At the end of our two-week conference in Ethiopia, Becky and I and asked if we could wash the feet of the 40 Africans that had gathered to be trained in trauma care. Wonde, our generous Ethiopian guide, shook his head no. 鈥淚t will be too difficult to let three white people touch the feet of Africans.鈥� He explained that many from East and West Africa had seldom been touched by white missionaries. A westerner washing the feet of an African was unheard of. We asked if he would pray.

None of us felt heroic or radical in our request. It seemed like the only way to honor our friends as we departed. We understood that touching another person鈥檚 feet is somewhat unseemly and countercultural in any context, but the weight of what appeared on Wonde鈥檚 face was more than we could fathom. We waited, and the next day he said, 鈥淵es, but know that some may not come. For some, it is too intimate and for others too degrading to see you on your knees, touching their feet.鈥�

In our last evening together, we knelt and washed each person鈥檚 feet. Many wept. It may be one of the holiest hours I have spent on earth. The concrete dug into my knees. My body ached to stand, but I could not rise. Becky and Jan washed the women鈥檚 feet. I bathed the feet of the men. One man had been recently betrayed by an American mission board, his family and ministry left to die on the vine after countless promises had been violated.

Jan and Becky finished, and all but one man had come. I didn鈥檛 know what to do. To require him to come would have been another form of colonization. To get up and go on to the last of our teaching felt like a form of exclusion. I heard Jesus say: 鈥淧ut your head on the ground and pray.鈥�

To this day, I don鈥檛 know how long it took, but Jacob eventually came to the front and sat in front of me. I asked him, 鈥淢ay I wash your feet?鈥� He could barely look me in the eyes and he nodded, 鈥榶es.鈥� He confessed that he had come to hate white westerners. I confessed that my family had betrayed him, and I asked for his forgiveness.

What occurred next is too holy to describe and too intimate to reveal. I will only say, I have never encountered a moment before or since that felt as thin between this world and the unseen realm of heaven. I finished washing his feet and then he asked if he could wash mine. The privilege of touching his feet, weeping, and blessing him was august. To let him wash my feet felt terrifying. It all made sense, in an instant鈥擬aundy Thursday.

Peter refuses to let Jesus bow and wash his feet. Jesus tells him that unless one鈥檚 feet are clean, there is no entry into the kingdom of heaven.

5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples鈥� feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, 鈥淟ord, are you going to wash my feet?鈥� 7 Jesus replied, 鈥淵ou do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.鈥� 8 鈥淣o,鈥� said Peter, 鈥測ou shall never wash my feet.鈥� Jesus answered, 鈥淯nless I wash you, you have no part with me.鈥� 9 鈥淭hen, Lord,鈥� Simon Peter replied, 鈥渘ot just my feet but my hands and my head as well!鈥� (John 13: 5-9)

Jacob washed my feet. My feet are bony, brittle, and weak. Countless bouts of gout have deformed my big toes. The hair on my toes became a taunt when pubescence wrenched me from childhood. The days鈥� heat built up layers of sweat and staunched my feet in a foul smell. He tenderly took my feet into the basin and looked me in the eyes as he spoke blessing over my undeserving life.

鈥淚t is a day to bear his touch before our lust, rage, and self-deception send him to the cross.鈥�

I met Jesus and he is from Burkina Faso. He is black. He is tender and bold. He kissed my feet when we were finished. We held each other and wept for what might be as long as the time from that moment until we are together in eternity.

And this is what Jesus is inviting you to today. Today is Maundy Thursday鈥攖he day before the crucifixion. It is a day to bear his touch before our lust, rage, and self-deception send him to the cross. The cross is not merely his alignment and solidarity with our suffering. It is that and far more. He bears the weight of all our idolatry and self-righteousness we refuse to own, and he takes it on to free us of a burden we couldn鈥檛 shoulder.

Before he takes our sin, he offers us his tender touch. Take and receive, feel your awkwardness and fury. You don鈥檛 need a full bath. You simply need to let him take up your feet and let the water of his love prepare you for the next three days.

