while.”

I was shocked. Nope. Not going to happen, Ben. 

 I was not prepared for what he said. I was not prepared to be a fundamentalist. So, I refused and went on my merry way.

I discovered later that what Ben was trying to tell me was to hold faith claims close to my heart. To make them mine. To allow them to possess me. What I heard in the moment was “be like Jerry Falwell.“

Belief for me has always been a struggle. I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t really raised in church or because I really loved chemistry class and archaeology or because Christian faith claims are just implausible.

Was it the Mad Hatter who said, “Why, I’ve believed six impossible things before breakfast”?

To believe in the faith claims of Christianity is to believe in the impossible. Not the unlikely. Not the unnatural. The impossible.

No one gets up after being dead for three days. That’s not a thing. 

Except here we are with this ancient story, our faith claims, and our belief in the power of the Resurrection. 

What are we actually saying when we say, “We believe…”?

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

 Like any of us, Mary had come to the tomb at dawn to care for the dead not to encounter the living. 

Like any of us, Mary could not recognize the Truth when he was standing in front of her.

Like any of us, belief is made possible when Christ speaks her name.

“Mary!”

Christ wishes us to believe. 

To believe in the Resurrection is to believe in the reordering of Creation. What once was the End with only darkness to fall into, has become a place of light and love. 

Christ speaks all of our names. individually. Collectively. He calls you. He calls us.

Christ does not enforce belief. Christ does not inflict pain in order to get us to believe. Christ will never make us sacrifice our conscience in order to believe.

Christ wants us in our messy fullness. 

We are invited to bring our doubts and questions, even our disbelief.  

There is a deep and abiding truth revealed when we hold onto belief loosely. We discover that we can grow, we can change. 

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. 

it is right there in our scriptures. The miracle comes because someone is willing to believe not because they have everything worked out. They asked for help to believe. God is willing to help us.

When we gather, we gather to believe together, to hold onto one another in belief. We are not a collective of believers, rather we are able to believe because we have one another and in that we have God. 

We aren’t called to believe in the possible, but the True. 

Belief is made True by Grace… Not by logic or might. We do not will ourselves into believing. No one was ever converted by sword point. God offers belief like one offers a hug to a child. 

Like Mary, we respond to an encounter, a Person, a Gift. 

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!”

Belief is a relationship, a promise not a premise.

Now, this is where things get difficult. This is the “so what“ portion of the sermon.

What does it matter if we believe in the Resurrection? What does it matter if we can make sincere faith claims and read a Creed in unison?

Does that mean we are saved? And if we are saved, from what?

Are we saved from Hell, ourselves, our neighbors, our enemies, our churches, governments, our places of employment? Perhaps. When necessary.

Perhaps belief has nothing to do with salvation…at least not for ourselves. 

Belief, friends of God is the gift we offer to one another for the sake of Grace. 

Our belief in God, our belief in one another. 

Belief is the relationship we offer one another in good times and hard times. 

Belief is the Grace of God poured out. 

May that belief find you tonight. 

Amen. Alleluia.  

Hello from the other side of Church Hill!

I never know how to begin these things. I want to check in. I want to know how you are doing. How are the kids? Your wife? I hope everyone is doing well. None of this matters if I don't know how you are doing. What is the state of your heart?

All of this matters because our relationship matters. The friendship that we are developing has become very important in my life. I know it is complicated by Richmond Hill at the same time that it appears to be sustained by Richmond Hill. This place of prayer and healing is how we met. I could not be more grateful.

It can also be an incredibly stressful and painful place to be. This letter is about the pain and stress of Richmond Hill for certain bodies.

When I was being interviewed for my present position, I stated that Richmond Hill is still a white space. No matter how much anti-racism work we do, the organization still principally serves the white community in Richmond. Don't get me wrong, that's important. It's good work. But it means that the people of color who work here are on the front lines of racial reconciliation work. They have to face racism every day while remaining in conversation with those who struggle with their own racism. I would love for Richmond Hill to be a place of solace, a Haven for people of color. I would like it to be a place where they don't have to work. That is the goal.

We experience varying degrees of success in this regard. Black leadership faces many challenges here…acceptance being chief among them.

Maybe I am being naive. Maybe there is no such thing in America. Maybe there is no such thing as a safe space. Not really. There are safeER spaces. Richmond Hill may be one of those. But it still takes some bravery to do the work we do.

Black bodies still suffer on our land.

