Jesus is calling. Will we answer?

 Many of us, at some point in our moral development, have held an image of God as some sort of divine scorekeeper. Constantly surveying the action on the field of life, this scorekeeper is marking down our every infraction – whether the scorekeeper relishes finding our misdoings or weeps at them depends on the telling of this story. Each of our wrongs, whether in thought, word, or deed, things done or things left undone, is recorded, and likely assigned a point value as to just how much it counts against us.

If we are lucky, the scorekeeper is recording our positive points too: maybe by doing enough good deeds, acts of service, acts of devotion, we can offset the demerits on our record with credits. Maybe we can put just enough money in the offering plate to cancel out the time we swore when someone cut us off in traffic. Maybe participating in the Easter basket drive will be enough of a credit to us that at the day of judgment, it will cancel out the time someone asked us for help and we said no because we didn't want to help. Maybe if we attend enough Wednesday night evensongs, it will cancel out the Sundays that we've missed church. Maybe the recorder of our misdeeds will also record enough good works to our cosmic account that we can earn a place in the kingdom of heaven.

This image of God as divine scorekeeper certainly has some scriptural basis, but it is far from complete, and this worldview leads both to inevitable guilt and shame because of our many sins and simultaneously to a dangerous works righteousness that can never truly earn our way into the Kingdom of Heaven but can also lead us to sit in judgment ourselves against those whom we deem to do fewer good works than we do. All of this is spiritually toxic.

Sometimes people respond to this toxic worldview by swinging to the other extreme: to deny the possibility of hell and judgment and moral consequence. But this too is spiritually dangerous, leaving us unprepared for the Kingdom of Heaven. As a countermeasure to both of these spiritual toxins, I want to reflect on two images from today's reading from the revelation to St John.

"In the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day--and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life."

Let's focus on these two images: "nothing unclean will enter it", but also "its gates will never be shut."

In this model, God isn't some divine gatekeeper saying "you can come in, and you can't." Indeed, Jesus did not say he is the gatekeeper; Jesus said he is the gate!

If the gates are always open, why are the practitioners of abomination and falsehood left outside? If no gatekeeper excludes them, why are they not in the new Jerusalem?

And the answer here is far more terrifying than a divine vindictive judge delighting in casting us into the outer darkness for our misdeeds. Those excluded from the New Jerusalem, those in the outer darkness for all eternity, are the ones who refuse to come in from the cold to the warm place of safety. The real danger is that we cast ourselves into the outer darkness because we prefer darkness to light. As the orthodox say, he gates of hell are locked from the inside.

The real danger is not that God, the lover of our soul, will reject us.  The true threat of Hell is that God will embrace us but we will turn away from God's love.

There's a beautiful hymn from the late nineteenth century written by Will Thompson that describes God's relationship with us:

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling

Calling for you and for me

See on the portals He's waiting and watching

Watching for you and for me

Come home, come home

Ye who are weary come home

Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling

Calling, "O sinner come home"

But here's the thing: inside that New Jerusalem, there's no score keeping. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Stop keeping score with us as we stop keeping score with others. But some of us have a hard time letting go of keeping score. 

Some of us cling to our positive score points. Some of us cling to other people's negative points. When God offers to clear the scores away, which is the only way we can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, too many of us cling to our merits or the demerits of others and refuse to accept God's setting things afresh.

Earlier this year, we heard the story of the Prodigal son. The younger son took his share of the inheritance and squandered it in dissolute living, while the older son dutifully toiled away.  The younger son came to his senses and returned, planning to ask his father to treat him as a hired hand, but the father rejoiced at his son's return and threw a feast. The older son refused to come in to the feast because he was sure the younger son didn't deserve it. And that is our spiritual danger. Do we refuse to come in to God's feast because we find God's love extended to those we consider unworthy to be unpalatable?

In the New Jerusalem, there are two deep rules that describe the way of life: love the Lord God with all your heart and strength and mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself. In the New Jerusalem, when we see someone suffering, we ask "how can I help," and not "do they deserve help" or "is it my obligation to help."