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Grace and peace to you from the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come; from the sevenfold Spirit before his throne; and from Jesus Christ. He is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead, and the ruler of all the kings of the world.

All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.
Revelation 1:4-6

Christmas is a celebration that portends the overthrow of the Empire. And yes, I am excited about the next Star Wars film, but I am not talking about that empire. I am talking about the one you live in鈥擜merica. And if you don鈥檛 live in America, look at your passport and call the country of your citizenship鈥攖he empire. Christmas is a celebration for the disinherited, rebels, the lost, lonely, exiles, illegal aliens, and the incarcerated.

Here is a Christmas statistic from the Empire in which I live: Whites are 8 times more likely to use opioids, heroin, and meth than Blacks, and Blacks are 13 times more likely to go to jail for the same offense than Whites. We live in an empire with kings and queens, rulers, powers, and principalities that set the structures for how we will tell the truth, what truth can be told, and how to respond to those who tell a truth that is counter to the accepted pattern.

Jesus came to the earth as God flesh not merely to save your soul. He came to restore the earth and all who inhabit it to the glory of his Father. His arrival is an invasion, not a merry Christmas. Christians get whacked when a clerk says: Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas. We get apoplectic if Starbucks has a cup that doesn鈥檛 acknowledge our holiday by name. These concerns are the belching of a self-satisfied, consumer Christianity, not the holy awe that an invasion has occurred and that some fool put a weapon in my hand and told me to fight when I don鈥檛 have a clue how to use my weapon, let alone how to know who my enemy is.

Jesus came to the earth to upend the relationship between rulers and slaves. He dawned as the light of the world to disrupt the kingdom of this world. Anyone whose existence depends on its survival is at odds with his Kingdom. Here is the rub: I am a boomer, aging idealist, white male, granted far more power than I deserve, with only a few decades of health, let alone life, left (maybe). There are few on the earth more dependent on the status quo for not only surviving, but thriving, than me.

I prefer Merry Christmas to the welcome of a revolution. And that is the rub. My King who can never die died, who lives in splendor supped cold soup, and whose power commands obedience over every King and Queen submitted to the machinations of a lowly regional governor. The God king came in baby flesh and sucked the nipple of a virgin. The one known as the Word had to learn how to talk.

His kingship is about reversal, if not something closer to vertiginous upheaval. He came to clean the swamp first and foremost of the self-righteous, the self-bloated, and the self-satisfied rulers of this world.

The distractions of this season and the trivialities of worrying about nonsense鈥斺�淲ill he like this tie? Is this on sale? She didn鈥檛 say Merry Christmas! Remember the reason for the season!鈥� All of these will unwittingly align us to what the kingdom of darkness desires: minimization of how the kingdom has already come.

I prefer a cozy Christmas morning, brewing coffee, warming coffee cake, and grandchildren鈥檚 voices manic in anticipation of opening presents, rather than picking up my bedroll, eating C-rations, and marching to the next point of conflict to offer truth, honor, respect, kindness, and mercy. My King invites me to join the invasion with weapons of love that expose me to his foolishness and the wonder of his righteousness. Prepare to open presents, eat more than you need, and be distracted by the trivialities of our self-possessed lives. Just keep your senses slightly awake鈥攊t is not Santa stealing into your home; it is the King who has come and who will come. He is inviting you to be a Priest, one who offers your own holy life as an offering to be sung to his glory.

Sunday, December 3 marks the beginning of Advent, the four-week season of anticipation that guides us into the celebration of Christmas. As a community, we host an annual Advent reflection series, a collection of prose, poetry, music, and art delivered to your inbox each Sunday of Advent.

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鈥淢e too鈥� is not merely joining a sisterhood of survivors; it is outing oneself. It is the first step of not merely breaking the silence; it is finding words to name, 鈥淚 was sexually abused.鈥� Many of those speaking of their experiences of being sexually harmed rightfully call the experience 鈥榮exual harassment.鈥� It is. But words matter. Naming sexual harassment or even sexual violation is not enough. Our culture must come to name that sexual abuse 鈥� overt and criminal and subtle and socially ignored 鈥� is not a sad reality that an unfortunate few suffer but a common cultural experience that is as inevitable as the flu.

