Is This…Via Media?
by Ashley Graham-Wilcox
It’s an interesting (read: complicated) time to be working in the Episcopal Church right now.
(Caffeinated Church is an ecumenical organization, and I work with a number of non-Episcopal churches and organizations, but I’m most closely tied into the Episcopal Church, so that’s where my focus will be in this blog—but if you have time to watch Conclave before this Sunday’s Oscars, be reassured it’s complicated elsewhere, too.)
Here’s what I mean by complicated:
When Bishop Mariann Budde stood at the pulpit of the National Prayer Service and spoke truth to power, lifting up the marginalized with conviction and grace, it was a moment of pride and hope—proof that our tradition has something relevant and essential to say in a world that feels increasingly inhospitable to justice and compassion. But that pride came with a lot of fear. Fear for Bishop Budde, for our clergy who take risks in their pulpits, and for the marginalized communities we serve. That was a rollercoaster of a week.
More recently, many churches and church-related institutions are in the midst of applying for grants from the Lilly Endowment—various cycles of which are due in the coming weeks. And that brings hope. So many projects are being dreamed into being, with all the plot-twisting, partnership-building, and brainstorming that comes with the process. Right now, all sorts of things seem possible.
At the same time, last week, the Episcopal Church laid off 14 employees—a move that was probably always going to feel hard, but that was handled in a way that also left a bad taste in many people’s mouths. There’s tension and anger in the church.
In the midst of these ups and downs — not to mention the regular news cycle — many of us aren’t even directly involved. We sit in the middle, expected to…answer emails? We have a saying in the Episcopal Church: Via media. I don’t know if it’s meant to apply to this feeling, but here I am: Just a lay lady who stumbled into this work over a decade ago—trying to take care of myself, my call, and the people I meet along the way.
But I’ll be honest: It’s hard to be productive right now.
(This isn’t a typical Caffeinated Church blog; these are just the thoughts of a communicator, on a communications blog, stirred by various workplace happenings. Lilly Endowment is asking folks in the Clergy Renewal Grant process, where I’m helping one minister with a video: What makes your heart sing?, and one thing that keeps coming up for me is: Where do transparency and boundaries intersect? In the workplace, my language of appreciation is Quality Time, which translates to: Give me ALL of the information. That can also sometimes translate to being available too much of the time, with too much of myself. Not very via media of me.)
Maybe it’s this tension in the church. Maybe it’s winter. Maybe it’s the news cycle. Maybe it’s all of it. And maybe it’s something else entirely where you are. I am someone who is always into the Academy Awards – seeing everything, making pools, throwing themed parties, and it’s been a struggle to care this year for me. When I was trying to put it into words last weekend, my husband said, “You don’t think we deserve joy right now.” Harsh, probably a bit dramatic, but true. Or, as the oft-spiritually quoted but lay lady herself Mary Oliver puts it: Maybe it’s the beauty and the terror.
“All my life, and it has not come to / any more than this: / beauty and terror.”
–from Blue Pastures, Mary Oliver
Maybe via media isn’t about standing in the middle because we’re unsure of what to do next. Maybe it’s about holding tension with intention—sitting with both the beauty and the terror, the hope and the grief, the possibility and the exhaustion.
If you’re feeling it too, you’re not alone.
If you’re looking for something to anchor you, consider grounding yourself in something concrete—maybe a continuing education opportunity like a Caffeinated Church workshop. We have one tomorrow, and March topics will be announced soon. Let us know what topic might help you feel like you’ve got some control in this world. If you could use some healing practices, here’s an online Healing Circle one of the churches I work with offers monthly.
None of us were promised an easy time doing this work. Whether we’re preaching from the pulpit, answering emails in the middle, or simply trying to navigate our way through, we are holding so much at once—grief and possibility, exhaustion and hope, beauty and terror. Via media doesn’t mean staying neutral; it means staying present, staying engaged, finding the next right step even when the path feels unsteady. So, we keep going. We keep listening. We keep showing up where we can. And maybe, in the midst of it all, we still make space for joy—because even in complicated times, we deserve that too.
Let me know where you’re finding it this week.
