We were created to live in a web of deeply interrelated relationships: to God, to one-another, and to the non-human world. However, we find ourselves in an increasingly divided and isolated age where, for many, belonging is either elusive or irrelevant. This Lent, the Cathedral will be joined by scholars, artists, and ministers who will reflect on the importance of belonging for our lives and offer tools and practices to help us cultivate the deep relationships we were made for.
Pádraig Ó Tuama
Biography
Pádraig Ó Tuama (b. 1975 Cork, Ireland) is a poet with interests in conflict, language and religion. He presents Poetry Unbound from On Being Studios, and has published two anthologies (2022, 2025, both with WW Norton) from that podcast. In early 2025 Copper Canyon Press published Kitchen Hymns, his fourth poetry collection. A freelance artist, one of Ó Tuama’s projects is poet in residence with the Cooperation and Conflict Resolution Center at Columbia University. He splits his time between Belfast and New York City.
Poet and theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama’s work centres around themes of language, power, conflict and religion. Working fluently on the page and in public, he is a compelling poet and skilled speaker, teacher and group worker. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being Studios. From 2014-2019 he was the leader of the Corrymeela Community, Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation community. With undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in theology, multiple professional qualifications in conflict mediation (specialising in groups), he also holds a PhD (Poetry & Theology) from the University of Glasgow. For the Autumn terms of 2024-28, he is a visiting scholar at the centre for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University.
Dean’s Hour: The Borders of Belonging
How do we think about belonging? Is it always a good thing? Who decides who belongs? And who manages the entryways or exits of such connections? Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and conflict mediator whose work has encompassed dialogue work with people who have lived through times of friendship and times of fracture. This evening he will share poems and stories from his experience, both as an artist and facilitator, about the perils and promises of belonging.
Dean’s Hour: Forgiveness and Justice
When, if ever, are we obliged to forgive? What forms should forgiveness take in the aftermath of harm? Does forgiveness foster peace at the expense of justice? In this presentation, Matthew Ichihashi Potts will offer an account of forgiveness rooted in a New Testament vision of justice, and will suggest important implications for our own times and lives.
The Rev. Dr. Matthew Ichihashi Potts
Biography
The Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts is the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church and the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School. Matt earned his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, and both his M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard. He is the author of two books, Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament: Literature, Theology, and the Moral of Stories (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Forgiveness: An Alternative Account (Yale University Press). He has also published scholarly essays in several leading journals and peer reviewed collections. He is a former member of the editorial board of the journal Literature and Theology and has held leadership roles with both the Conference on Christianity and Literature and the Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion.
The Rev. Dr. Jeehei Park
Biography
Jeehei Park, PhD, is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Seminary of the Southwest. She holds a Master of Divinity (concentration in New Testament and Early Christianity) from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD in Christianity in Antiquity from Fordham University. Prior to coming to Southwest, she taught at General Theological Seminary. She is the author of All Citizens of Christ: A Cosmopolitan Reading of Unity and Diversity in Paul’s Letters (Brill, 2022) and several essays on early Christian literature. Dr. Park’s work has been recognized with several awards and fellowships, including the Forum for Theological Exploration dissertation fellowship and the Louisville Institute postdoctoral fellowship. She is an ordained deacon in The United Methodist Church.
Dean’s Hour: What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Love as an Ethic of Belonging
Love, when it comes to belonging, can never be a “second-hand emotion.” Paul knew this well as he travelled to build and strengthen communities of faith among the earliest believers of Christ. We’ll explore chapters 12–13 of Romans, one of his most well-known letters, to discover how Christian love takes shape in practice and how it can help us make our church a place of genuine welcome and deep fellowship.
Dean’s Hour: Belonging Matters: Faith Beyond Sunday Morning
As baptized Christians in the Episcopal Church promises are made at the font that change us forever. But too often baptism is understood as an event rather than a threshold ushering us into a new life of belonging in Christ. When people of all ages and abilities are equipped to live into their God-given vocations, they experience and can share abundant life in Christ, transform local communities and change the world. In 2026 it matters that in baptism we renounce evil and all sinful desires that draw us from the love of God. It matters what we promise to put our whole trust in Christ and to love with abandon. Let’s (re)claim our superpower as baptized Christians!
Dr. Lisa Kimball
Biography
Lisa Kimball, Ph.D. is the Vice President of Lifelong Learning at Virginia Seminary and holds the James Maxwell Endowed Chair in Lifelong Christian Formation. She is a practical theologian who focuses her teaching and research on discipleship and Christian vocation in contemporary, global, and post-institutional contexts. She is a passionate advocate for lay ministry, the full inclusion of all generations, digital literacy, and leadership formation for a thriving church. In the last decade, Lisa has written or mentored multiple successful grants from the Lilly Endowment Inc., totaling over $15M in research funding on confirmation, baptism, preaching, mutual ministry, science and religion, intergenerational worship, and most recently for an ecumenical faith storytelling initiative. Lisa and her wife Tricia, an Episcopal priest, are co-founders of a ministry farm, where they enjoy hosting souls who are looking for retreat and renewal while hiking on forest trails and along refreshing streams with their dogs Tignish and Beans.
Chris Valka
Biography
Chris currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Prison Entrepreneurship Program which unites business and community leaders and prisoners through entrepreneurial passion and servant leadership to transform lives, restore families, and rebuild communities. Chris holds a BA in Communications from St. Edward’s University, Masters in Education from Canisius College, Masters in Divinity from the University of Toronto, and is a proud alumnus of Leadership Houston. In 2017, Chris returned back to his hometown of Houston, where he is now a husband and stepfather to two young children. Chris also serves as the Verger at Holy Family Episcopal Church where he coordinates the liturgies for the community, and he is an active volunteer with several organizations in the Houston and Heights community alongside his wife.
Dean’s Hour: What Prison Teaches us About Belonging
Most economies, cities and countries measure the standard of living – quality of life – by a job report, which makes a lot of sense. If people are working, then it leads to believe people are producing and thriving, but as people of faith we also know that we are not defined by our doings – we are human beings. Thus, while jobs are an important measurement of our dignity, they are not the end itself, but the means to a greater end: belonging. Join us as we explore our dignity from the perspective of those who have lost and found their dignity in prison.