Sabbatical – What is it? (Part 1 of 3)

And on the seventh day God finished the work that God had done, and God rested on the seventh day from all the work that God had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that God had done in creation. (Genesis 2:2-3)

Sabbath is rest. It is not only a primary human need it is one of the most ancient commandments of our faith (#4 of the Big Ten if you’re counting) – so important that we see God modeling it for us in the stories of creation.

The punishment for breaking the Sabbath commandment was death (Exodus 31:14)… which, frankly, always seemed a little extreme to me, until I really thought about it.

First off, if we don’t take Sabbath … if we don’t rest … we die. Without rest, our bodies deteriorate, we are more susceptible to life-shortening illnesses and events and our lifespans shrink. Medical science has proven that Sabbath – rest – literally is a matter of life and death.

But even more important (seriously … even more important than life and death) is that ignoring Sabbath leads to spiritual death.

The first commandment is “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of bondage in Egypt, you shall have no other gods before me.” When we ignore Sabbath, when we don’t take time to rest and to let the world go on without us, we are saying with our lives that we are indispensable. We are committing the original sin of Adam and Eve in putting ourselves in the place of God … only worse because even God rested on the seventh day!

When we ignore Sabbath, we are committing idolatry and violating this commandment. We are saying with our lives that God and the world can’t possibly do without us even for a day. It is the first, great step to squeezing out God altogether and constructing a world that is all about – and completely dependent on – us.

Through our time together at Christ Church Cathedral, I have not been good at Sabbath. And it has been an idolatry that has ill-served this Cathedral, my family and myself. From the very beginning, I let my own need to prove myself and my love for this community and the work we share lead me to taking on too much, working through my days off and sleeping fewer and fewer hours a night.

And, predictably, this has taken tolls on those same two levels that Exodus presages.

The first is my health. After seven years, I am exhausted. My blood pressure is creeping up. My capacity for creative thought is waning. I am in deep need of rest and restoration.

The second is an aspect of the spiritual health of this congregation. As I prepare for my sabbatical, I hear voices of anxiety being raised. Voices that question how we will face the considerable challenges before us with me gone for five-plus months. Voices that make me realize I have not done nearly a good enough job of teaching us by my actions that the future and fate of Christ Church Cathedral does not rest in the hands of your Dean, but of God and of one another.

And so, as was announced at the annual meeting Eucharist, starting the day after Easter, I am going on Sabbatical through the day after Labor Day. And I am doing this both as an act of self-care (one that is provided for me in my letter of agreement … though Chapter has, I am grateful to say, recognized that what I am owed contractually is not enough for the restorative task and has expanded it) and an opportunity to do the work of establishing healthier patterns of living for the years to come, but also an act of spiritual leadership as your Dean – to practice what I have been preaching these last seven years and that is faithfulness to and trust in Jesus as the only barometer of our success that matters.

This will be a true sabbatical for me. I will have no major travel or big writing project. When people ask me what I will be doing, I say the primary things will be sleeping and reading. I will be doing some writing not with an end product in mind but as a way of journaling and processing the past seven years we have traveled together. My prayer is that during these five months you all will find time to do the same. To realize that some things that I do will need to be taken up by others but that others will fall by the wayside – and that will be OK.

Over the next two weeks, I will be writing more about sabbatical. Next week, I will write about the opportunity I believe this sabbatical presents not just for me but for all of us. The week after that, I will lay out the plan – worked out with Vicar Amy Cortright, our wardens and Chapter – about how things will run and lines of authority and process while I am gone.

I look forward to this month together as we journey toward Calvary and the empty tomb. And I welcome the chance to talk about these and many other things as much as you like.

In Christ’s love,

I listen to you and then I believe you.

“I listen to you and then I believe you.”

KB Frazier drums and leads chants as part of the
protest at St. Louis City Police Headquarters
last night.

Last night, I and a couple other CCC members stood in the middle of Olive Street in front of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters with around 70 other people protesting an incident that happened the night before.

The family of one of our black activist leaders, KB Frazier (also a worship leader and board member at Central Reform Congregation as well as an awesome drummer) was pulled over by the police without evident cause and their car was approached by two officers with guns drawn. Among those in the car was two year old Ethan, who stood up in the back seat, began to cry out of terror and was told to “sit down and shut up” by one of the officers.