It is easy to dismiss my words. The nature of my work in sexual abuse creates an inevitable bias that slants me to see what others choose to ignore, but I can also see shapes when there are only shadows. No one can escape the interplay of bias and blindness. But the tragic and heartbreaking benefit of Harvey Weinstein is that the shadow has taken on form. The suspicion has been verified, and the rumors have faces willing to stand directly against the bully, the sexual perpetrator who has used power, influence, and cold hard cash to inflict his sexuality on a whole industry.

There is no industry, community, or setting where perpetrators are absent. The one I am most concerned about in this writing is the church. The extent of sexual violation in the church is not less; it is only subtler. The numbers of stories I have heard from women related to men鈥檚 unsolicited touch, wandering eyes, demeaning comments is legion. When a woman attempts to address the double-entendre, or inappropriate look, touch, or innuendo, she is labelled as a prude, a man-hater, or a witch. Perhaps the most excruciating accusation (in some conservative circles) is 鈥測ou鈥檙e a feminist.鈥�

What the Weinstein debacle should scream is that sexual abuse is still ascendant even in one of the densest enclaves of feminism. And there is the problem. Already I heard from a Christian friend, 鈥淭he liberal media are willing to jump on the conservatives who offend women, but it took forever for the socially-sensitive left-wingers to out the pervert among them.鈥� I didn鈥檛 differ with him. The enlightened left refuses to believe Woody Allen鈥檚 accuser or do little more than squirm that he married his step-daughter. The rape of a 13-year old by Roman Polanski is a minor flaw in comparison to his genius as a filmmaker.

Even if my friend鈥檚 remarks are true, it is a swerve from addressing the harm in our community. We so often look to highlight the hypocrisy in others to keep the light from exposing us. What does it mean as a Christian to say, 鈥淢e too鈥�?

First, there is no place for pride or presumption that the church is free from perpetrators. The church, as one predatory narcissist told me, has the lowest hanging fruit. People are nice. People are told that love believes all things and refuses to hold a grudge. Women historically were not given a voice and are told to submit to men, starting with their husbands. The church is ripe for condescension and patronization at best, and worst, a hunting ground for vulnerable children and women and men to be under the sexual oppression of powerful men.

Second, if we can鈥檛 name and address sexual abuse in our past or the past of our spouse or friends, then we are certainly not going to address it in the present. It is a simple assumption: What you fail to face in the past will blind you to the future. It is simply not honorable to tell someone who has been abused: 鈥淵ou just need to take that to Jesus鈥� or 鈥淭he past is the past and you need to let that go, forgive, and stop being a victim.鈥� These are sentences a conferee told me her pastor said to her two weeks ago.

How is such wicked theology allowed in our day? If he had told her she needed to believe the earth is flat and if she doesn鈥檛 believe in a young-earth theory of creation she is going to hell, someone (I hope) would shout: 鈥淗ell, no.鈥� But we endure leaders who offer not even crumbs to victims of abuse, but instead give poisonous fruit as an antidote for their heartache. There needs to be a deep, systemic acknowledgement that the kingdom of darkness loves sexual abuse. It perpetuates it not only through an individual perpetrator but enhances it through systemic denial 鈥� defending the perpetrator and re-abusing the victim.

Finally, like all areas of heartache and sin, we have to name not only where we have been harmed, but also where we have harmed. As I laud the women who have exposed Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O鈥橰eily, Donald Trump, and Harvey Weinstein, et al, I also have to address my own sexual culpability. Have I misused, shamed, and pressured women for my sexual gain? Yes. Heartbreaking, yes. To defend myself by saying I have never perpetrated harm like Harvey Weinstein is to strain out a gnat and swallow the camel. I don鈥檛 need to compare myself to anyone above or below; I simply need to stand before Jesus as my comparison.

I have been abused. Me too. I have harmed and used. Me too. May all our conversations call our hearts to say, 鈥淢e too.鈥�

This post was originally published on .

