It’s an honor for me to have been asked to write the Anglican commentary this month. I am reminded that my class couldn’t have in-person graduation last May 2020 due to Covid-19. In the comfort of Room 304 in St. George’s dorm, behind my laptop, I graduated with an M.A. degree having my name called by Dean Ian Markham and Dr. Katherine Sonderegger. With awe and reverence, I was also awarded the Anglican Communion Prize.
What does life after seminary look like? There are as many answers as people graduating from seminary. But for me, it looks like walking and working in a “garden” that is not mine, nor the Church’s, but God’s. This is my own reformulation of one of my takeaways from seminary: The Church does not have a mission of her own, but she is called to participate in God’s mission.
I wrote my thesis on the Haitian word, konbit. Konbit means an event where the community comes together to accomplish something for an individual, a family, or the community at large, mostly agriculture-related. When I was writing, I had in mind my unstable country and turbulent diocese. But I realize this word transcends the agricultural setting and settles at the very heart of ministry. My ministry is a konbit. And in konbit, we say the strike of a solitary hoe makes no music. Therefore, it is a konbit where I am not working for myself or by myself, but instead, I am working in konbit. That is where the Owner of the vineyard has sent me.
The harvest is plentiful, said Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, and laborers can only work shoulder to shoulder, in konbit. As a black person and a non-native English speaker working in a predominantly white congregation, this word, which is vibrating from my heart, is even permeating my ministry. It makes it possible for me to rely on God and other people as I strike my own hoe in concert with others. I enter God’s garden with uncertainty, curiosity, and hope. I aspire to learn more in order to be more equipped to serve the people I am serving and ultimately the diocese of Haiti, when the time comes to be physically there.
Life after seminary can be unpredictable and erratic, but to all who are graduating this year, I offer the word konbit to avoid navigating new terrain alone.
The Rev. Guimond Pierre Louis ’20
Assistant Rector
St. Peter’s in the Woods Episcopal Church