How we respond to Jesus invitation is a function not of what we have done, but who we are. However, the things we do very much help to shape who we are. The works of love that we practice in our lives are vitally important not because they earn us a place in the new Jerusalem, but because they transform us into people who would seek out the new Jerusalem. Do we long for a world where people don't keep score, and the mere existence of anyone in need is a call to everyone who _can_ help _to_ help, regardless of any notions of merit or particular obligation? Or are we put off by it, and turn up our nose an the idea of living in a Kingdom where we don't keep moral score? Do we cling to our credits and to others' wrongs so we are unable to enter the Gate that God throws open for us?

When we talk about salvation, there's two words that get thrown around: Justification, and sanctification. Justification means that our sins are forgiven. Sanctification means that sin no longer has power over us. Justification means that we are welcome in the kingdom of heaven. Sanctification means that we would welcome the kingdom of heaven. Justification means that Jesus is calling us to come home. Sanctification means that we are transformed into people who respond to that call and say yes.

God is not a vindictive judge looking for the slightest reason to damn us to hell. But to the extent that we sit as vindictive judges of others, we find God's forgiveness and the laws of the new Jerusalem to be utterly repugnant, and we refuse to enter in to the heavenly banquet.

The gates are open. Do we respond to God's tender call and go into the kingdom prepared for us, or are we holding out for some better kingdom reserve for the worthy that we deem ourselves to be, despite the fact that no such better kingdom exists, and by refusing to enter in to God's abundant mercy, we cast ourselves into the outer darkness?

We don't do good works in order to be credited for them. We do good works in order to rehearse them. We do the acts prescribed in the baptismal covenant not because we get a reward for them, meriting for us a place in the kingdom of heaven, but because we are transformed by them, into people who would rejoice in living in a kingdom where such acts are the norm. Worshiping, tithing, singing praise to God, sharing the good news, serving those in need, striving for justice – these are not ways we earn cosmic credit, but they are the things that transform us into people who when Jesus calls, we are inclined to say yes.

The day of judgment is very real, but in a sense, we ourselves are the ones who sit as judge: The gates are open; do we judge the kingdom of heaven to be a place that we choose to go in? Jesus is calling. Will we answer? Do we truly long to live in a kingdom ruled by the law of love? Who we form ourselves to be today shapes our answer to this question.

Toward a state-based moral calculus

(In progress; I intend to edit later; includes sentence fragments that trail off)

A moral aphorism often encountered is the notion that “actions have consequences.” While some actions do indeed have consequences, I argue that the consequences of actions is not the primary building block for understanding moral obligation. In response to the proposed framework that actions have consequences, I suggest a more constructive framework is “States have implications, and actions may or may not contribute to a change of state.”

Our moral obligations are entirely a product of our state of being, and not of the path that lead to that state. Countervailing against that however, our habits are very very much an integral part of our state of being, and our actions do contribute to those habits.

On the one hand, I really am arguing that our actions have no direct moral consequences. On the other hand, our actions have immense indirect moral consequences, because our actions create habits, attitudes, abilities, and so forth, which have superlative moral consequence.

From a moral perspective, I honestly think the question “what have you done?” is all but irrelevant, except to the extent that it impacts the answer to the question “what do you do?”

Path-based morality says that you acquire certain particular moral obligations to specific people by the details of your birth, and that various other actions over the course of a lifetime create other particular moral obligations. Additionally, if you wrong someone, you have a moral obligation to make it right, and our moral obligations are prioritized based on the claims they each have on us because of our past conduct. State-based morality says that if you have the capacity to improve the state of the world, you have a moral obligation to improve it. Our moral obligations are prioritized based on the need for the improvement and how particularly we are situated to be uniquely able to offer that improvement, where improvement is, as always, defined as progress toward a state of universal thriving ("life, and have it abundantly").

Creatures who are capable of actions that can change the state of the world for the better have an obligation to do so

I am less interested in “whose actions caused the state of the universe to be as it is” and more interested in “who has the capacity now to make the universe better?”