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Spotlight won best picture. I am gratified, and it seems amidst significant failure of inclusion that at least the Academy got that film and issue right. (I would have been ecstatic if Lady Gaga鈥檚 had won as well.) What are we to do with this slight momentum?

Perhaps, you have begun to realize there are very few churches or parachurch organizations that have policies and procedures for addressing sexual abuse and harm. You know how easy it is for well-meaning people to dismiss the concerns about sexual violation as extra-curricular to the work of the gospel.

We don鈥檛 need policy, procedures, or expertise on how to do brain surgery because it is not our province of education and skill鈥攊t simply doesn鈥檛 happen in our midst. But sexual abuse does. And caring for little ones is our domain. Caring for adults harmed as little ones is part of the calling of restoration鈥攚hich is the gospel. We can鈥檛 leave the work to professionals or pretend it is not part of our 鈥渇amily鈥� story.

Perhaps all this is old hat, but I find few are willing to make an appointment with a pastor, elder, administrator, or staff person and address these issues. I, for one, know how time consuming it is to create policy and procedures and then live it out when so much else is on one鈥檚 plate. The moment we enter this battle we must suffer the fog of war and the reality that there are seldom simple and clear solutions.

The moment we enter this battle we must suffer the fog of war and the reality that there are seldom simple and clear solutions.

Let me illustrate from my experience in a seminary. There are many who are stunned that sexual harm occurs in seminary, though I find that na茂ve presumption difficult to comprehend. Are we not aware that many deeply damaged people end up pursuing psychology, ministry, social services, education, medicine, business, military, politics, law, science, law enforcement, and every other field? Of course, we all must be prepared to deal with the inevitable sexual harm in our midst. As I said, the issues are overwhelmingly complex.

The time spent to address a student鈥檚 complaint of sexual harassment or harm is overwhelming when the system runs on a few valiant employees doing vastly more work than is righteous. I have been part of meeting with students who hint at harm having been experienced. Getting to the data and allowing the student to know what will happen with that data might cause a student to refuse to give names or details. It is a delicate process that can鈥檛 be rushed or bullied.

Students have sometimes taken a full year to decide to talk. Once the story is told, an investigation needs to occur. The accused needs to be interviewed. They can鈥檛 be coerced to talk or assumed to be guilty. The person who makes the complaint must be honored and given comfort and safety, but the process can鈥檛 be rushed nor easily resolved.

If both are in the same class, do you ask the accused to remove him/herself? How do you address the issue of support from friends who have only heard one side of the story? When different stories are told and those stories begin to compete for 鈥渂elievers鈥� in the community, how is the issue of support differentiated from gossip? If the harm doesn鈥檛 rise to the extent of a clear crime, is it inappropriate to address it as an issue of conscience or character? If one does so, what are the implications if one or both parties threaten to sue the school?

No wonder most choose to either ignore it as too difficult or simply adopt a formula that suffices as a means to escape the fog. For example, if a woman lodges an accusation of abuse, simply believe her. If a man denies culpability, he is merely being defensive. These 鈥渉e said/she said鈥� claims are generally viewed as impossible to adjudicate unless patterns can be established and/or corroboration provided.

These issues of fog and complexity are not just found among adults. Claims of sexual abuse in the midst of a hideous divorce are sadly a typical move by some attorneys to threaten a spouse into compromise regarding financial settlements. A child might have conflicting stories due to the fragmentation of memory in trauma. A child might conflate one event with another, just as we all do.

Suffice it to say, addressing abuse is comparable to climbing Mount Rainier in the fog with the danger of crevasses that can swallow an entire team in one instant of neglect. Is it any wonder that most people and organizations throw their hands in the air and say it is hopeless? If we ignore the single voice, one that may or may not be telling the truth or only part of the truth, maybe the noise will go away.

I have no patience for that kind of cowardice, nor do I have much respect for impassioned advocates who shout with righteous fury but who have never worked in complex systems where one step forward, two steps sideways, and a half step back is herculean progress.

