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In 1887, British politician Lord Acton wrote the well-known phrase, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Not as well-known is the context in which Lord Acton penned these words. They were written to the Archbishop of the Church of England, Mandell Creighton, who decried what he saw as overly harsh criticism of men in authority, namely, corrupt and abusive popes. In the same letter, Acton remarked, “I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power...there is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”[1] Christianity and power have long been intertwined in problematic ways, but does this mean that religious leaders and people of faith working for justice and peace should avoid power altogether? Is power inherently bad? In my Community Organizing course for theology students, our discussions interrogate these questions and contextualize them to current realities. Drawn from one of the class texts, our working definition of community organizing is “to mobilize disenfranchised people to advocate on their own behalf in relationship to some power structure in order to achieve needed changes.”[2] This important work necessitates the amassing of power, not for consolidation with the few but for distribution among the many, so that power relations are transformed and power itself becomes a shared entity. In other words, structures that have consolidated power such that individuals residing within them are “sanctified” by the nature of their office must be held to account by the collective power of those impacted by the sanctified’s actions. Ultimately, power is not inherently good or bad; but it has the potential to be either or both depending on who has it and how it is shared (or hoarded, as the case may be). Organizers—and ministry leaders—need to learn not only how to share power with others, but also how to help others recognize that they have power in the first place. In the COVID-19 era in which instruction has moved online, engaging in activities that help students practice power sharing requires creativity, patience, and a willingness to yield some of my own power as the instructor. The course is delivered asynchronously for the most part, but there are three seventy-five-minute synchronous Zoom sessions built into the design. I have utilized the majority of this time for the practice of key organizing activities designed to cultivate capacities for power sharing. In our first session, I facilitated a consensus decision making process whereby the students discussed in small groups, and then reported out to the whole class, their proposals and reasonings for how they would prefer to be grouped in responding to weekly discussion questions. (It is a large class, so there are many options for how they might be grouped for weekly assignments). Consensus was built around one option, and the group agreed to experiment with their decision until the next Zoom session when I would check in with everyone to see if any change was desired. At the next session, students also split into pairs and practiced relational meetings, a foundational tool in community organizing with a purpose of building shared power through identifying mutual interests. Through these activities, students cultivated awareness of their individual power, yet were challenged to forge connections with others to make shared decisions and listen for the purpose of understanding. These students, who will likely hold positional power as clergy or nonprofit directors, attained new understandings and praxes of creating collective power, moving beyond seeing power simply as a force to be cautiously kept behind a fence (as in a pastoral care conversation, for example) to embodying it as an active, dynamic energy that—with intentionality and humility—can transform individuals and dismantle unjust systems. By introducing students to such constructions and practices around power, and committing myself to practicing a pedagogy of power sharing in the virtual classroom (both as I’ve described and in other ways), alternatives to “absolute power corrupt[ing] absolutely” might instead form leaders who empower self and others relationally and collaboratively. There is no organizing—or leadership, for that matter—without community. Given what our country has witnessed over the past four years with a Trump presidency, such alternatives are needed now more than ever in religious and secular spheres alike so that democracy might be realized more full [1] Lord Acton, “Letter to Archbishop Mandell Creighton,” April 5, 1887, https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/165acton.html. [2] Loretta Pyles, Progressive Community Organizing: Reflective Practice in a Globalizing World, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 10.

Body indicators such as nose, hair, and flesh tones are relied upon for the perpetuation of prejudice, bias, and presumed privilege. What would it mean to unlearn, then relearn more liberative ways of reading the body? Can the truncated imagination which only sees value in the white body be rekindled to see worth in all bodies? The featured speakers for this event are Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University) and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University).

