Welcome to α+Studio (and Holy Week)

Thinking is thanking. Study is an act of devotion. This is where the work begins.

Mar 21, 2025

I’ve been sitting on the edge of something for a long time.

You know that feeling—when the urge to create builds and builds, but inertia holds you back. I’ve been living there for a while, hovering just before the start. But now, something is shifting. A piece I’ve written for The New York Times is about to be published, and even though no one’s read it yet, I can feel the pull to keep going. To keep writing. To keep working.

So here I am, starting something.

And Holy Week—well, it seems as good a time as any.

I call this space αndrew +hayer studio.

It’s not a brand. Not a platform. Not a church. It’s a studio—a space to think out loud, work with the raw material of faith, and try to name what’s real in a foggy, fractured world.

I could have called it a workshop, garage, lab, black box, dojo, ashram, even a gym. Each would have fit in its own way. But studio felt right—because it shares its root with study, from the Latin studium: zeal, pursuit, attention. A place you go to practice, to work, to grow.

As an academic, study is my native language. But study, for me, is more than scholarship—it’s an act of devotion. For years I had a little Post-it note stuck to my office wall (until it finally wore off and drifted to the floor) with a line attributed to Martin Luther:

Denken ist Danken.
Thinking is thanking.

That line still lingers. It reminds me that study—when it’s honest—is never cold. It’s never distant. It’s a way of giving thanks. Paying deep attention is its own kind of prayer. It often feels like gratitude.

So this is my studio. My visible notebook. My charcoal-streaked drafting table. It’s where I wrestle, wonder, test ideas, and try again. I’ll post written reflections, some audio, eventually videos and T-shirt designs. A few things will be for subscribers who want to support the work, but a lot will be open to all.

Not because I have answers.

But because I’m trying to see clearly—and maybe walk faithfully—in the world we actually inhabit.

Why now?

Because it’s Holy Week—the most dangerous and revealing week in the Christian story.

This is the week Jesus enters Jerusalem. The week he weeps over the city, flips tables, tells stories that sting, shares bread and wine, refuses violence, stands silent before power, and walks—deliberately—into the machine that kills troublemakers.

This week is often reduced to a doctrine or a transaction. But I want to follow it as a lived week, as a public witness. Not just Jesus as savior, but Jesus as person: moving through political space, social pressure, religious inertia, and human betrayal.

So here’s the invitation:

Each day this week, I’ll post a reflection following Jesus’ actual movement through Jerusalem—where he went, what he did, how the people around him responded, and what kind of Kingdom he was revealing.

These won’t be devotionals in the traditional sense. They won’t wrap up neatly or aim to make you feel better. But they might help us see more clearly. They might invite us to watch and listen again—to the Jesus who disrupts the systems we still try to protect.

If you’re looking to read your way through Holy Week toward Easter, you’ve come to the right place.

A final word

The name αndrew +hayer studio carries its own quiet theology.

The lowercase alpha (α) at the start signals beginnings with a nod to the language of the New Testament—but also the humility to begin again. The plus sign (+) replacing the “T” is a cross, yes—but also a reminder that vulnerability is not weakness (Thank you Brene Brown), and that addition doesn’t require subtraction. The cross doesn’t erase—it reframes.

So this is me, beginning. In public. With the world watching and wobbling.

Thanks for being here.

Let’s see where this goes.—

Andrew