Women, too, face bigotry and sexism at Richmond Hill. That cannot be news, can it?

Queer people face bigotry here. All. The. Time.

None of this is to say that Richmond Hill is a bad place. It is simply an American place, a Virginian place, a Richmond place. We may aspire to be a safe place for all people, but what we really are is a brave space for all people.

For our readers…

Brave Space is a concept that goes beyond the traditional safe space ideology. While safe spaces aim to provide refuge from discrimination and harm. Brave Spaces encourage individuals to engage in courageous conversations, confront biases, and challenge perspectives constructively. It acknowledges that discomfort and growth often go hand in hand, and by stepping out of comfort zones, meaningful progress towards inclusivity can be achieved. (link)

Today, I want to talk about how Richmond Hill treats queer bodies. I want to talk about how it treats trans bodies.

Can we do that? Can we be brave, loving, and true to one another? You wrote something that really helped me. You wrote…

We already live in the thing we fear, and the question isn’t whether the system will come for us; it already has, in forms we’ve mostly normalized. The question is whether we can stay human, relational, and genuinely curious within that reality, rather than harden into the mirror image of what opposes us.

Richmond Hill had to come to terms with itself early on, and its ministry. To be a place of racial reconciliation work, you first have to name your sins. Sins of your city. The sins of your community. And, here, the sins of the church. We had to openly discuss racism as it presently exists within ourselves.

This is very Twelve Step of us. The first half of the first step is to admit you're powerless. The second half of the first step is to name the thing that has you in its clutches. We first had to admit that we are powerless over our own racism. We had to admit that only God could rescue us from it. We had to do the work, but God would be the one to rescue us. This is the foundational theology of Richmond Hill, I believe. God will heal us.

Intersectionality never really comes into the story with this method, however. What about female black bodies? What about queer black bodies? Black female bodies? By only naming one aspect of the intersectional nature of human life, we ended up cutting out a lot of other people. The mission of Richmond Hill is racial reconciliation. Our policies, however, need to and can reflect the complexities of intersectional reality for all people.

To proclaim liberation for one, we must proclaim liberation for all.

To proclaim liberation, you must name that which imprisons you.

Is it overt homophobia or heterosexism? Is it internalized homophobia? Is it transphobia? Is it all of the above all at once?

I think it is all of the above all at once. Liberation is intersectional. So is sin.

I know you know this. I just needed to say it.

Richmond HIll struggles with homophobia and transphobia. Not overtly. Not by policy. But, like so many other communities, we struggle relationally. On the individual level, we struggle. Collectively, we struggle. The privileges we all embody get in our way all the time. They inhibit our best selves. Privilege does that.

Privilege is sticky stuff that is often mistaken for the best self.

I was educated at an elite southern liberal arts university. Then I was educated at an elite Episcopal seminary which was a part of a broader consortium of schools. Then I went to Berkeley California and studied at Cal and the Graduate Theological Union. So much liberalism! That does not rid me, however, of my privileges. Instead, it serves to underscore my privileges. It highlights my privileges. In fact, it might actually shore up my privileges. How much privilege can one man possess? Let's find out!

You are out of the closet. Radically. Bravely. You are queer and trans and Richmond Hill doesn't always know what to do with that. Richmond Hill has been closeted in its own way for decades. We struggle with people who are not closeted.

But I would like to propose is that you and I develop a strategy for helping Richmond Hill come out of the closet. We need Richmond Hill to be a safe place or at least a safer place for not just Black people, but for women and queer people.

To do the work of Black liberation, we must find a way to escape our own privileges. Or at least turn them upside-down somehow.

I suggest that it begins with our prayer life. We gather to pray three times a day seven days a week. The Benedictine rule, its spirit, is the heartbeat of this place. We can change the language of our employee handbook. That would be great, but we need to start with prayer. We have to find a way to admit that we are powerless over this thing called bigotry.

We must pray for ourselves and name that.

To pray for the racial healing and transformation of metropolitan Richmond is to pray for ourselves. But we rarely name our own sins. What if we did? What if we confessed?

Here is a sample confession from the Episcopal tradition.

God of all mercy,
we confess that we have sinned against you,
opposing your will in our lives.
We have denied your goodness in each other,
in ourselves, and in the world you have created.
We repent of the evil that enslaves us,
the evil we have done,
and the evil done on our behalf.
Forgive, restore, and strengthen us
Through our Savior Jesus Christ,
That we may abide in your love
And serve only your will. Amen.

