The Mad Priest X Commandments
We didn't inherit these from a mountain or a burning bush. We learned them the hard way, through fire, failure, and a whole lot of bad (and some good obviously) decisions that somehow led to the present. These aren't rules. They're the ten things we've found to be consistently, stubbornly, inconveniently true. Take them or leave them. We're keeping them either way.
Know yourself → Do your work right → Love your people → Surrender → Become.
The voice you keep talking yourself out of is usually right. Your gut knew before your brain caught up. The synchronicities aren't coincidences. Pay attention. Then actually listen.
Ask questions. Lots of them. The hard ones. The ones you're afraid to ask. Wisdom doesn't come from credentials, it comes from showing up, paying attention, and refusing to stop learning. Curiosity isn't a personality trait. It's a practice.
Not perfect. Not the best. Better than yesterday, every single time, without exception, without ego, without end. The ceiling doesn't exist. That's the whole point.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Skip the part where you make it sound nicer than it is. Clarity is an act of respect. Vagueness is usually just fear dressed up with better manners.
Even the ones who are nothing like you. Especially them. The most interesting conversations happen at the table where everyone disagrees, but nobody leaves. Show up for that table.
Whoever got left behind, overlooked, or written off, that's who we show up for. At origin. In our community. In ourselves. Love isn't a feeling you wait around for. It's a force you aim.
Every relationship is an exchange. Pay farmers what the coffee is actually worth. Show up for your people the way they show up for you. What you give returns, and so does what you don't.
Of the earth. Of your people. Of what you've been given and what you've been trusted with. Nothing here actually belongs to you. You're passing through. Act like it.
Stop forcing it. The outcome you're white-knuckling toward isn't always the one that's meant for you. Embrace the hard. Be adaptable. Accept what is before you exhaust yourself fighting what isn't. This is not weakness. This is the hardest thing on this list.
The old skin was never meant to last forever. Let it go without mourning it. You are not erasing who you were, you are becoming more of who you actually are. There is no arrival. There is only the next version of you, waiting on the other side of the thing you're avoiding.
Why
we're
mad
We're righteously indignant about racism, inequality, and the largest refugee crisis in modern history. Being mad about it isn't enough, so we do something with it: we hire people from every background, work alongside community partners on issues of social justice and equity, and put money behind the organizations doing the real, hard work to fight injustice.
We care about people. Community. The working class. The voiceless. We take the coffee dead seriously and ourselves a good deal less so.
The Clergy
Questions, confessions, complaints, or a good conversation? We read every one. Ask and you shall receive.