I believe our obligations to act to better the state of the universe are not the consequences of our past actions, but rather the result of our capacity to do good. 

According to the “actions have consequences” framework, past actions create a hierarchy of whose thriving is morally prioritized. Those who act virtuously deserve to thrive, and their virtuous conduct creates a moral responsibility to others to act for their thriving. Those who act unvirtuously do not deserve to thrive, and actions to promote their thriving are deprioritized, or even morally prohibited. In this realm, justice involves people getting the outcomes they deserve. Justice is the process of calling people to account for their moral responsibilities.

Now I would agree that justice is indeed when creatures are called to account for meeting their moral responsibilities. But rather than believing that past actions create moral responsibilities, I believe that current states of being create moral responsibilities.

Your moral responsibility is to do the most good, given the state in which you find yourself. 

The past cannot be changed, so moral responsibility always begins anew from the current state and always points from the current hellish conditions toward apocatastasis 

Our habits are a big part of our current state

God’s will is for the restoration of all creatures to a state of thriving.

None of our actions can change God’s desire for our thriving. Thus, no one can forfeit a place in that end state of thriving.

The problem with “actions have consequences” is that it suggests that because of our actions, some creatures deserve to thrive and others do not. Or at least that some creatures’ thriving is prioritized over other creatures’ thriving. But the divine expectation is apocatastasis, which leaves no room for exclusion: we do not have divine authorization to write off anyone as being undeserving of restoration to a state of thriving.

But states have consequences: if the current state of creation is hellish, such that many creatures are not thriving, all creatures have a moral responsibility to act to change the state of creation so that mutual thriving can happen. And if a creature, in its current state, has the tendency to prevent other creatures from thriving, that must be changed. Any creature’s actions cannot put said creature outside the plan of restoration, but many many actions make that process of restoration much longer and more difficult! This apocatastasis is not a universalism of “I’m okay; you’re okay.” I am most certainly not okay in my current state, and neither are you. And to the extent that I in my current state and you in your current state are apt to engage in actions that inhibit the thriving of other creatures, we are not fit to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven in our current state, and must be transformed in order to have a place in the new creation.

—

The Kingdom of Heaven is a state of paradise: a state of mutual thriving for all creatures. God’s will is for apocatastasis: the restoration of all creatures to that state of mutual thriving. Our current hellish state is one in which many creatures are apt to act in ways that prevent the thriving of other creatures. God’s will is to bring about a new creation, a new state of being in which the creatures of the old creation all participate but restored to right order, such that they contribute to rather than prevent each other’s abundant life. Because God’s will is for the restoration of all creatures to a state of thriving, none of our actions can change God’s desire for our thriving. Thus, no one can forfeit a place in that end state of paradise.

The problem with a paradigm that proclaims that “actions have consequences” is that it suggests that because of our actions, some creatures deserve to thrive and others do not, or at least that some creatures’ thriving is prioritized over other creatures’ thriving on the basis of their past actions. But the divine expectation is apocatastasis, which leaves no room for exclusion: we do not have divine authorization to write off anyone as being undeserving of restoration to a state of thriving.

But states have consequences: if the current state of creation is hellish, such that many creatures are not thriving, all creatures have a moral responsibility to act to change the state of creation so that mutual thriving can happen. And if a creature, in its current state, has the tendency to prevent other creatures from thriving, that must be changed. Any creature’s actions cannot put said creature outside the plan of restoration, but many many actions make that process of restoration much longer and more difficult! This apocatastasis is not a universalism of “I’m okay; you’re okay.” I am most certainly not okay in my current state, and neither are you. And to the extent that I in my current state and you in your current state are apt to engage in actions that inhibit the thriving of other creatures, we are not fit to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven in our current state, and must be transformed in order to have a place in the new creation.