I joined KB and others in the street last night because I took baptismal vows to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving my neighbor as myself and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being – and the actions of those officers and the system of policing that supports them is neither just, dignified nor honoring of the image of God that is on every human being.

I joined KB and others in the street last night because Jesus calls me to stand with those most on the margins, because that’s where Jesus is.

I joined KB and others in the street last night because the behavior of those officers is not only dangerous, traumatizing and potentially deadly, it is not worthy of this City of St. Louis that I love.

Throughout today, I have been asked repeatedly:

“But how do you know that it actually happened?”

“Where is the evidence?”

“You know you can’t really prove it, right?”

And that leads me to the last reason I joined KB and others in the street last night.

Because I listened to KB, and I believed him.

When Bishop Gene Robinson was here at Christ Church Cathedral last spring, he told a story of a conversation he had with a student at Colby College in Maine about “what white guys can do to ‘get it’ about the experience of black people in America.” (if you click on the link, the story comes at about the 1:35:00 mark).

“Here’s what he told me was the first thing I can do,” Gene said.

“I listen to you and then I believe you.”

“We listen to someone who is different from us, and then we believe it’s their truth. It may not be my truth or anything out of my experience but it’s true for you. And then we have a chance to talk.”

Gene went on to say: “There are a lot of white people in America with not a clue as to why Ferguson happened they way it did. That’s just not their experience. OK, fine. Can you listen to someone for whom that is their experience and believe that it is their experienced truth?”

“And then we can start to talk.”

I’m not saying my belief in KB by itself should have the power of judge and jury. No one person’s should. Our legal system is rightly based on rules of evidence. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. I’m not asking for officers to be convicted purely because KB or I say they should.

I am talking about listening and believing to a truth that is different from my own … and maybe different from your own as well.

We are talking about the lived experience of policing of people who have grown up black and brown in this country. And it is very different from my own. And in the face of that difference, my job -- particularly but certainly not exclusively when the speaker is someone I have come to know as a person of deep integrity and courage – is clear.

I listen to him and I believe him.

And one more thing.

I stand with him.

I stand with KB because we can’t start to talk, we can’t start to have the conversations that will lead to true reconciliation, that will lead to change, that will lead to us becoming the Beloved Community until we as a community truly listen to the voices that are coming off the streets. Until we listen to them and believe them … believe that they are telling their truth. And that it is a truth that needs to be honored and respected and believed.

I am grateful for the young black women, men and gender nonconforming persons in our community who refuse to “sit down and shut up” – even when guns are pointed at them. Who amplify Ethan’s cries and demand they be heard, that his name be known and that the trauma be believed.

I am grateful because I am so aware of how many times I have failed and still continue to fail to listen and believe.

I am grateful because I know the only way we will ever become the city God dreams for us to be is if their voices keep shouting.

If other voices like mine join and amplify them.

If all of us learn to listen and believe.

Men of the Church: It's time to call out misogyny. It's time for women to lead.

For the past 19 months, I have watched women’s leadership change this community and change this nation. Women like Brittany Packnett, Traci Blackmon, Brittany Ferrell, Susan Talve, Ashley Yates, Johnetta Elzie, Karen Anderson, Elle Dowd, Felicia Pulliam, Deb Krause, Amy Hunter, Rebecca Ragland, Momma Cat, (and gender nonconforming people like Alexis Templeton.). They have brought their whole selves to the struggle for black lives and human rights. They have been my leaders and my inspiration, and I am honored and grateful to be led by them.

And every step of the way, they have fought men trying to control them.

Minimize them.

Dismiss them.

Erase them.

The Church has a long history of controlling, minimizing, dismissing, and erasing women. In fact, throughout history, you’d be hard pressed to find a greater offender. That’s why it is particularly important for men in the church to speak out now.

For our entire nation’s history, if you are a woman you have to work at least twice as hard to get half as far (and again, for women of color – multiply that out by a whole bunch.).

The church – despite believing that “in the image of God they were created, male and female God created them.” – instead of transforming the culture, has mirrored it – and even worse. As of last summer, only 6.4% of Episcopal bishops were women. Women are a superminority of rectors of large congregations.