What is the next half step? It will depend entirely on your context and calling. Always begin with what is observable and can be read with the benefit of other鈥檚 input. If there is an obstinate insistence that abuse doesn鈥檛 occur in 鈥渢his church鈥� or among this socio-economic bracket, then the first step is not hard to discern. If conversations about the reality of sexual harm cannot occur, then it is time to light a fire. Someone needs to name that the Emperor鈥檚 new clothes are not leaving anything to the imagination.

Someone needs to name that the Emperor鈥檚 new clothes are not leaving anything to the imagination.

What is likely to occur is abuse won鈥檛 be denied, but it will be shelved with faint praise. A woman asked her pastor if she could start a group for adults who had been sexually abused as children. She was told: 鈥淚 fully support what you are doing, but it would be upsetting to many if we talked publicly about such a delicate subject.鈥� Faint praise to dissipate conflict is the height of organizational cowardice.

What is needed is simple: an acknowledgement that sexual harm is not an occasional blemish on a lovely institution, but an inevitable heartache of living in a fallen world.

Faint praise to dissipate conflict is the height of organizational cowardice.

We need to struggle with reality and know there is no simple solution or elegant process to discern the truth. But the worst thing we can do is to do nothing. Here are a few simple steps for us to take.

1) Every organization needs to have policies, procedures, and trained staff to address sexual abuse when it is exposed in their midst. These policies need to be vetted by an attorney and a therapist trained to address sexual harm.

2) Every organization needs to set aside finances for training and equipping staff to investigate, triage, and refer to care providers who work primarily with victims of sexual abuse.

3) Every organization needs to do a thorough analysis of its history of addressing sexual abuse and harm in its midst, and name what factors were involved in failures of care. Until pernicious assumptions and fears, or worse, self-righteousness, is addressed, all the policy and money thrown at this heartache will sink in the abyss of unseen traps.

Our task is again simple: Tell the truth. Be humbled by the truth that grace furiously exposes unrighteousness not to shame, but to offer a way back home to full restoration.

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I need for you to see this movie. It may be one of the best movies yet on the systemic, cultural, and religious issues related to the cover-up of sexual abuse. It is certainly one of the best movies of this year.

As a cinematic piece it is intense, well developed, and compelling. The movie brilliantly tells the dark and complicated story about the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston鈥檚 cover-up of sexual abuse by priests. The story also reveals how The Boston Globe, the paper that revealed the deceit, failed to address the story for decades as it lingered in their files. The cover-up was due to deceit, fear, and simply the inability to imagine the extent of the abuse or the extent to which the Roman Catholic Church papered over the crimes. Even though the viewer knows the story eventually gets published, there is enough tension through the process to wonder how it will actually occur.

Here are three reasons that Spotlight is worth your effort to see.

1) It portrays how abusers select their victims. The interviews with the victims are chilling. The pain, anger, and fear are palpable. The relief and rage involved in their story finally being believed is exhilarating. Over the last three decades I have been privileged to be part of hearing thousands of stories of those violated by abuse for the sake of their healing. But there is something different in telling the story for the sake of justice鈥攕imply to expose the levels of deceit involved in keeping their stories secret. To tell for one鈥檚 own healing is holy; to expose the lies of evil is beyond satisfying. It is an honor to celebrate the men and women who chose to expose the harm and paid a great cost to do so.

To tell for one鈥檚 own healing is holy; to expose the lies of evil is beyond satisfying.

2) It exposes the lie that abuse is perpetrated by a few bad apples but is fundamentally rare. The estimate, quoted by one expert in the film, is that abuse is perpetrated by at least 6 percent of the Roman Catholic clergy. Over the years as I have engaged with mission groups, schools, presbyteries, and churches, I have endlessly heard administrators say: 鈥淲e know abuse occurs, but it is infrequent and perpetrated by a few bad apples.鈥� The phrase 鈥榓 few bad apples鈥� is used to suggest that there is no need for a system-wide analysis of abuse. If it is rare and perpetrated only by a few, then we can continue our institutional lives with little reflection or change. One of the most powerful lines in the movie, delivered by the eccentric attorney who has taken the majority of the victims鈥� cases, says, 鈥淚f it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to abuse him.鈥�

It is a chilling reality to acknowledge and address鈥攁buse occurs because systems and institutions would rather turn a blind eye and remain ignorant. The cost is too great if individuals within the system are given power to address what they see.