In a non-apocatastasis-based ethic, justice seems to involve the consequences of one’s actions, such that 

Someone's propensity for bad conduct give us a moral obligation to disempower such a person, but in no way lessens our mora obligation to seek such a person's wellbeing 

Saints and fan crushes

My visual artwork of late has been rather intensely focused on the lives of the saints, both those canonized by some official church body and also those who haven’t made any official list but whose lives deeply speak to not just holiness in general, but the particular path to which I understand myself to be called. At the same time, I've been trying to make sense in my life of why does it feel like I have crushes on twenty gazillion people when I'm not even sure whether I experience romantic attraction? Saints and fan crushes. You’d think they’re totally separate things. And yet…

And it hit me. I get this warm fuzzy euphoric feeling at the thought of being around certain people because something in their way of being gives me hope that it’s possible to be the kind of person I want to be in the world. I see in some aspect of their lives of way of being a suggestion of the me I long to be. The euphoria comes from the sense that if I can be around them, maybe I can emulate not all of them, because they, as a whole, are a different person than my authentic self, but the aspects of the authentic me that I see modeled in them.

What do I want to be when I grow up? Who do I want to be when I grow up? Finding traces of my authentic self in others gives me joy in the hope that it might become slightly easier to make my way through the world because their example is like King Wenceslaus’s footsteps through the snow.

It all clicked. Celebrities and artists and authors that I wished could be my friends and neighbors, relatives and family friends that I really looked forward to seeing at the holidays, historic figures I wished I could meet, teachers I found especially inspiring, and people I meet that I feel like I have some sort of crush on despite not even quite knowing what to do with the concept of romance… it’s the same warm fuzzy glow I get from being around all of them. And it’s a joy of being in the presence of something I want to emulate, not to become a copy of them (indeed, everyone is broken in their own way, and the brokenness isn’t what I want to copy; I have plenty of my own), but because some aspect of them models the me that I long to be. And seeing that the way of being I long to instantiate can be real produces an authentic joy, which only intensifies when I can be in a presence that helps me grow into it.

Now there are plenty of people I admire but don’t see in them a path to grow into who I long to be. There are people whose company I enjoy because they’re awesome, but I don’t get that glow because their awesomeness is great but I don’t see in it a model of the particular form of awesomeness I feel drawn to live out. I don’t get that warm fuzzy glow from people who are awesome but their awesomeness doesn’t show me a path to live out the authentic me I long to live out. I deeply appreciate them, but they’re not who I’m talking about here.

The people that make me glow – living celebrities like Stephen Colbert or others, some of whom I'm astonishingly actually Facebook friends with – or people who have left this world like Dorothy Day or Thomas Merton or Daniel Berrigan or Martin Luther King Jr.– or people in my “real” life that I get this warm glow when I get the chance to be around them – or the people I only encounter on social media and then wish I could spend time with in daily life – what they have in common is that something about the way that each of them are them in the world gives me hope that I can grow into the me that I most deeply aspire to be, and I want to be around them because I long for some of their them-ness to rub off on me, not so I can copy them (one of them is enough), but so I can grow into the me that I so deeply long to grow into.

I’m looking for the footsteps through the snow that happen to fall along my path to help me make my way through the drifts. And I’m writing this and sharing it in case it might leave any helpful steps for others on their unique journeys, because just like other people leave footsteps as they make their way through the world, so do I, and maybe my footsteps could fall for a few steps along someone else’s path, and they could benefit from the snow I’ve managed to pack down.

Praise God for those in every generation in whom Christ has been honored. Pray that we may have grace to glorify Christ in our own day.

Am I Alive Today Because of Dolly Parton?

  Dolly Parton gave a lot of money toward the development of the Moderna vaccine. I've had three doses of the Moderna vaccine. I've been closely exposed to people who had COVID. I didn't catch the disease. I might be alive today because of Dolly Parton.

Which is cool in some ways, because she's kind of awesome. But also, public health research shouldn't have to depend on rich people choosing to be awesome as she so chooses. Tax rates should be high enough that all levels of government collect enough taxes to fund necessary public health for all people.

Dolly Parton is awesome, but our survival shouldn't depend not wealthy people taking her as a role model and not using their wealth to build phallic rockets. Income and wealth should be taxed highly enough that no one accumulates billions, and public goods are well funded.