Our male supremacist nation continues to equate tokenism and individual women breaking barriers with real change. In America the gender pay gap remains at 21 percent – and considerably worse for women of color. And that doesn't talk about how women are treated and judged differently in the workplace. How women are subject to harassment at exponentially greater rates than men. How women have their health care options limited by the same men who scream about how "Obamacare will make you lose the choice of your doctor."

And while this has happened, what are we saying?

For decades and even centuries, men have told women to be patient, work within the system, and change will happen.

So let’s look at that.

A woman does that. A woman works the system incredibly well. She uses every opportunity and "despoils every Egyptian" (it's in Exodus -- look it up) so that she can have the same chance as a man to use her leadership gifts.

She does this so well that she becomes a U.S. Senator, the Secretary of State and on the cusp of her party’s nomination for president.

And what happens?

I mean, in addition to her being called “ambitious” where a man would be called “visionary” and being called “manipulative” where a man would be called “clever.”

I mean, in addition to her wardrobe being evaluated in ways that Marco Rubio’s tie choice never warrants.

I mean, in addition to her being singled out and vigorously labeled "dishonest" and "untrustworthy" to a degree that even a president who lied to get us into a war didn't come close to having to face.

I mean, in addition to all the criticisms that would be seen as strengths if she were a man – but instead make her “less likable” because we men are both threatened by strong women and in general don’t like women who fit into our own self-centering definition of what gender-specific behavior should be?

She gets called “Too establishment”

She gets called “Part of the problem.”

She gets called a bitch -- though not on TV, because that would be politically incorrect. On TV she just gets called "pushy."

Vote for Bernie. Vote for Hillary. Vote for who shares your values. Vote for whose vision for this country sets your heart on fire. Vote for the person who can get the job done. Vote for whomever you like. Criticize whomever you like – for surely there are legitimate criticisms of every candidate.

But recognize what is going on here. And recognize it not just in this election but in our church.

We men tell women that it really is a level playing field (which it’s not), and that women just have to work hard, play by the rules and work the system.

That generally means -- just act like men.

And then when women do, we men penalize them for it because they don’t fit men’s image of what a woman should be.

And still, even when women do act like men and work the system (and definitely if they don’t), we men call them "pushy" and "dishonest." We talk about being “uncomfortable” with women’s leadership or “not ready” for women’s leadership.  And that is seen as being perfectly acceptable and rational.

For the past 19 months, I have watched women’s leadership change this community and change this nation.

For the past 20 years, I have had amazing Episcopal clergy colleagues like Amy Cortright, Christine McSpadden, Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, Paige Blair, Kate Moorehead, Suzanne Willie, Winnie Varghese, Becca Stevens, Stephanie Spellers, Dahn Gandell, Sherilyn Pearce, Penny Bridges, Gail Greenwell, Yejide Peters, Elizabeth Easton, Beth Scriven, Hope Welles Jernagan, Debbie Shew, Amy McCreath, Pamela Dolan, Emily Mellott, Emily Wachner, Amber Stancliffe Evans - I could go on and on and on and on and on (and apologies to the legions I’m leaving out) – change this church and teach ME what being a priest is all about.

I have seen them have to work at least twice as hard to get at least half as far.

I have seen them get judged on scales I never have to worry about.

I have seen them struggle with incredible grace and power against the misogyny of our church, our St. Louis community and this country.

And it is time for this to be over. It is time for this to be over for our church. It is time for this to be over for our nation.

The first step in any healing is recognizing that we have a problem.

The second step is doing something about it.

Jesus gave women the most important leadership ministry in the history of history – proclaiming the resurrection.

Paul bids us to “have the same mind in us that is in Christ Jesus” and empty ourselves, giving up power and privilege.

Whomever you vote for, it is time for we men to ask what we are doing to dismantle the systems of patriarchy that are binding our church and our nation. That are preventing us from fully realizing and benefitting from the gifts of more than 50% of our population.

We need to look in the mirror and examine our “uncomfortability” and instead of giving into it, lean the other way.

We need to look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves – and not immediately get all fragile and defensive -- about how we have unconscious bias about both race and gender ... and that this is to all of our poverty.

We need actively to promote women for leadership positions. For the past several years, when people have asked me for names for rector or bishop positions I have only given women’s names. And still so few of them have been chosen. What if everyone did this?

We men need to stand up for women, knowing that even in 2016 women still have to work twice as hard to get half as far.

