Pomp, Circumstance and Pilgrimage

Students graduated on Monday evening from Western Theological Seminary. Family and friends gathered; robes were donned; photos and selfies were taken. This class of graduates is ripe with leaders of multiple temperaments and ministry possibilities. I love this class of graduates. I will miss these students who are now peers and colleagues to me/us in ministry.

The night emerges with a peculiar moment leading up to the worship service. the moment happens every year, and I always notice it but not with the same significance I encountered it this year. The movement toward sabbatical and pilgrimage amplified how I understood the moment this year.

Every year the faculty and board of trustees gather with students under the chapel to prepare for the ceremony. We ensure that our gowns are properly suited according to academic regalia customs. We also playfully chatter and take our own selfies. Overall, the time prior to graduation is festive and joyful. The undercroft is a place of collegiality and love. Then the moment comes. It is time "to walk.” The faculty marshal calls us to attention and invites us to line up. We go to the table where our names are listed in order according to faculty rank and years of service. This is an awkward moment for me. Just minutes before we were colleagues joyfully chatting and pleasantly relating. Now we adopt a hierarchy based on a differing set of academic assumptions. I am sometimes amazed at how quickly we move from baptismal relationship to academic order. 

Everyone makes their move toward the lineup. My colleague, who is also a dean and an extremely humble leader, finds me so that he doesn’t have to walk to the front of the line alone. (Sidetone: deans stand at the front of the procession). Every year this happens and as he tries to become invisible at the front, I always make some ridiculous joke about how we are needed upfront. This year another faculty colleague made a comment about our location. I think he was also teasing a bit. Instead of letting his joke go, I quipped, "we are irreplaceable and important so we stand up here at the front.” My adminstrative colleague was dying inside at this moment, and I was finding myself cantankerous. 

Ego seems to have a hold on us for years longer than it ought.

We processed into graduation smiling and representing. The robes were majestic, the service worshipful, and the graduation successful. But when we walked out, I had this knotty sense in my belly. I shouldn’t have said that to my colleague. I was kidding; I was being playful, but my unease with the hierarchy resulted too much in joking, almost sarcasm. That’s not who I want to be and this is not who WTS is. We are colleagues, encouragers, and Christians not competitors, adversaries, or troopers. We are friends.

I returned home and continued reading a few essays in preparation for the impending pilgrimage. 

When I leave for the Camino I am simply a pilgrim. There is no rank, no title, no degrees, no robes, no markers of accomplishment. The tools of the pilgrim are lowly - pack, shoes, and poles. A pilgrim cannot rely on their own merits but must rely on the hospitality of strangers.

The order of academic institutions in a Christian setting is quite peculiar. It is rare for WTS to practice this way, but I am grateful for its existence last night. The moment invited me to repentance and humility and it invites me deeper into a pilgrim identity as the time comes "to walk." I guess we are never done learning regardless of rank or otherwise.