The abuse of children is seen as collateral damage in a war: sad but inevitable. The most egregious perpetrators are merely moved from one diocese to another. Excuses are made. Small recompense for silence is offered. And the powerful exercise authority to keep the system in operation for the good of the whole at the cost of a few. It is not a great deal different from sacrificing a few select children to Moloch to keep the religious spirit satisfied.

It is one thing to read the words, yet an entirely different experience to see how systems deploy their agents to keep the lid on the lies. One can know with utter sincerity that systems are self-protecting, but the glint of the cover-up needs to be exposed for what it is: as evil as the abuse itself. Spotlight pulls back the covers of abuse, and the institutional structures that obscure abuse will never be able to do so with the same finesse again.

3) The heroes in this war are broken and tarnished. There is no one righteous or innocent. The film鈥檚 portrayal of the newsroom and their culture is reported to be precise and accurate. The energy to 鈥済et the scoop鈥� is as much about advancing one鈥檚 career as it is to discover the truth. Initially there appears to be as much reluctance to disrupt the Roman Catholic Church in Boston as there would be to root against the Red Sox. The Globe reporters are thrown into the investigation only because an outsider, the new publisher (who happens to be Jewish), has no loyalty to the Church, Boston, or any person on staff.

The defense attorney for the victims is rude and an outsider. He tells one of the investigative reporters that he is too busy to be married and can do what he does because he is an outsider, an Armenian whose ethnic identity aligns him with a long history of suffering injustice and cruelty.

The head of the investigative team is told by a public relations expert that to soil the reputation of the Church is to lose one鈥檚 place in the community. The threat was unequivocal. Addressing harm in a system can only be done by someone willing to become an exile or by an outsider who is given power, for whatever reason, within the system.

It is the simplest of realities: If you want to address significant social harm, then you have to pay the price鈥攗sually some form of ostracism and self-doubt. Further, you have to pay through slow, detail-oriented gumshoe work, slogging through the muck of the obscuration held by those blinded by the status quo.

If you want to address significant social harm, then you have to pay the price.

The reporters beat the system because they are willing to outwork those who hide the truth. Those who hide the truth are motivated ultimately by fear. Fear never provides the impetus to dream or risk; instead it shrinks the heart and narrows one鈥檚 vision. Hope demands dreams be realized through small, daily sacrifice.

The gift of this movie is that the actors, director, and crew get it right about newsrooms, victims of abuse, and the prophets, the outsiders who prompt us to live the truth rather than die through a lie.

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I had come to a stopping point and needed to step away from writing. I simply couldn鈥檛 bear any more heartache. It was also near 11am and it seemed well with my body to have an early lunch. I closed my file and began to walk down my garage office stairs to go next door. The mind is a sly fox. I was thinking about the woman I had been writing about and before I took my first step the image of my granddaughter took her place. How is it possible for the heart, let alone mind, to shift so fast?

Elsa is quietly intense. She fills the room with life even when she is quietly moving her crayons over a blank page. She is focused, intentional, and beautifully odd like her mother. Sassy, my daughter-in-law, is a quirky, beautiful, tender, focused, and brilliant Montessori educator. My son is brilliant enough to have married her and is a sufficiently beautiful soul to have attracted her. I love to see the three of them together, on the floor, playing with Elsa who knows deep in her soul the intensity of delight and the kindness of containment.

All this passed through my mind before I crossed the final step and went outside. The wind was whipping and rain hit my face. All thoughts quieted. I entered our house and heard my wife shout to Elsa: 鈥淧apa is home.鈥� I turned the corner and Mia stood by the sink and Elsa was at her leg, one arm curled around her thigh, her head nestled.

