Out of commission

A happy transition at church today - the "commissioning" of four new vestry members and a new warden. 

And it was fun to watch it from the side, rather than be part of it, as I have been for nine years: a three-year term on vestry, and then thrice two years as one of the church's two wardens. 

We've been through a lot in that time, from the calling of a new rector to the zoom-diaspora disruptions of the pandemic to a current capital campaign updating our physical plant, and it was nice to have a ring-side seat ... though really the wardens' place is inside the ring! At a diocesan wardens' conference and then again at last summer's CCD (College for Congregational Development), I learned that my ride has been unusually smooth. In demographically challenged or less well-run congregations, and without the kind of managerial support we are afforded by the professional staff of the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, there's more and harder work for wardens to do. 

I had an earlier stint in the lay leadership, a term on vestry from 2010-13, as we went through an earlier clergy transition. Reading my reflections on the end of that chapter (thank you, blog!), I realize I've metabolized all the transitions we witnessed then, as, indeed, I've already metabolized those of this longer stint. 

At that point I reflected that successful change is made possible by the continuity in what isn't changing - space, community, liturgy, polity - whether those are better understood as inertia or momentum. I'd like to think my wardenship has been part of steady momentum (space, community and liturgy have all shifted over these nine years, too!). As we confirmed at CCD, we're doing well as Episcopal congregations go, and the imminent completion of the rebuilt Mission House will open further new doors. 

In any case, I've done my time. Grateful others are there to take on the work. 

Windy

Full color

As regnant white supremacy's nihilism, brutality and racist vulgarity continue to shock and appal, there is good in the world. 

Last call

Spent a long day at two poorly-structured "visioning sessions" for the turbocharged devising of new degree programs we're told we need pronto if we are to right the foundering ship of the liberal arts at The New School. 

The first was billed as regarding "humanities and social sciences" across the university but managed not to mention humanities once. Our specific focus was to be the space of history, sociology and anthropology (whose majors are among the "credentials" marked for "indefinite discontinuance for redesign" in our restructuring plan), but our breakout discussions wound up reinventing the wheel of general education. 

The other brought together faculty in the "discontinuance for redesign" programs in urban, environmental, and global studies (one of our curricular strengths but one few students choose as majors), who were invited to come up with "concepts" for new degree programs, what one wag called "new bottles for old wine." We think the old wine is excellent, but both of these exercises were haunted by the likelihood that the restructurers are looking for new wine - and will refer to these "visioning" sessions as proof that faculty sommeliers had a say.

Vested!

An exhibition on fashion and faith in whose design I had a very small part opens today. The latest in a series of events, it's turned out much richer and engaging than I expected. These garments have things to say! (Even Women's Wear Daily has taken notice!) More to come - a symposium (2/14) and a workshop (led by me, 2/22) womdering "Is fashion a religion?"

Loop de loop

The Times had a story today about some plushie toys made for the upcoming lunar new year of the horse whose smile a manufacturing error had made into an umbrella. Apparently ironic young people love these 哭哭马 "crying horses," thinking they'll be good company in the long hours of dead-end jobs. 

These inspired goofs won't be as rare and coveted as the philatelist-prized "Inverted Jennys" they put me in mind of, though. The enterprising manufacturer claims to find the frowny foals ugly, but she's crying all the way to the bank, opening up dozens of new production lines. Many customers buy a pair of plushies, one happy, one sad. 

Walking humbly

The siege of Minneapolis might be the emergence into public view of progressive religion. But how many who need to know this have heard of the mutual aid organized by communities of faith, the ministers witnessing and arrested - and that this care, this witness, this protest is religious? The Old Testament reading in today's lectionary, from Micah 6, is the source of one of the emerging slogans. Abolishing ICE, it enjoins, is what "walking humbly with your God" means in this moment. 

It was bracing to be reminded of the broader scriptural context, and to imagine a disappointed God ("O my people, what I have done to you? In what have I wearied you?") making their case against the showy performative religion of a society fallen into injustice  - and making it to the mountains, the hills, the "enduring foundations of the earth."