Let’s edit it.

Let’s use it as a template for our own Richmond Hill confession.

What do you think?

Peace and All Good Things,

Tripp

Today is Easter Sunday and it seems as good a time as any to say that we Christians do not agree about what happened the morning that Mary went to the tomb to discover Jesus gone.

And then not gone.

Was he an angel? The gardner? A Class 4 Semi-Corporeal manifestation from The Ghostbusters franchise? Some will cry, “Science!” ala Thomas Dolby and say none of the above. Someone actually stole the body to dispose of it. Some will say that he arose, but his Resurrected Body is not like a human body. We Christians are a white hot mess.

We’ve tried top-down approaches to resolving this conflict. Ecumenical councils were just that. We’ve written creeds. They still have legs. My denomination, The Episcopal Church, regularly recites both the Nicene and Apostles creeds. We will speak of orthodox belief and heterodox belief.

Imagine trying to enforce the creeds. How much authority did the bishops have? Really? I mean, Constantine had an army to enforce “right belief,” but that violence should scandalize us. Faith cannot be enforced at sword point, but we’ve done just that again and again through the ages. “Repent or die!”

When I was a kid, that was still the logic for conversion. “Repent or die.” No one held a sword to my throat, but the threat of damnation, a kind of dying in this lifetime and the next was clear. After all this time, we still haven’t come up with a better ethos. Damnation is still our bread and butter. We still say the creeds. We pray them and sing them. We still struggle to avoid the sins of Arianism and various gnosticisms. We still punish one another when we fail.

Not everywhere of course. #notallchurches

But here we are.

I offer all this as a prelude of sorts.

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Here’s what I believe. I used to be in the “something had to have happened to propell the community into proclaiming Resurrection” camp. I mean, why go through all this trouble, 2,000 years of Religious Zeal, if nothing happened?

These days, however, I find myself less and less in need of any kind of assurance at all. Maybe there’s a Resurrection. Maybe there’s not. I believe there is, but I no longer think that such a belief is salvific. I no longer believe that such a doctrinal claim should propell us into Religious Zeal and a wave of conversion efforts. Instead, if a person can overcome death and that person is God (homousias), then we should be working against the powers of death and destruction, not relying on them to prove a doctrinal point.

A sword cannot convey grace.

I did not come to believe in the Resurrection because someone compelled me or my fear of damnation got the best of me. Instead, I witnessed it. In relationships. In the liturgy. In my own heart.

At Easter, we tell the most absurd story. We make the most absurd claim. Why? Because we see it every day. We experience Resurrection in each moment. That is why. It is as much a cosmological claim as it is an interpersonal one.

Resurrection is the nature of the universe.

We don’t “tell the old, old story” because telling it does something for others. We tell it as way of saying to ourselves, “This much is true. This is who we are.”

A Blessed Easter to you all.

Mandatum, y’all.

Today is Maundy Thursday. It is the day that we remember commandment to love one another. It has always been a challenge for the community called the Church. Peter and Paul didn’t always get along. The Book of Acts remembers for us all manner of strife in the Early Church.

Still, I wonder how did we get from that moment in the Upper Room where Jesus issues his last command for us to love another to the historical moment we are experiencing now.

How did we get from “love one another” to “toxic empathy”?

Again, this is not our first struggle with loving one another. Throughout the history of the Church there has been this struggle.

For us in the Christian West, we can simply look to the religious wars that accompanied the Protestant Reformation. John Calvin established a theocracy in the City State of Geneva. Martin Luther had something similar in mind as he wrote his letter to the German princes.

Later, the pilgrims who famously made their way across the Atlantic to settle in Massachusetts turned the Massachusetts Bay Colony into a theocracy. Only male church members could vote or hold office. Rigid and intolerant, this colony became a place to escape for anyone who did not comply. Look to the histories of Pennsylvania or Rhode Island. People had to flee the theocracy that grew in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There was no love for one another. Instead they established a purity cult.

Is this the Christian foundation of the United States that so many wish to emulate?

Mandatum, y’all.

This call to love one another is the exact opposite of establishing a purity cult.

We ought to be known for our love for another more than any other quality. This is how people recognize us as the followers of Jesus, our love for one another. Not our liturgies. Not our buildings. Not even our charitable works are the core identifying feature of the Christian community. Love for one another is supposed to be.

