Athletics
Athletic News
“I Am, Because We Are”
Rev. Ken Malcolm offers message of neighborly love and cooperation in Eucharist Chapel
Trinity welcomed the Rev. Ken Malcolm, Rector of Christ Church Episcopal in Glen Allen, VA, and spouse of Trinity Spanish teacher Beth Malcolm, to Trinity on the morning of Wednesday, September 25. He presided over the first Eucharist of the year and delivered a homily that centered around “table fellowship,” the theme of Trinity’s Chapel program and spiritual reflection for the year.
“Who here has heard the phrase ‘hero ball,’” he asked, referring to the moment when one teammate believes that their contributions are more important than the rest of the team. “It happens on the soccer field. It happens on the baseball field,” he said, and can even happen in a performance ensemble or when trying to solve a problem at a club meeting. “And if everybody's ego is getting in the way, you don't ever get to the bottom of the issue or get to a place where you start to perform as a team.”
Malcolm said he saw this lesson play out in his own personal experience as a high school football and basketball coach. “Some of my less talented teams ended up winning the championship, because they figured out how to play together as one,” he said. “They figured out that their individual gift had to work with all the other gifts to be able to be the best. Like the reading from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, every piece of the body has to work together.”
Malcolm then connected this idea of community and cooperation to the South African concept of ubuntu, made popular by Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. “It means ‘I am because we are,’ or ‘my personal existence depends on everybody else,’” said Malcolm. “And if you flip it over, it even gets more powerful because, like in poetry, it has a chiastic existence. ‘I am because we are’ — and — ‘we are because I am.’ Meaning we do this thing together. But we all have to bring our individual gifts to the table to raise everybody up and to make everything amazing.”
He encouraged the Trinity community to keep these concepts in mind when navigating the current challenging and contentious political environment. “We all are living through a time in our history where there's a lot of political conflict, a lot of arguing, a lot of fighting, sometimes violence, and a lot of really, really angry rhetoric,” he said. “And it can be really hard to listen when someone is saying something that you really disagree with.”
Through the lens of ubuntu, or “I am, because we are,” he encouraged students to practice the art of empathetic listening in the spirit of table fellowship. “I'm going to listen to what you have to say,” he said. “I'm going to ask you to tell me your story, but I'm then going to ask you to listen to my story. And we might not agree, but we don't have to come to blows in our disagreement.”
“We are one human race, one group of people,” he concluded. “Nobody gets thrown away. Everybody matters. Remember, as Mark's Gospel just said, ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ Who's your neighbor? Everybody. If we practice ‘I am because we are’ together, I guarantee you we will change the world more quickly in a more lasting manner than if we try to change it with violence and hatred. Change it with love.”
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To learn more about the values of love, grace and respect for all people that shape Trinity’s Episcopal Identity, visit https://www.trinityes.org/school-life/chapel-and-spiritual-life.
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To learn more about the values of love, grace and respect for all people that shape Trinity’s Episcopal Identity, visit https://www.trinityes.org/school-life/chapel-and-spiritual-life.
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