+ theology

We all hide. They layers of our inner self unravel before us with terror.
We frantically shove it all back in the drawer before those around us can notice the truth of us appear.

Do we hide because we’re scared of failure or being on the hook?

Fear is the anticipation of failure or the anxiety of possibility and it’s not usually helpful.
If you’re adventuring the Amazon rainforest or fighting in a gladiatorial arena or surviving the zombie apocalypse it can keep you quick. If you’re posed at a keyboard, preparing to speak to an audience, or procrastinating a hard conversation, fear is only masochism.

But most hiding isn’t because of this kind of fear.

Most of us hide to avoid being on the hook.
Askıda ekmek. The Turkish tradition of buying an extra loaf the baker hangs on a wall for those in need in the community.
We stay off the hook by neglecting our idiosyncratic potential, generous contributions, and personal experience. We tell ourselves our lack of a degree disqualifies us from speaking into the great conversation. We (and if you haven’t got the joke yet, “we” = “I”) avoid mixing our burgeoning selves with our former selves for fear of being on the hook for what our new self has to say to the world.

And this kind of hiding led to stagnation, distraction, and a failure to be generous with the space I’ve sat in for nearly 2 years.

Going forward, this new self won’t be hiding.

“+ theology” because the vast majority of my resources, training, practice, and ideas generated lean into my background as a follower of the Way of Jesus. The scholarship I’ve digested, the classes and sermons I’ve begun to teach, and the musings I spend the most time on have found their way from the eremos of the tech-space into a community of saints asking questions about the fundamental nature of our relationship to a higher power.
I’m only late to the party on the days I deny my ability to contribute to the conversation.

Technology and creativity will always be integral to the way I write and projects I take. “+ theology” doesn’t mean a subsumption of these beneath a new banner. It puts me on the hook to share additional angles and mentors who build on the equation. It opens a part of myself that can invigorate the ideas from my old self, correcting and finding synergy with that version and its passion.

So let this be an reintroduction. An introduction to my new findings of the past 2 years. To those contemporary authors like J Richard Middleton, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Robert Alter, Amy Peeler, Ronald Rolheiser, Dallas Willard, Tomáš Halik, James K A Smith... And to those with lasting impact, now long venerated like Augustine, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, John Cassian, Thomas Merton, TS Elliot, Ignatius of Loyola…