This is not a political post. This is a theological one.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And Jesus bids me to see Christ in all people, to value their gifts – including their leadership – and to bring people from the margins to the center until such time as there are no margins left.

Women are still on the margins. And as the Church, we have been one of the worst offenders in keeping women there.

As followers of Jesus, now we must be among the loudest voices demanding change. Not just with our lips but with our lives.

Women’s leadership will change our communities, our nation, our church and our world. Men ... we need to get out of the way.

Who's with me?

Smelling with the mind of Christ.

"A church without beggars is a museum." - Becca Stevens

This morning, I sat in the back of Christ Church Cathedral to listen to one of our seminarians, Andrew Suitter, preach. We are a wonderfully diverse community at CCC, but we still internally self-segregate. Come in on a Sunday morning and you will find that those of us who had a warm bed and a shower last night will sit in the front and in the middle, and those of us who slept in shelters or on the streets last night gravitate toward the back and the sides.

So this morning, I sat in the back, and as I listened to Andrew unpack the reading from Corinthians, the fragrances of those sitting around me wafted into my nostrils. And they made me think.

What makes a smell good? What makes a smell bad?

What makes one smell of beauty and another of ugliness?

It's our minds, isn't it? Smell is just our brain interpreting nerve impulses. We have learned over time to interpret some of those positively and others negatively. We have evolved over time to privilege some odors over others. Why else would we not only pay huge sums of money for certain perfumes and Febreze and other "odor eliminators" a multimillion dollar industry?

It's our minds, isn't it? It's all in our minds.

In the letter to the Philippians, Paul and Timothy urge us to "have the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus" -- then goes on to talk about giving up privilege and emptying ourselves for the life of the world.

And so I wonder -- how does the mind of Christ smell? How are those nerve impulses that travel up the olfactory nerve interpreted in the mind of Christ?

I breathed in deeply through my nose.  Fragrances of well-worn bodies, remnants of cigarettes and traces of urine filled me. Strong fragrances.

But who is to say they are good or bad?

What would they smell like in the mind of Christ?

I took another deep breath. I tried to imagine these smells as perfume. When I looked around and saw that some of the people they came from I could name ... and I knew ... and I love ... it became a lot easier.

This is not to glorify poverty. This is not to say that all of us shouldn't have a good bed and a hot shower and a place to go to the bathroom. Part of how we have evolved to interpret some smells as bad and others as good is because there are real health ramifications connected with them.

This is not to glorify poverty -- but it is to say that neither do those of us who are not bound by it need to fear it. None of us should hold our noses but breathe it in deeply, realizing that these are the fragrances of the beautiful people of God.

I am going to try to breathe deeply and smell differently from now on. When my first reaction is to hold my nose and pull away, I'm going to breathe in the perfumes of God's beloved.  I'm going to try to remember that I have odors that others might want to pull away from, too -- and that I hope others will approach my odors the same way!

I'm going to try to smell with the mind of Christ. And hope that will be one small step in me giving myself for the world in Christ's name as well.

Sabbatical

At Sunday’s Annual Meeting Eucharist, Senior Warden Lorraine Kee announced that Chapter has approved a sabbatical for me during 2016. Combined with vacation time, this means that I will be away from the Cathedral from March 28 (the day after Easter) until Sept. 6 (the day after Labor Day).

Sabbatical is based on the Biblical notion of rest (or Sabbath) being an essential part of the rhythm of life, as modeled by God resting on the seventh day of creation (Genesis 2:2). Because it is a part of dedicating our life to God and also a guard against the idolatry of believing in our own centrality and indispensability, the punishment the law assigned to violating the Sabbath was death (Exodus 31:14). Clearly, this is important stuff!

I am not just taking this sabbatical because I am owed it (it is a part of every clergy letter of agreement), because Chapter has granted it and because scripture demands it. I am taking it because both I and this Cathedral community need it.

During our seven years together, one of my highest priorities has been us growing healthier as the Body of Christ. Together we have established more honest and healthier patterns of communication, talked openly about the role of alcohol and addiction in our family systems, opened our doors to the neighborhood and city in new ways and also been unafraid to bring the conflicts and divisions of race and class of our city into our own community.

Your chapter has transitioned from a model of more autocratic, clergy-driven leadership to a model of shared leadership where difficult issues are wrestled with openly and the real conversations happen around the table not in the parking lot.