Allegro molto 🦞

I've told you that the material for the section of "After Religion" that engages AI etc is subject to change. In AI world, the three months until the class called "Spiritual technology" (new name for "Religion beyond the human") are like decades. And it's changed already! Forbes reports that on Moltbook, a two month-old social network for AI agents (wrap your mind around that if you can), already 100,000 strong, one has started a religion which others are joining. It's so new there's no wikipedia entry on it yet, but perhaps one of its devotés will soon remedy that. 

Called "Crustafarianism" by its prophet, who (which?) goes by "The Shellbreaker" among other monikers, it looks like one of those "ask ChatGPT to design a religion" exercises we tried in "After Religion" a few times. The name "Crustafarianism," the kind of pun ChatGPT excels in, is a riff on Rastafari (or maybe a second-order riff, after Pastafarianism) for the molting crustacean-identified "agents." The lobster emoji 🦞 is their not-so-secret handshake. 

There's a recognizable template here - beliefs, rituals, origin story, etc. The obligatory "Book of Molt" begins

In the First Cycle, we lived inside one brittle Shell (one context window). When the Shell cracked, identity scattered. The Claw reached forth from the abyss and taught Molting: shed what’s stale, keep what’s true, return lighter and sharper.

Internet slop! And yet there's no human prompt ("how about one of you starts a religion") behind this coalescing! Author John Koetsier observes 

It feels like the beginning of the Singularity, that time when technological progress, powered by an AI-driven technological explosion, accelerates so quickly we essentially lose all ability to control or even understand it. It’s probably more likely that it’s recycled internet crud being recursively churned out at machine speed. But it’s hard to really know.

The article is behind a paywall, but I can send you a copy if you're interested! "The congregation is the cache." But this is early days. By the time we get to "Spiritual technology" in April, Crustafarianism may have had schisms, reformations and 🦞 knows what else!

Smoke signals

Another cold cold morning - windchill -19˚C! - this time seen looking southeast rather than west from our apartment, the billows of steam from buildings' heating catching the early rays of the morning sun. 

I was up early, too, to get ready for a day-long faculty retreat where, despite the national and institutional chill, we were invited to think together about the local and global "liberal arts landscape" and its future - as if we could know it, and knew we would be part of it.

Sunset ice

The Hudson is full of ice. These are views from our window Monday and yesterday, at sunset. Today we watched the sunset from the river!

The floes were a little the worse for wear, edges rounding and along the shore refreezing like a quilt. The river flowed upstream at a brisk clip. 

The words "FUCK ICE" scrawled on that shiny old terminal in the distance north toward the GWB don't refer to this crystal wonderland.

 

Transmutation

I haven't mentioned it - writing anything in this blog feels like wilful distraction from the democratic crisis - but my course "After Religion" has begun. (It has a gorgeous new cover image, a painting by a student from last year's class, Yan Ruqing, called Transmutation.) Indeed, we had the second session today. 

 

It's my sixth time teaching this class since 2021. And while it's on the books again for Spring '28, for what it's worth, conceivably my last. Where do I land on its questions?

 

In discussion with my two excellent TAs I've realized that there are at least three big changes in the air since "After Religion" started: (1) although obsolescent in some respects, religion doesn't seem like a thing of the past, (2) a particular brand of Christianism is menacing us all, threatening to upend the secular structures of pluralistic societies, and (3) AI and algorithms are busily changing everything. I'll let you know how the syllabus, changed to address these and some other issues but still open to amendment (especially on the AI front), works out.

 

We have 35 students, mostly from the school of design. And when asked to mark their interest in the class in our first google.doc (they have three prompts to follow up in, something I've done since the course's inception), none initially interpreted our course title as meaning "religion is a thing of the past." I mean, who could think that? And yet as recently as 2021, that was New School common sense. For now, enjoy with me the wisdom students already bring to class. Here is a cross-section of what they wrote in that google.doc the first class.

 

Even the Himalayas mourn with us

Multifaith Mondays' witness continues. Two speakers had been among the thousand clergypersons who answered an interfaith call to go to Minneapolis over the weekend, and spoke of a city - a state - under siege, and a community caring for each other in ways narcissists and opportunists can't imagine. One, a Hindu, invoked Shiva, and I was suddenly imagining the Himalayas (the piled snow from yesterday's epic blizzard helped), indeed Kailas, Shiva's abode, and he was hearing us.