I have a feeling that this is going to be the crummiest semester of my teaching career.  We’re tired here at my small undergraduate Catholic college outside of Boston.  I’ve toggled back and forth between classes on Zoom and in person.  As a result of all that, we’re now several weeks into the semester, and I saw some of my students’ faces for the first time yesterday.  Well, the top half anyway.  I’m sick of masks. The parts of the faces that I could see look tired.  In fact, my students look about as exhausted as they usually do right before Thanksgiving.  They tell me they are drained from the isolation, the uncertainty, and threat of going remote again.  I am exhausted too.  And we’re just halfway through a 15-week semester with no spring break (like many colleges, we canceled it to keep positivity rates down). All mental health numbers seem to go in the wrong direction.  The college keeps sending out resources about support groups and numbers to call.  I just got an email from my dean urging us to cut students’ workload this semester, to monitor their mental health, and to care for ourselves as well. At this point, my preference would be to cancel the rest of the semester so that we can all sleep until May but since that probably is not an option, I’m going to follow my dean’s advice.  It’s triage time. Here’s my plan and survival guide: 1. Give the students more time to write their papers When the students in my gen ed classes have a paper due, they won’t have any reading assignments.  Instead, they’ll submit three topic ideas on Monday, a shitty first draft on Wednesday, and the actual paper on Friday.  We’ll use our class time on Monday and Wednesday as informal paper workshops.  I won’t read the drafts at all; I’ll simply check that they submitted them.  I’ll invite them to talk to me or visit the Writing Center if they want feedback. 2. Don’t teach any new materials In an optimistic moment in December, I included several new readings on the syllabus for my brand-new Catholic intellectual tradition course.  They are good readings and they would improve the course.  But I don’t know how to teach them.  Honestly, I can’t even remember what they were about.  So I’m going to skip them altogether and instead use materials I know well.  I’ll accept that my Catholic intellectual tradition course will be light on Catholic readings this semester, and I’ll rely heavily on theology major Joe in the class to bring an informed Catholic perspective to our discussions. 3. Cancel classes In case you haven’t noticed, teaching and learning on Zoom is much harder and less effective than having class in person.  Because of that, I’m going to avoid having class on Zoom whenever I can: If we get another snowstorm (did I mention I live in the Northeast?), I’ll just cancel class. I suspect we’ll get more learning done that way because it will give us a chance to rest and it will generate good will. Both will increase the chances of us having a good class when we’re back in the classroom the next day, so I’m trading two mediocre meetings for one good one.  It’ll be worth it. If we must go remote again, I’ll cut back on class time for the students. We’ll all have class on Monday and then half will attend on Wednesdays and the rest on Fridays.  I didn’t do this before because I couldn’t figure out how to have them use that extra hour without generating tons of extra work for myself (I’ve never had good luck with independent work for first year gen ed students).  But now I have a plan.  I’ll simply tell them to spend the extra time on the next homework assignment and choose not to feel guilty about it. 4. Stop obsessing about Zoom tuneout It’s harder to pay attention on Zoom, and we’ve all spent hours trying to figure out how to keep our students engaged.  I’m done.  I give up. I refuse to adopt my colleagues’ increasingly draconian suggestions.  I don’t want to create a teaching environment filled with mistrust and even if I did, I don’t think it would work. The students are so tired that pushing them more won’t help. I’ll focus on those who are physically in the classroom and those on Zoom who are paying attention.  I’ll remember that some of the students who keep their cameras off and refuse to talk really are listening.  (I know that because I’ve seen their writing.)  I’ll accept that some won’t pay attention. I’ll keep checking in on those who seem to disappear, referring them out as needed. Most of all, I’ll remember that it’s not personal.  They are tuning out because they are exhausted and sick of Zoom, not because they want to disrespect me and my class. 5.Help the students cope Last week, a first-year student looked out at me from his Zoom box on my computer and asked, “Is it always going to be like this?”  Suddenly, they were all paying attention, looking at me, intently.  I put on my best confident professorial voice and said ‘no.’  I agreed that it feels like that now but I talked about vaccines and hope.  But I also acknowledged that this semester will suck.  And I promised that we’d muddle through it together.  We will. Notes: I wish I had invented the phrase ‘shitty first draft’, but I got it from Anne Lamott.  It’s from her essay “Shitty first drafts” in Bird by Bird – great essay!  I did create the lazy staged assignment described above all by myself though.

Vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris is known for wearing Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers and pearls that are emblematic of her historical significance as the first African American and South Asian woman to assume this high office. Girls and women everywhere donned the shoes and pearls to celebrate “Chucks and Pearls Day” on the day of her inauguration, January 20, 2021. Chucks and pearls have surplus meaning for VP Harris, and I would argue, for theological educators as well, and not just in the US context. I am an American teaching at a seminary in Canada where I find a strong investment of support for Harris’s achievements and optimism about what her leadership brings to the global stage. Is it sexist to focus on what women in leadership wear? One could look at it that way. The infatuation with Bernie Sanders’s mittens, however, might even the score. Conversely (pun intended), one could find inspiration in the “Twenty Pearls,” the esteemed early twentieth century founders of Harris’s historically Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Biblically speaking, pearls are symbolic of wisdom gained through experience, and their value is juxtaposed against the swine of the world. Even after thirty years of teaching I seek confidence boosters to help me in the classroom, whether I literally or metaphorically “wear them.” Those ‘pearls of great price’ who came before me and braved male-dominated theological education, and my sister-colleagues who witness against sexism, racism, and classism, are confidence boosters for me. When there are confidence busters (like a vengeful comment on a course evaluation, or a double standard toward female faculty), the boosters offer examples of tenacity. When I feel I need to challenge a student on an unexamined idea, I muster the courage and grace to do so from the pearls in my life. If I feel spiritually or intellectually dried up, I go to the wisdom bearers of my tradition. The Converse sneakers were Harris’s go-to on the campaign trail. She was “laced up and ready to win” (“Why are Women Wearing Chucks and Pearls Today?”). Harris viewed the shoes as energizing and as telling a story about who she is as a well-grounded, everyday person. She saw them as a symbol of universality, an equalizing force, pointing toward the unity she seeks for the country. Harris has more than her share of detractors, but in her poise, one can see deep strength and steadfastness. The political arena, like the classroom--also political-- puts one in a vulnerable place. Confidence and agility are two invaluable personal resources in both spaces. And in this world of virtual and online teaching we especially need flexibility and an embodied, “real” presence. Teaching has a “ready to hit the ground” quality that requires quick movements and agility—dodging, shifting, and taking chances. Confidence comes with comfort in one’s body bringing a presence to the space. In the power dynamics of teaching and learning, confidence is not to be confused with cockiness or authoritarianism. It is the willingness to offer hospitality, to say under one’s breath, “Yes, I have a PhD which gives me  knowledge and expertise in my field, but I still wear sneakers. I am a learner too.” Confidence is the readiness to be challenged by students in order to calibrate one’s own thinking. It also has the quality of standing firm when necessary. For example, sometimes students do not want to read something they disagree with or that causes a visceral reaction. I might persist with the assignment, knowing that it will hone our practice of discourse with those holding different views and allow us to explore what those reactions teach us. Such discourse is important in the democracy Harris defends. Does this mean that all theological educators ought to go out and buy Chucks and pearls to be in solidarity with our new VP? No. It isn’t about stuff, or that we need a good luck charm to help ward off evil or help us cope with the passing criticism. We do, however, need reminders that the pearls who have guided us are yet still with us and that we have within our souls (pun intended) the ability and agility to embody good teaching.