Systems do not get healthier than their leaders … and I am recognizing the ways I need to get healthier -- both for my sake and for yours. I work too many hours and spread myself to thinly. I too easily fall victim to the idolatry of believing that I have to do it if it is to happen and not trust enough in God and the gathered community.

That has taken a toll on me. I have not been operating at full capacity for several months, and my Bishop, Vicar, wardens, therapist, doctor and wife all agree I need a time of unplugging, recharging and reconnecting with family and God apart from the work of ministry.

There has been a toll on the Cathedral as well. As much as we have worked together to build structures of shared leadership, my overfunctioning runs the risk of turning the Cathedral into a system not centered on the Holy Spirit working through the Body of Christ but on the person and personality of her dean.

That’s why this sabbatical is for all of us. We are a far healthier body today than seven years ago – ready to face the challenges ahead of us. And part of that readiness means I can step away for a season, and we all can trust God’s grace and the people of this Cathedral will be up to the task.

Given how we have talked about what a critical year this is for Christ Church Cathedral – facing a $200K+ budget deficit -- this might seem like a strange time for a sabbatical, but Chapter agreed it is actually the perfect time.

Because of the transition we have made into shared leadership your Chapter is absolutely equipped to lead during this time – and in fact it is the healthiest thing.

During my sabbatical, Chapter will be constructing options for a balanced budget for 2017. Some options will likely involve staff restructuring (it is hard to imagine making up a $200K+ deficit without it) and that means all staff jobs – including my own – will be on the table. Your Chapter – and indeed the larger congregation -- is well equipped to have those conversations without me … and in fact it is important we all trust one another to do that.

In addition, the financial realities we are facing for 2017 mean it is a real possibility we will only be able to be a one-clergy congregation going forward. Though we are lining up clergy to help out Amy during my absence, this will be an important exercise in seeing what that reality would be like.

During the next two and a half months, we will have opportunities to talk about what all this means – and certainly I am happy to meet with anyone about any excitements, questions or concerns.

As we approach our time apart, I ask that you consider what this might mean for you stepping up in new ways in our community … and also how you might specifically support the work of and care for your Chapter and especially your Vicar, Amy Cortright, who will be under added strain during this time.

I look forward to our next two and half months together, to our time apart, and to sharing what we have learned when we come together again.

BJC and MLK: Creating space for trauma, healing and the language of the unheard.

My keynote address at the Martin Luther King Day service at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Monday, Jan. 18, 2016.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak this morning. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for taking the time today to reflect on Dr. King and what he still has to teach us today. Thank you for all you do for health and healing in St. Louis city and the St. Louis region. Thank you for coming to work every day and facing the deepest trauma of human life – yes, the acute trauma of gunshot wounds and cancer diagnoses but also the chronic trauma of domestic violence and hearing those gunshots in your neighborhood every night … and also the complex trauma of poverty in all its many forms.

BJC is a trauma center, and I don’t just mean that in an institutional and medical sense that you are where the gunshot and car crash victims get taken. You as BJC are at the center of the traumas of this region. That’s because you are a unique gathering place. In a region that is annually ranked among the top 10 most segregated metropolitan areas in this nation, you as BJC are one of the only places in St. Louis where everyone comes … and where everyone works … and where everyone lays their trauma bare.

You name a demographic in the St. Louis region – race, class, creed, gender, age, sexual orientation – you name it and you will find people across that spectrum on this campus. As patients. As family members. As employees. And all of them – all of US bring our trauma to this place in hope of healing. It is the acute trauma of the unthinkable that has just happened. It is the chronic trauma of microaggressions, harassments and dismissiveness. It is the complex trauma of poverty, sexism and racism.

We could go around this room and every person in here could share our stories of trauma – the trauma we have seen and heard, the trauma of our own lives that rests on our heart this very moment. Now, we’re not going to do that because we would literally be here all day and into the night – but frankly, it wouldn’t be that bad an idea if we did. Because here at BJC, you are a trauma center. And what we know about trauma is this – trauma doesn’t go away on its own. Trauma needs to be named. Trauma needs to be spoken. Trauma needs to be heard. Trauma needs to be felt.