Follow-up thoughts on communion and baptism

First, I want to stress that I believe there is an important difference between “not eligible” and “prohibited.” Eligible means “having the right to do or obtain something.” Someone who is not eligible for something does not have a right to expect that thing. In Matthew 20:1-16, only the workers hired in the early morning were *eligible* for the usual daily wage. The others did not have the right to expect that wage. And yet Jesus delivered the usual daily wage to all of them: those who had the right to obtain that wage, and those who had worked fewer hours and thus did not have the right to obtain that wage. Prohibited means you cannot receive something without breaking the law; not eligible means that the law does not guarantee you a right to receive something. Unbaptized persons are not eligible to receive communion: they have no right to expect that communion will be served to them. This, I believe, is meet and right. But the canon does not say they are prohibited from receiving, or, more to the point, that the faithful are prohibited from serving them communion.

So I would argue that it is not a matter of canon law that we cannot serve communion to the unbaptized. But *should* we serve communion to the unbaptized? I would argue that radical welcome would be better served by baptizing the unbaptized and then serving them communion rather than serving them communion and ignoring the state of their baptism.

Most of the arguments in favor of communion without baptism (CwoB) seem to have a very low doctrine of both baptism and eucharist. If one believes that baptism is (not symbolizes, but *is*) death to an old self and a new birth in Christ, and that Eucharist is that new self being made one with and strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ, and that both are essential to what we understand to be God's plan for our justification and sanctification (which is not to say that God could not accomplish said justification and sanctification some other way, but this is the way we know that God has promised us), then their order very much matters, and pretending that either is trivial or able to be omitted is to neglect the faith.

The only argument for Eucharist preceding Baptism that I've seen that takes both Eucharist and Baptism seriously is the Wesleyan argument that the grace of Eucharist could lead an unbaptized person to become baptized. While that is not what I would advocate for, I don't think that's a bad argument, and I would certainly be willing to break bread with those who hold this position. But most of the arguments for CwoB seem to take the stance that communion and baptism are both "just symbols" and that including people at the table is more important than the process of growth in grace imparted by the two sacraments.

In other words, I would say that one *can* advocate for communion before baptism without abandoning sacramental theology, but that most arguments for communion without (not before) baptism DO abandon the sacramental teaching of the church.

So my conclusion on the matter of CwoB is that it *can* be done without violating canon law. There are reasons to do it that could be consistent with the teaching of the church on the subject of sacraments, but most of the reasons advanced for the practice are bad reasons and would be better served by making our radical welcome at the baptismal font rather than at the altar rail, preserving the link between the two sacraments.

Canon I.17.7

UPDATE: See some follow-up thoughts on communion and baptism.

It appears there are some who want the next General Convention to weigh in on Communion without Baptism. The Diocese of Northern California has sent a resolution for General Convention's consideration to repeal Canon I.17.7.

I think there are a lot of good reasons that the norm should be that baptism should precede communion. While John Wesley made a theological argument why communion preceding and leading to baptism might be a means of grace, most of the arguments in favor of communion without baptism are, frankly, theologically poor ones that actually weaken an ethos of radical inclusion, despite professing to strengthen it.

But I think a lot of the noise that has emerged around this issue is misplaced, because I don’t think Canon I.17.7 does what people seem to think it does. I don't think that having it in place means that people who openly invite the unbaptized to receive communion are breaking the current canons, nor would repealing it change anything about whether it is permitted or required to allow the unbaptized to receive communion.

In other words, I believe that serving communion to the unbaptized is usually a bad idea, but not currently a violation of the canons of the church, and publicly teaching that the unbaptized are welcome to receive communion is probably not a violation of the current canons, given the narrow reading precedent has given for what constitutes "doctrine contrary to that held by the Church".

Canon I.17 is titled "Of Regulations Respecting the Laity."

Canon I.17.6 establishes rights for persons who have been refused or repelled from Holy Communion to appeal to the bishop and possibly receive an order directing the parish priest to admit them to communion.

Canon I.17.7 follows that, asserting that the unbaptized are not eligible (in possession of the right) to receive communion, and thus are not entitled to the aforementioned procedure.

