April 2025

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

– Galatians 6:2

Grace and peace to you all. I hope you are finding this Lent contemplative and sustaining.

This Lent, we’ve been going on a journey together. You’ve probably heard me talk all about it repeatedly: we are traveling into the wilderness, the place where our sense of comfort and safety is stripped away and we come face to face with God without the rest of life to get in the way.

I didn’t image when I stood up on Ash Wednesday that a week and a half later our sense of safety would be ripped from us. I assure you, dealing with a fatal shooting on our campus wasn’t in my plan for the first five months of my ministry. It certainly feels like we have been dragged kicking and screaming into the wilderness, and now we are trying to figure a way out.

I was reminded recently of a proverb: If you want to go fast, travel alone; if you want to go far, travel together. I got to see this in action this past Tuesday when Prs. Carter and Ed and myself met with the members of the group that was gathered during the shooting. We offered the opportunity to talk about what had happened and how people were feeling.

During that meeting, everyone spoke. Everyone talked about how they had been affected and how they were feeling. As someone who is trained to draw that kind of talk out of people, it was amazing to see it happening with little effort. After the meeting was done, everyone there, myself included, walked out of the room feeling better.

During this Lent, our journey has included hearing the wilderness stories of some of our community. This is important because we know someone in our community better, but it is about so much more than that. We aren’t sharing our happiest moments; we are sharing the dark parts of our past. We are talking about the things that hurt us.

We are doing so because we need to be able to open up to each other. We need to be able to tell each other how we are feeling. We need to be able to turn to each other in times of stress or tragedy.

This only works if its something we’ve worked on before those times come. During stressful moments, we don’t think strategically or rationally; we react based on our trained responses. If we have trained ourselves that emotional moments are dealt with alone, we will continue to do that when we need to open up the most.

I encourage you to take this Lenten practice and expand it further. Talk to the people around you. Force yourself to be comfortable opening up to people you trust. Build a community of communication so that when tragedy strikes, you are able to fulfill the law of Christ.