Date: August 13, 2025
Sometimes I get an email and I found my mind going in a variety of directions. So, yesterday, Gabe Oakes explained that despite reminders the Flamingo is not being respected by the community. Even with repeated appeals, the spigot is not being turned off, the hot water is being drained, and trash is not being cleaned up.
As I read the email I was reminded of the tragedy of the commons. This concept from economics, originally appearing in the 1970s, talks about how a shared space can be used so badly because in the end no one cares enough to care for it. It’s an understandable temptation (and I use the word deliberately) to think that either the space doesn’t matter or that someone else will clear it up.
As it happens the Flamingo is much loved by the people who run it and by the staff of the seminary. I invite us all to join them and today make a promise that whatever space I’m in I will honor and respect that space. From the high street in a town to a parish hall, we will always care.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and the President of The General Theological Seminary