Richmond Hill’s ecumenical vision and the centrality of prayer, contemplation, and anti-racism are expressions of this commandment to love. We are not called to sentimentality, but active, soul enlightening love.

Life in community teaches us that the fuel to this command to love is forgiveness.

It is the rhythm of the monastery that makes this possible. We are compelled by this rhythm to return to one another at least three times a day. We pray for the city. We also pray for one another. Life together forces us to be in one other’s presence and to establish patterns of forgiveness after injury. Reconciliation happens within the walls of the monastery. At least that is what the rhythm tries to teach us. It is a container for the messiness of life.

Mandatum, y’all. May you find the courage to love today.

Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went away. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
    and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

Today, I want to focus on three virtues that Jesus embodies: humility, healing, and hope. It is important that we hold such virtues before us when we think about the nature of God and “what God will do.”

Jesus was humble. He had no place to lay his head. He depended upon the kindness and hospitality of others at all times. And then there’s that lovely hymn in Philippians.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he existed in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
    he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted him even more highly
    and gave him the name
    that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

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It is the heart of Christ to be humble. His followers are to do the same.

Jesus was a healer. Again, it was his nature. He could not help himself. The same call is placed upon believers. We are not destroyers. We are healers. It is our nature. Healing is both a grace, a spiritual gift, and a discipline. Again, from Mark…

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Immediately her flow of blood stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my cloak?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

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Finally, Jesus embodied hope. He began his ministry in the synagogue by proclaiming hope. He worked tirelessly toward that hope, proclaiming the Kingdom of God’s full presence in the here and now. From Luke…

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

I’ve written about this again and again. There’s nothing “attractional” about this model of ministry. It does not grow the church. Instead, it leads to danger and threats on his life. All of Jesus’ ministry leads to the cross. Even his hopes and dreams. They are so offensive to the status quo that it is deemed foolishness.

How could this be?

Try it.

Bring good news to the poor. Proclaim release to the captives. Go ahead.

There will be some that join you. There will be some who will benefit from your work and even your words. But there will be others who will so offended that they will become murderous. This is why Christ is a Fool. He’s was God’s Own Fool.

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Finally, and thanks for reading this far, what will God do to those who destroy God’s people, God’s fools, God’s children? Mark leads us to believe that God will destroy the destroyers. And perhaps that is one way to look at it. But that destruction is always redemption. Your murderous self is destroyed leaving only your loving self. Your “chaff” is burned away. The refiner’s fire always purifies. The fire of God is love. Always.

Love your enemies. Love those who would destroy what humility, healing, and hope build. Love those who are driven to rage when you live as Christ in the world. Be a Fool.

Today is April 1st. It’s is April Fools Day. What better way to start?

Y’all be excellent to each other.

True and humble king,
hailed by the crowd as Messiah:
grant us the faith to know you and love you,
that we may be found beside you
on the way of the cross,
which is the path of glory.

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One Christian term that I fail to understand on the regular is “glory.” You say it and I think about Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick’s movie, “Glory.” I think about dying for a cause greater than yourself, a righteous cause. I also think about the Olympics and the accolades showered upon the medal winners…hell, upon everyone who participates. Woohoo! Look at you! Huzzah! You did it! Yay!

Is that what we’re talking about here?

Or is this one of those terms we turn on its head? Crucifixion was the pinnacle of shame. Let’s call it glory, instead. We’ll use “vainglory” to talk about that self-aggrandizing pride.

I think that’s it, but the term still sits uncomfortably on my tongue.

“Glorify God.”

Are we sure God wants that?

“Behold the glory of God’s majesty.”

What?

If to know Christ is to know God, where then is the humility in the first person of the Godhead?

Where is the humility of the Godhead, the blessed three in one?

It is the Tuesday of Holy Week and I have humility on my mind. What then is glory?

HYMN: John Bowring
Tune: Rathbun

1 In the cross of Christ I glory,
towering o’er the wrecks of time;
all the light of sacred story
gathers round its head sublime.

2 When the woes of life o’ertake me,
hopes deceive, and fears annoy,
never shall the cross forsake me.
Lo! it glows with peace and joy.

3 When the sun of bliss is beaming
light and love upon my way,
from the cross the radiance streaming
adds more luster to the day.

4 Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
by the cross are sanctified;
peace is there that knows no measure,
joys that through all time abide.

5 In the cross of Christ I glory,
towering o’er the wrecks of time;
all the light of sacred story
gathers round its head sublime.