Again, these canons fall in to the heading of “regulations concerning the laity” – this does not establish that a priest who serves communion to an unbaptized person has committed a presentable offense; rather, the canon denies the unbaptized access to the quasi-judicial process that could order their parish priest to serve them communion.

I think in the fight over Canon I.17.7, both sides seem to suppose that the canon is a prohibition on those in holy orders explicitly inviting the unbaptized to receive communion, or knowingly serving communion to the unbaptized. Perhaps we should have such a canon (I would support the first, but be wary of legislating the second), but Canon I.17.7 is about whether the unbaptized have a right to communion, not whether they can be served.

I would point out that the unbaptized are not members of the church, so the church cannot really legislate their actions. The church can legislate the actions of the baptized, and even more so those in holy orders.

Canon I.17 is regulation about rights of the laity, with a clarification that the unbaptized are not a part of the laity and thus do not possess those rights. One becomes a part of the laos through baptism. I would argue that canon I.17.7 is clarifying but not particularly helpful, as its elimination would not change the fact that even if 1.17.7 were gone, the unbaptized would still not fall under canon 1.17 because they are not laity.

Should we have a canon establishing that it is the doctrine of this church that baptism should precede communion, and thus any clergy person holding and teaching contrary to that doctrine violates Canon IV.4.1.h.2 (In exercising his or her ministry, a Member of the Clergy shall… refrain from… holding and teaching publicly or privately, and advisedly, any Doctrine contrary to that held by the Church)? Perhaps. But Canon I.17.7 is not a statement of doctrinal prohibition; it is a statement of eligibility for a legal process. The fact that the unbaptized do not have a right to receive communion is not the same as a canon prohibiting those in holy orders from inviting them to communion anyway.

Now, if Canon I.17.7 were a canon that prohibited clergy from serving communion to the unbaptized, and prohibited teaching that baptism, I think there would be a case for repealing it, but the resolution from Northern California does not make that case.

I think the case for not legislating this via canon law is as follows: There is genuine theological disagreement about how best to carry out the mission of radical hospitality Christ commended to the Church. Some believe strongly that encountering the Lord in the blessed sacrament of Holy Communion can draw people to the font, to be baptized into the death and new life of Christ, and that this means of grace ought not be suppressed by church law. Others believe, also strongly, that without baptism we are spiritually dead, and that serving communion to the unbaptized suggests that baptism is not essential to life in Christ, and hides the urgency of Christ's command to make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. While affirming that Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God, we recognize that people of good faith differ as to whether the grace of Holy Communion presupposes baptism, or could draw people to baptism.

I believe there is no case for "communion without baptism" – the position that communion can do good apart from baptism. There could be a case for communion before baptism, so long as it is taught and understood that communion served to the unbaptized is to help bring them to the font.

I would urge the General Convention to reject the resolution from Northern California. It does not do what it hopes to accomplish, and it states all the wrong reasons for doing so.

Thanks, 2020

 For everyone who is hoping 2021 is better than 2020, my heart is with you, and I hope you get the relief from distress for which you long. For me personally, I do not hope that 2021 be better than 2020. I pray earnestly that it be different, and that it be far better for all those so horribly displaced by the events of 2020, but I must give thanks, for in truth the year 2020 treated me well. My prayer is that 2021 treat others better, for I cannot fairly complain of how 2020 treated me, neither in comparison to how others fared, nor honestly on its own merits. It was certainly not the year I had planned nor the year I hoped for, and yet it gave me gifts.

I mourn with all those who mourn. So many people died. So many people were and are horribly sick. So many people were alone when they desperately didn't want to be. People lost jobs and entire industries had to shut down. People couldn't celebrate life milestones together, and people couldn't gather with friends. For all these, and with all these, I mourn.

But also I give thanks. The year marked a retreat, in so many senses of the word, into my own home, a mostly peaceful and pleasant place. Yes, I wish I could safely have family and friends into the space, and long for the time when that can happen again, but the imposed opportunity to stay home was in its own way a blessing for me. How often is the act of staying safely in one's home an act of love, service, and civic duty? What a gift that service to friend, neighbor, and country might take the form of doing one's part to refrain from spreading disease in such a relatively pleasant form for me! I pray fervently for those for whom staying home is not safe or not pleasant, but I certainly cannot complain.

