Our Shared Work

I struggle to find words to speak about the events of the past week, but I do not want to repeat a mistake I made in June by being slow to acknowledge publicly the racism and violence that has scarred our country again this week. 

Here, I would offer a caution that some difficult content follows below.

Yesterday, while my daughter was at cross-country practice and my son was busily building with his Legos, I was fortunate to be able to take some time to think and pray.

I listened again to Doc Rivers's interview from this past Tuesday and Troy Vincent's reflections from Thursday contrasting the police shooting of Jacob Blake with the police response to the gunman who killed nine people in 2015 at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. I read Mary Mitchell's column about the 17-year-old gunman who killed two protesters and wounded another in Kenosha. I also listened to Chadwick Boseman's 2018 commencement address at Howard University.

There is extraordinary pain and suffering in our country right now, which hurts terribly. It becomes still more weight for so many to carry each day, and that weight is exponentially heavier for our Black colleagues, benefactors, board members, students, alumni, families and other people of color. 

Those of you who know me best know that my way to respond to suffering -- and my way to express my love for others -- is through work and acts of service. Throughout the past week, my focus has been on the myriad tasks we must complete before the restart of school on 8 September so we can continue to care for our students, alumni and families at CJA.

However, in the busyness of all of that work, I also want to make certain we have paused as an institution to name the social sin that we've seen scar our country again this week. 

I also want to say again what should be so very clear: Black lives matter. 

At CJA, we believe we are called to come to know a deeply personal God who loves us, and we are called to see the image of God in every person we meet. These truths must inspire all that we do at CJA -- how we strive to grow, how we listen to one another, and how we walk with one another on this journey.

These are hard days, and I see many more hard days ahead. Nevertheless, I take great joy and consolation from doing this work with each of you. We do not walk alone, and I believe in the promise that Love ultimately wins.