It is Monday of Holy Week. Flowers are emerging, and the light is shifting in the chapel at the monastery.

I have a lengthy to-do list for Holy Week that has nothing to do with the celebration. I have some details to finalize with my stepmother‘s estate. I am teaching homiletics at one of my old seminaries. They have an online program for non-seminary students. I enjoy teaching this class. I enjoy teaching preaching very much. An online preaching class is a little strange, but we make it work well. And there’s tax season. What fun! I receive a number of 1099s. So, we always end up owing.

I am not preaching anywhere this Holy Week. I confess that it feels a little strange not to have liturgical responsibilities this time of year. I was either serving as a pastor, musician or something over the last several years. I am still learning what it means to sit in the pews.

How do you participate in Holy Week? Do you lead worship? Do you sing? Do you sit? Do you preach? Let me know when the comments.

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The rhythms at the monastery don’t really change for the season. We still pray three times a day. We host a worship service on Tuesday evenings. None of that changes. And we don’t add any form of liturgical expression to the week. I wonder if we should change that. It’s hard to do, because everyone here is invested in a church community as well as the monastery. People would have to choose between attending Maundy Thursday services here or at their home congregation. It doesn’t really work.

Still, I find myself wondering what we could do differently.

I’m still getting to know the place. This is not the time to change everything up. I first need to understand what it is I’m changing. Changing things simply to change them is not one of my spiritual gifts.

I am going to use this space to make sense of the week. Holy Week is a spiritual journey. We accompany Christ to Jerusalem, to the cross, to the tomb, and out again. One cannot get to resurrection without first being crucified with Christ. It is an uncomfortable spiritual truth within Christianity. One cannot get to resurrection and all of its beauty and glory without first being crucified with Christ.

What does crucifixion look like? Is it gratuitous suffering? Or is it the consequences that come when defend the defenseless? I keep coming back to Luke as I am wanting to do. The synoptic gospels are all about foreshadowing the crucifixion. And not subtly. Jesus sits in the synagogue in the fourth chapter of Luke and proclaims that scripture has been fulfilled. The town tries to kill him. He is at death‘s door throughout the story. He is at risk throughout the story. He was never safe. That is something for us to remember when we have a great deal of social privilege. Christianity does not keep you safe. It wasn’t designed for safety. It was designed for truth telling. Not everybody likes it when you tell the truth. Some people even become violent when you do it.

In my little corner of the Internet, people are talking about a Bonhoeffer Moment. What does it look like to stand up to a repressive regime when people are in danger of persecution and oppression? Surely, it is not to lift oneself up above the fray. Surely, it is not to seek safety and security. But it is also not to seek martyrdom. That would be a false form of Christianity. It’s been tried many times, but it doesn’t work. It is an act of ego to seek martyrdom.

We are called to seek love. We are called to seek the Kingdom of God. It is present with us in its fullness at this very moment.

We don’t perceive it easily.

We have to receive it through faith.

We have to be open to it.

Holy Week is about learning to be as open to the Kingdom of God as Christ was no matter what may befall us.

Y’all be excellent to each other.

If there is a conversion story, a moment where I can say that I became a Christian, it is in this season. It was at the Easter Vigil at The Church of The Holy Comforter in Richmond, VA in 1995.

I was in a state. I wasn’t sure what I believed, what I had faith in. I was not sure it was Christianity. Who needs that kind of pressure? The Southern end of the Bible Belt places a high value on belief in certain unbelievable things. I didn’t believe…or even know how to believe. Raised from the dead? Give me a break. And believing in the Resurrection meant believing in the political platform of the Religious Right. The Southern Strategy was both political and ecclesiastical. Insidious. The mythology around Resurrection and Ascension and Such did not move me. It repelled me.

I was in church because I could make music there. I had friends there. I loved the ministry of Jesus. I still do. That’s what kept me there. That and my love for my friends.

I was living at Richmond Hill then. I was immersed in the prayers of the Daily Office. I was living life in intentional Christian community. We were doing anti-racism work. We were finding ways to embrace the audacious requirements of Christian life. Invitation. Hospitality. The Rule of Richmond Hill.

I’m rambling.

We had gone through holy week. I had sung the music of holy week. And we were at the Easter Vigil. I was questioning my faith at every level. Perhaps this would be my last holy week. I felt a great deal was on the line. Not my salvation, because I didn’t believe in any such concept, I was concerned about my relationships and the validity of the faith that I did possess.