Elsa鈥檚 left hand raised, and I heard her say: 鈥淗i, Papa.鈥� I had never heard Elsa greet me with a wave of the hand and the word 鈥淗i.鈥� It was said loudly and clearly. I nearly laughed. I was so surprised, but before I could respond she took off running toward me.

It is hard to describe the way Elsa runs. My wife and I walk with her often. She holds Mia鈥檚 finger for 3 seconds and then she is off running. It is not sufficient to say she is fast. 聽She is. But it is not merely her precocious speed that is tantalising; it is her abandon. She runs with her body. Most people run with their legs and their arms and the rest of the body motors along. Some young children run and their lack of coordination scatters their parts in different directions. Elsa has both speed and fluidity, and I have come to believe her intent is to fly.

There is something about Elsa that is ethereal, light-bound, and beautiful like a bird. She is life incarnate and when she ran to me, arms open, squealing my name I felt overwhelmed. I knelt before her and opened my arms to receive the light of love. I am her Papa, but in that moment I was a servant waiting to be blessed by a Princess. How can my heart feel so much like a child about to be received and swept up by love, and be an old man about to sweep my granddaughter up in my arms?

This is the nature of advent. We need to prepare our heart to be received by a child, open-hearted. I look to the light of love and find my being simultaneously so young, so old. 聽I am meant to hold the Christ Child as one young enough to know that I will never get too old or tired to be greeted, delighted in, and pursued. 聽Merry Christmas.

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One evening, I sat around the kitchen table, reminiscing with friends and colleagues about our time in seminary. All of us, except one, had received an MDiv and found it equally life-changing and profoundly frustrating. We all found the seminary experience more formative than any other educational experience, yet what we each found frustrating was the failure of the seminary to engage us as people with unique stories and dreams. Those had to be left outside the door to focus on the pre-packaged curriculum delivered in one-way lecture format. We were note-taking automatons who only got the chance to engage the material once we left the classroom. And we did, but without the insight and nuance that we dreamed might be offered if our professor actually joined the conversation.

I could remember these conversations with my peers in seminary 20 years later sitting at that kitchen table, and even today as I write these words. I frankly don’t recall the classes that made up my MDiv, even though by and large they are what determined whether I received the degree. I always felt like that educational model didn’t fit someone like me who wanted to wrestle with the material. I also wondered if it was actually detrimental for the compliant student who took in each word as if were just a notch lower than the canon.

Years later, sitting around that kitchen table with those people, we began turning our frustrations about this life-changing experience into a dream: what if there were a new type of MDiv? We wanted to be part of a school where both students and professors knelt together, knew their interdependency, were curious about each other’s stories, and approached the text and the task of theology as an entry into vast unknown of God’s goodness. Seminary education is meant to be the cry of “I believe, help my unbelief!” and those who teach, because they have hopefully been involved in the endeavour longer than most students, ought to be more desperate: more believing, more unbelieving, and therefore more in need of help.

We wanted to be part of a seminary education where students had the chance of coming to faith鈥攏ew faith, old faith, growing faith鈥攁nd where the professors could come to faith as well. It had to be a place where the brokenness of our life and our theology meets the beauty of what has already been engaged with God and yet is not yet finished. Our human engagement with God is not a map 鈥� the cartographer can never quite capture the map of God’s presence in the world because it is always shifting.

The story of getting from that kitchen table to Seattle is a longer and harder journey than I can share with you now, but in 1997 we started what was to become 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology to enact the dream birthed around that kitchen table: starting a new and different MDiv program. So many other wonderful programs and offerings have accompanied that vision, but it remains the core of the school鈥檚 founding. Stepping into 天美视频 was not unlike stepping into a marriage. It was sexy and I was certain it was destined鈥攜et it was also a really stupid, risky move that has broken, mended, and enlivened us over and over again. This is often, I am told, the experience of being a student in this place as well. Yet what holds true for my journey at this place, and I hope for yours, is an abiding belief that wrestling with God, even through the night until the blessing breaks our knees, is worth every dollar and ounce of energy to create and to grow into the calling God has for you.

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