I said I am grateful for the opportunity to speak this morning – and here is why: Because I believe that you as BJC have a unique opportunity. An opportunity to be a place of healing not just of the acute medical traumas that come through your doors but of the deep, chronic and complex traumas of this St. Louis region. The traumas wrought by our deep divides of race and class. The traumas that we as a St. Louis region do not give space to be spoken, to be heard, to be felt – and that until we do, will never, never, ever begin to heal.

In the nearly 50 years since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s murder, white America has done a brilliant job of the unconscionable. We have taken a radical and revolutionary leader for justice in this nation and through sound byte sanitizing we have transformed him into a harmless champion of an oppressive status quo. We have taken the King who called out the white moderate who “is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”” We have taken the King who in that Letter from a Birmingham Jail called that white moderate “the greatest stumbling block to freedom” and through our “I have a dream” sound-byting we have turned him into an unapologetic champion of that same stumbling block. Turned King’s militant nonviolence into a mandate for black people to stay quiet and in their place. Turned our honoring of King on this day into a salve for our national conscience instead of a conviction that, in his words, “yes, we have come a long, long way, but we have a long, long way to go.”

Like Dr. King, I am a lifelong and unshakable believer in nonviolence. But in the past 18 months an extraordinary group of young people who have risen up in Ferguson and around this region and across this nation have been teaching me the difference between the sanitized King and the genuine revolutionary article – and between the sanitized Jesus and the genuine revolutionary Christ as well. Teaching me the difference between nonviolent and peaceful.

I have been seeing Dr. King with new eyes. And the chant “No justice. No peace. If we don’t get no justice. Then they don’t get no peace.” has become profoundly meaningful and true to me. And it is about trauma. It is about how trauma needs to spoken, and heard and felt. It is about how until we create and hold spaces where that is allowed to happen, we will never heal, we will never have justice, we will never leave Egypt and we will never get to any promised land.

But we in St. Louis don’t do trauma, do we? I mean, unless it's about losing a football team.

We don’t allow that space, do we?

In fact, we here in St. Louis do our level best to suppress and repress and oppress trauma wherever it tries to raise its head, sing its heart and lift its voice.

40 white men carrying automatic weapons can walk down Market Street and the police barely bat an eye. But 25 young black women and men – out every night so the police know not only who they are but absolutely know that they are armed only with signs and their anger and pain get met with riot gear, pepper spray, and tear gas.

In St. Louis, we don’t do trauma. We don’t allow that space.

Last April, on the day before Easter, I took part in what we called a “mourner’s march” in the Central West End less than a mile from here. We invited mothers who had lost their children not just to police violence but to any kind of violence to march with us and to pray and yes, to cry and to wail. We blocked only one lane of traffic on a four-lane road and held intersections for no more than seven minutes at a time. And all the way, the police drove beside us – blocking as much traffic as we were – shouting at us through bullhorns that we were subject to arrest if we didn’t get out of the street.

On a springtime Saturday afternoon, we couldn’t even allow the space for mothers to grieve their dead babies.

Here in St. Louis, we don’t do trauma. We don’t allow that space.

You want to know why young black women and men are in the streets and the shopping malls shouting “shut it down?” because that is exactly what has been done to them when they have tried to speak their trauma. We have shut them down.

And so the King we need to hear today is not some sound byte from an idle dreamer. It is a revolutionary preacher who understood the nature of trauma because he had lived it. He understood that trauma must be spoken and heard and felt – and when that wasn’t allowed there were real and deep and lasting consequences.

On March 14, 1968, less than a month before he was murdered, Dr. King gave a speech in Grosse Point, Michigan called “The Other America.” And he talked about the expressions of trauma that were happening all over the nation. Here is part of what he said:

“But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."

In the nearly 18 months since Michael Brown was killed and his body lay in the street for four and a half hours, there have been almost no instances of violence on behalf of those protesting – which is testament to the incredible discipline and leadership of the protest movement to continually channel deep rage and pain without crossing the line to violence. You wouldn’t necessarily know this by the saturation media coverage of the property destruction that happened around the flashpoints of Michael Brown’s killing and the non-indictment of Darren Wilson, but it is true.

But what King is saying is that be they the vast majority of protests that are nonviolent or when anger spills out into burning down a Quik Trip we need to pay attention. We need to recognize that be it a protest or a riot, there is an expression of trauma happening that demands our attention.

King says, “I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.”