If memory serves, what happened was that we had processed around the block with the Pascal candle and had sung the chant “The light of Christ, thanks be to God.” We entered the sanctuary, and the choir made its way up to the balcony. The lights came up and we could see flowers and symbols of rebirth everywhere. Then we started to sing.

You can listen to this song here. I owe Emmylou Harris a great debt.

The Great Vigil of Easter is celebrated on Saturday evening/night before Easter Sunday.

In the South, it can be pretty remarkable. Spring has sprung, and there are many blooms. We would have the Easter Vigil, a sunrise service on Sunday morning, and then the Easter service itself. It was a lot of Easter. But that was the point.

Even creation itself appeared to conspire against my unbelief.

That’s dramatic. Bear with me.

We stood in the balcony and started to sing and that’s when I finally got it. It took harmony, lots of flowers, my friends, and 19th century religious sentiment to finally get me there. I started to cry.

Now, I could not give you an intellectual explanation of what happened. But belief became real to me. Beyond intellectual ascent to various doctrinal claims, the music took me to the heart of God.

Belief is not doctrine. Doctrine is the attempt to describe belief. But it is not the same.

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Maybe you’re preaching this week.

Maybe your parish or congregation is leaping through all the liturgical hoops this week.

Maybe you are bringing folks through confirmation and holding baptisms at the Vigil or at the Easter Sunday service.

Please remember that you are in a field of symbolic fire. People’s hearts and minds are on the line. You could even say that their salvation is at stake. This is no small thing we do when we proclaim, “Christ is risen!”

It can feel tedious to those who manage it all. “Here we are again. Wasn’t it just Christmas?”

But there is more at stake. Watch this video on Godly Solidarity by Jay Johnson.

God is with us. We must tread carefully.

Y’all be excellent to each other.

In your experience, how long does the honeymoon period last? Six months? Nine months? A year? I am holding onto the honeymoon this morning. Life in community is not easy. Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking it is. There are people here. Many. And they have needs and difficulties and challenges and demands and we are called to pray for and love one another. This is no small thing. This is no easy thing.

But it is my job to hold onto the dream. What is the vision of Richmond Hill that I’m trying to communicate? I am required and I desire to show both my vision as well as the more uncomfortable realities of life together

.What is my dream for Richmond Hill? What is my vision? Richmond Hill is a monastery that prays for the racial healing of Metropolitan Richmond. From these prayers emerge various programs and a ministry of hospitality. The ministry of hospitality is primarily embodied in the running of a retreat center. If you wish to participate in the prayers of Richmond Hill, then stay with us. Spend a day. Spend a month. We have a Sojourner program where people can stay one, three, six, or nine months. Learn what it is to live together in community and to pray together for the racial healing of a city.

Residential life is its own call. This is why we have the Sojourner program separate from the residential community of Richmond Hill. Sometimes a sojourner will discern a call to residential life here at Richmond Hill. But more often than not, the processes are separate.

The call to residential life is a call to a life of prayer and work. You commit to praying three times a day every day for the racial healing of Metropolitan Richmond. You covenant to live by the Rule. You commit to bearing the burden of life together. You will be given a job to do. Perhaps you will work in the development office or in the hospitality ministry. Your experience and skills are a part of the discernment process. If you come with a family, they too are part of the discernment process.

The existing residential community is part of the discernment process. We have residents whose ages range from four years old to almost 70. We come from a variety of Christian traditions… Baptist, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, etc.. The vision of Richmond Hill is an ecumenical one. It is an interracial one. We represent a variety of ethnicities. As such, the work of racial healing is also our own work.

I have posted here before that I have family… Ancestors… Who fought on the side of the South in the Civil War. I have ancestors that owned people. All of that is on my father’s side. We got way back in Richmond’s history. We go way back, even further back, in the history of Virginia itself. Colonizers.

My mother’s side of the family represents later immigration movements. My mother is a Higgins. Her mother was a Glen. The Gurney family is also well represented. Irish. Pre-Civil War Irish. My brother possesses the sidearm of an ancestor who fought on the side of the North. I don’t know if he was part of the Irish brigade or not. I need to learn that history as well. There is also Portuguese and French Canadian on that side of the family. Ancestry is complicated.

My family were both a slave owners and abolitionists. Some of the abolitionists were northerners. Some of the abolitionists were southerners. Some of my southern ancestry owned people.