I thank 2020 for the prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement and efforts to hold police accountable for violence, brutality, and racism. While there is a long, long way to go, I am glad that resistance to institutional violence and oppression had as much of a spotlight as it did this year. I thank 2020 for the millions upon millions of voters who found ways to safely cast their ballots in resistance to the current regime. I am grateful for the many, many people who disrupted their lives and livelihoods to protect their neighbors from disease. I thank 2020 for all the parts of the world who modeled humane and effective responses to pandemic. I thank 2020 for putting a spotlight on the consequences of our inequality, our lack of public health care and sick leave, and our reliance on ever-expanding markets, and pray that we may learn from those lessons to build a more humane society going forward.

The year marked profound growth in my life of prayer. Despite being connected only by voice and sometimes camera image, I prayed both the Office and the Mass with others far more this year than ever before in my life, and for that I give great thanks. Yes, I despise the spatial separation the pandemic demanded, but my experiences this year of the Mass and Office celebrated in dispersed community has been profound in helping me clarify my longing to be in a community that can celebrate them physically together throughout the weeks and years. And the gatherings assisted by remote communication technology were profoundly meaningful in their own ways, even as they pointed painfully to the limits of technologically mediated gatherings. The year for me was a time of profound spiritual growth, and a time to explore the boundaries of possibility when it comes to gathering and praying in community when the act of physical gathering endangers not only the ones gathering but everyone else with whom they come in contact. The year 2020 gave me a taste, imperfect to be sure, but incredibly clarifying, of not just the longing but the joy of imperfectly participating in something resembling communal celebration of the Daily Office and conventual mass. I am profoundly thankful for these experiences that the year’s limitations actually made possible and necessary.

Professionally, 2020 also treated me well, certainly compared to people whose jobs became dangerous or impossible, but also in absolute terms. Both teaching and leading a parish had to be thoroughly reinvented in the face of the pandemic. This was challenging, and required developing new skills and techniques, but the professional development in both contexts taught me things that I believe will make me much more effective in both settings once life returns to more face-to-face contact. Additionally, the disruption brought about by the pandemic was more acute but perhaps less thorough than the disruption necessarily coming to both parish ministry and higher eduction if either field has a hope of being sustainable going into the future. As much as we had to reinvent things in 2020, it was in some ways practice for some of the more thorough institutional and methodological reinvention both higher education and the dying institution known as the parish will need to undertake to be able to play their needed role in a future in which they will be unable to continue in their current shapes. Being involved in a temporary emergency reinvention of each was exciting, and taught me a lot about the challenges and joys of reinvention, and the urgency of preserving the parish and the academy in some form even if their current structure seems utterly unsustainable. The jobs I did took many many many more hours than usual to be able to perform them at a quality far below the standards to which I am accustomed, but I was able to continue to do both jobs and to expand my skill set in each dramatically in the process.

The hardest part of 2020 for me was the limitations on gathering with family and friends. This I truly mourn. Videoconferencing cannot hug. Group conference calls remove the one-on-one side conversations that are my joy in gatherings. One-on-one phone calls could be good for conversation, if only good quality connections were a thing. I remember a time when Sprint’s advertisements showed a pin dropping, advertising that their call quality was so good you could hear a pin drop. I can now only dream of phone connections that do not make a person sound like a Martian robot. Neither landlines nor cell phones nor internet calling has given me an acceptable sound quality, and the frustrations of trying to communicate thusly make me want to withdraw into my hermitage and visit with family and friends again when in-person visits are again safe. Most days solitude seems far preferable to social Zoom gatherings (great for tasks, miserable for socializing – but unstructured socializing is awkward for me to begin with, and Zoom compounds that) or garbled phone calls.

I hope 2021 is a very different year than 2020, but I give thanks for the blessings that 2020 shared with me.