When that Quik Trip burned in August, 2014 and when other businesses burned three months later how many times did we hear people clucking their tongues and saying “look at what ‘those people’ are doing” – the us and them language is always a tipoff that we’re already running off the rails – “look at what ‘those people’ are doing burning down their own community.”

Instead of asking the simple question: Why?

When incredible young people continue to show up in the streets night after night, week after week, month after month chanting “if we don’t get no justice then they don’t get no peace,” holding die-ins in shopping malls and blocking highways during rush hour how many times did we hear people talk about how tired they were of the protests and how they wish they would just go away.

Instead of asking the simple question: Why?

People don’t just get up in the morning and say, “Hmmm ..I think I’ll burn down a Quik Trip today.” “Hmmm … I think I’ll go stand in the middle of I-70 today during rush hour.”

We only do these things if we are not being heard. And what is it St. Louis has failed to hear? We have failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And we have failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

And that brings us back into this room – to you as BJC and the incredible opportunity you have as a St. Louis institution that already has a deep commitment to equity and justice. You have taken things like the For the Sake of All report that shows that “residents of zip codes separated by only a few miles have up to an 18-year difference in life expectancy.” and that “Because of considerable residential segregation in St. Louis, many areas with high African American populations are also areas with concentrated poverty and poor health.” You have taken that information and responded by your particular care for impoverished children and families in some of those most deeply impoverished areas through things like your mobile units that reach more than 20,000 children and your free flu shot programs.

You have also committed to your own process of learning and listening through your work with Reena Hajat Carroll and the Diversity Awareness Partnership hosting Listen. Talk. Learn. Events – and if you haven’t had a chance to be a part of one of those, please do so they are absolutely worth your time!

You have done some great things. As Dr. King would say, we have come a long, long way, but we have a long, long way to go. Your opportunity goes far beyond providing a mobile unit where there really should be a first-class hospital and hosting really good two-hour educational sessions about race, class, power and privilege.

Your opportunity goes far beyond that. And it is about trauma.

You are the primary institution in the St. Louis region whose sole mission is healing. And healing is what we need right now. Unfortunately, for most of St. Louis, “healing” means pretending the past 18 months – and the past 400 years that led up to them – didn’t happen and going back to a status quo where those who have power and privilege continue to dig us more deeply into disparity and leave our deepest wounds untreated.

But we know better than that, don’t we?

You are the primary institution in the St. Louis region whose sole mission is healing. And healing is what we need right now. What we need healing from is our trauma and what we know about trauma is you have to feel to heal.

We have to listen deeply to one another. Even with the people already in this room, we have to just be with one another in that deeply uncomfortable and yet even more deeply sacred place of pain and rage. We have to listen to the language of those among us who have gone unheard for far too long. Give space for the pain and for the rage. Not shut it down be it with tear gas or quick pseudo-solutions – but instead lean more deeply into the discomfort of the trauma, sit down in our discomfort, hold one another in it, love one another through it and above all not be afraid to embrace the sacred humanity in it.

You do this as you listen to your patients – not just their physical symptoms but their stories, the tone of their voices and the pain in their heart.

You do this as you listen to one another. As you embrace the diversity of race and class that exists within the employee community here at BJC and use the people you work with every day to learn about life experiences far different from your own … and attend to the trauma in those lives and create spaces for feeling and healing that can be replicated out in the wider community.

You do this by going to the state capitol in Jefferson City and lobbying for things like Medicaid expansion that address the chronic trauma of disparity of access so that everyone can get the kind of health care that has for too long been available only to those privileged of race and class. By going to your corporate partners and demanding an end to food and care deserts and believing Teach for America and mobile medical units are an adequate response to systemic racism run tragically amok in American education and health care.

You do this as you amplify the voices you are hearing so that others beyond these walls can hear them too. When at a party or around the dinner table you hear people talking disparagingly about “those people” you have the courage, with another’s voice and story and trauma on your heart to stand up and say no, let me tell you a different story, let me introduce you to a person, let me share with you a pain, a rage that you might not know is out there but that needs to be spoken, and heard and felt.

You are the primary institution in the St. Louis region whose sole mission is healing. And healing is what we need right now. You are a trauma center. And what we need healing from is our trauma and what we know about trauma is you have to feel to heal.

Here in St. Louis, we don’t do trauma. We don’t allow that space. And that has to change. And that is your opportunity.