Living at Richmond Hill demands that we look closely at our own personal histories. Living at Richmond Hill demands that we ask the hard questions about our own privileges around race. We all come with history. We all have ancestors. We will all leave a legacy of our own. The work of Richmond Hill is the work of healing the wounds of the past as well as the wounds of the present. Perhaps then, we can shape our common future to better reflect God‘s Kingdom.

Jesus had a vision for the Kingdom of God. He saw past the dream that so many of us are trapped in (Thanks, Jim Somerville.). He saw instead a way of living together where our identity as children of God is first and foremost. Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. The particularities of gender and race and class are not erased. They are given new context. One does not stop being black when one becomes a Christian. One does not stop being white when one becomes a Christian. One does not stop being a Higgins when one becomes Christian. One does not stop being a Hudgins when one becomes Christian. Instead, we are embraced as we are. We bring our complex histories with us into the Kingdom of God.

We bring our full identities into the Kingdom of God.

We bring our full identities into life at Richmond Hill.

Thomas Merton wrote that he initially imagined he was leaving the world behind when he joined the monastery. Instead, what he discovered, is that the world followed him inside. The walls that surround the monastery are not decorative, but they do not keep the world out. They do not keep our consciousness inside.

As I have written elsewhere, the walls are actually an invitation to be held by the monastery.

“The walls do not contain the garden. They frame the garden. The walls also frame the people who enjoy the garden, providing them with an opportunity to live deeply into the monastic spirit.”

Echoes of Richmond Hill

Monastic Moment: The Garden Remembers

The Monastic Moment column consists of reflections from Rev. Tripp Hudgins, Pastoral Director of Richmond Hill. In these reflections, he draws on the community’s Rule of Life and the rhythms of prayer that shape daily life on the hill, inviting us all to practice attentiveness, stability, and faithful presence…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · Richmond Hill

My vision for Richmond Hill is a place where all are invited to live into the monastic spirit. Some of us do that as permanent residents. Some of us will do that by working here. Some of us do it as Sojourners. Some of us only come and spend the day. We come to noon prayers and then we go back to our offices. How we respond to the call of Richmond Hill will differ from person to person.

The work of Richmond Hill is to pray for the healing of the metropolitan city. It is a beautiful vocation. I am grateful to be part of it.

Life together is challenging. There’s no way around that. If you believe you are called to a life of prayer and to the work of racial healing, reach out. Come and visit us. Volunteer in the kitchen or the garden or in the development office. Come and pray with us. The discernment process can be a long one, but it won’t begin until you take that first step.

Are you ready?

The drop is real. I love making music with my friends. And it saddens me when it is over.

There is a kind breeze. Today is the first full day of spring. Small leaves litter our porch. There is an Irish Festival just up the street this weekend. St Patrick’s Catholic Church hosts a festival every year. We’ll be going and trying on some festival wares and eating things that are bad for us.

And, of course, I am looking to upgrade the bouzouki. There’s a cittern for sale at the House of Musical Traditions in Maryland. So tempting. It’s rare to find a mid-level ‘zouk these days. Everyone is making $4-10k instruments. I don’t have that kind of coin. Nor does my present skill level warant such a beast. But a mid-level instrument…That’s a different story.

There is a cat asleep in my lap. I missed the old man.

The family is awake. Coffee is strong. I need to take my meds. The rhythms of Richmond Hill hold a claim on my life and I am glad for it.

We don’t have anyone in the house this weekend. So, people are taking advantage of the quiet to get out and play. Shenanigans.

Shenanigans are holy.

Psalm 130

De profundis

1 Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice; *
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2 If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *
O Lord, who could stand?

3 For there is forgiveness with you; *
therefore you shall be feared.

4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *
in his word is my hope.

5 My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
more than watchmen for the morning.

6 O Israel, wait for the Lord, *
for with the Lord there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

We fuck up. It’s true. That’s an unavoidable reality. We do so in myriad ways. I mean, I know I do. I am God’s Own Fuck Up. Some would argue that even saying “fuck up” is to fuck up. But forgiveness is a practice that can see us past our mistakes. It can see us past the mistakes we cannot even recognize. God’s forgiveness is a universal truth. It is a force, a grace that cannot be resisted. There is plenteous redemption as the old song goes.

And our souls wait. We wait to awaken from our slumber. We wait for completion. Totality. Peace.

Until then, shenanigans.