St Thomas

Dear Doubters of Great Faith, There were several identifiable steps along my journey to this passion I now own and possess for social justice ministry particularly in the area of racial reconciliation, healing, and privilege. While I was still a Church Business Administrator, I attended several gatherings of the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes (CEEP), and heard a presentation by the Rev. Mike Kinman, sometime Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis, MO, and now Rector of the famed social justice parish All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, CA. The year was 2014, and St. Louis had been for many months in the throes of protests over the killing in Ferguson of Michael Brown. The scene was not unlike what we witnessed in Dallas following the death of George Floyd. Downtown St. Louis was awash in daily marches of protesters decrying an end to senseless police violence. Fr. Mike told us…

“…for the saints of God are just folk like you and like me…” I sat captivated as they carried the casket of Ruth Bader Ginsburg up the steps of the majestic Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. I found myself thinking how appropriate, and how ironic, and how fitting, that such a diminutive physical frame, was coming to rest, and be honored, in such hallowed, majestic halls. Because, after all, she lived her life in what appeared to be, at least from this vantage point, some very majestic ways. Unique, individual, and yet so similar, to the emotions stirred as I watched John Lewis’ funeral caisson pass gracefully over the Edmund Pettus bridge less than two months earlier. These two lives, lived so fully, distinctly, humbly, and yet mightily, for the cause of equal rights, indeed liberty and justice for all. These two seemed to be able to think universally…

My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, It is amazing when I stop and consider that only one brief year ago (and yet a lifetime), I had my first conversation with the Search Committee of the Episcopal Church of St. Thomas the Apostle. I remember telling you in our first Sunday together that my time with you, our time together, while sometimes seeming painfully slow, as in a pandemic, would in reality, be fleeting. And so, if we had business to attend to, we’d best be about that business! I was clear in my interviews as to the kind of ministry that God was (and is) calling me into, the ministry of urban social justice work with a particular emphasis on race, reconciliation, and healing. And I believed that was something that St. Thomas would be particularly good and gifted at, based on the leadership and hard work this place has…