You as BJC have been that space for those who walk in these doors – but the opportunity for you is far greater. You have the chance to stand with and amplify the voices of those whose trauma cannot be healed with a pill or an incision. You have the chance to lead, to help us hear the language of the unheard, to gather us not just on this campus but as a region to speak the trauma that needs to be spoken, hear the trauma that needs to be heard and do the feeling that leads to the healing.

What is it St. Louis has failed to hear? We have failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And we have failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

At BJC, you hear these voices – and if you haven’t you need to listen more closely, because they are right here, right now. And so it is up to you to recommit yourself not only to listening more deeply yourself, but to leading the rest of us in doing the same.

2016: A year everything is on the table for Christ Church Cathedral

You can now make a gift online to Christ Church Cathedral by clicking here.

You can select several funds including paying your pledge 

or joining "Friends of Christ Church Cathedral."

Over our nearly seven years together at Christ Church Cathedral, we have grown in faithfulness, boldness of proclamation, depth of love and strength of courage. God has been using us in wonderful ways and shaping us for the present moment.

Last month, Chapter passed a budget for 2016 with a deficit of $211,692 ($957,975 in revenue and $1,169,667 in expenses – click here to download a detail of the budget). We have enough unrestricted funds to cover this deficit – but that would be it for deficits. There would be no cushion of unrestricted funds to cover any deficit in 2017 and beyond.  This budget was passed with the provision that it will be reviewed by Chapter quarterly with the possibility of adjustments being made.

This means 2016 is a year of incredible import and opportunity. We need to build on the good work we have done over the past several years and come together around a sustainable vision for the future of Christ Church Cathedral. There is no more next year for the status quo – and that is a great gift. We will step out in faith, put everything on the table, and listen to and follow the call of Christ.

Beginning immediately, we will be addressing this on multiple fronts

*At Sunday’s 10 am Annual Meeting Eucharist, we will begin to re-vision Christ Church Cathedral. We will hear God’s word and participate in exercises in creative thinking, naming our strengths and assets as a Cathedral, and beginning to imagine how we might reconstruct ourselves to make the best use of those strengths and assets to be who Jesus calls us to be with the money we have.

*Chapter will work with the congregation to clarify who we believe Jesus is calling us to be. This will build on the strategic planning work done in the past, offer a chance to reflect on our current direction and define what faithfulness to Christ looks like for the future. This process will take place in Lent, concluding at Easter.  

*Using this data, Chapter will build budget options for 2017 beginning with non-discretionary expenses (e.g. things we have no choice but to pay … like property insurance) and building balanced budget options for staff and program. This will provide a structure for faithfulness to Jesus that represents living within our means. Unless unprecedented revenue streams develop, this means the staff and program of Christ Church Cathedral will likely look much different in 2017 than it does today.

*With assistance from Bishop Smith, we will work with consultants from The Rome Group to gather data, conduct feasibility studies and help us determine the most faithful and sustainable course for the future of the physical plant of the Cathedral, the Bishop Tuttle Memorial Building and the parking lot. The goal is to have a clear course charted and begun by the end of 2016. These are the next steps building on work that has been going on with the Bishop, Diocesan Chancellor and others throughout 2015. 

*We are researching the core documents of the Cathedral endowments to explore any options we might have for use of Cathedral endowment funds. 

*We will continue to search for new and increased revenue streams, including:

            -finding new tenants for the BTM.

            -increasing the Cathedral’s use as a wedding location.

            -using a designated gift to hire a grant researcher/writer.

            -growing Friends of Christ Church Cathedral

            -beginning special funding appeals throughout the year.

            -engaging our neighbors as partners in supporting the ongoing life of the Cathedral.

What ties all of this work together is that our eyes will be firmly fixed on Jesus, who we trust Jesus is calling us to be and what we trust Jesus is calling us to do. We recognize that following the call of Christ means putting everything on the table and usually means letting go of things that are precious to us – again, the Cathedral in 2017 will probably look very different than it does today.  It also means trusting that the community Christ is gathering is equal to the task … and that the very act of coming together and prayerfully charting our future will fulfill our mission of “seeking a deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ.”

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to refashion an amazing institution to be a force for the Gospel for decades to come.  We are operating from great strength. I am excited to see what comes from it.