Dead Men Tell No Tales Nor Do They Make Confessions, Issue Retractions, Or Offer Apologies. . .

The apparently quite sudden death Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Jensen last Sunday morning took me by surprise, especially in light of his own suggestion that he "may very well be able to look forward to many, many years of a reasonably healthy, energetic, fun, loving, and even productive lifestyle," even though "the long-range trend is down" on the first of this month. Late last week I had taken the first concrete steps towards filing a formal clergy misconduct complaint against Rev. Jensen for repeatedly insulting and defaming me on the internet, to say nothing of apparently plagiarizing my original words and ideas, and I had been in contact with some of my advisers about how best to proceed in that matter, but I guess that there is not much point in filing a posthumous clergy misconduct complaint against a deceased U*U minister. I only found out about Rev. Tim Jensen's death at around 3pm yesterday afternoon, soon after responding to an email regarding my intention to file a complaint against him. I believe that it was Rev. Kit Ketchum's blog post titled 'Rest in Peace, dear Tim' that first caught my attention yesterday afternoon but I saw and read other blog posts such as ChaliceChick's RIP Tim Jensen post and Jess Cullinan's 'Mourning the Eclectic Cleric' post, which proffered the very good advice -

"Another reminder to not take a single moment for granted."

at more or less the same time. The blog post titled 'From Tim's Youngest Brother Erik' on Rev. Jensen's 'One Day Isle' "cancer journal" weblog confirmed the news of Rev. Tim Jensen's unexpected death.

Out of respect for Rev. Tim Jensen's mourning family and friends I will not be posting a couple of blog posts about our online "pissing match" that I had intended to post last week but which were delayed by other priorities. I do not intend to make any new posts here about our online conflict for at least a couple of weeks, nor do I intend to proceed with my formal unbecoming conduct / clergy misconduct complaint against Rev. Dr. Tim Jensen unless some compelling reason convinces me that it really is in my own and other people's best interests to do so. The main point of filing a formal clergy misconduct complaint against Rev. Tim Jensen was to make yet another attempt to persuade the UUA and its ever so aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee to properly hold U*U ministers accountable when they insult and defame people on the internet or in "real life" (as it were), rather than turning a willfully blind eye to their "less than excellent" ministry or even go so far as to pretend that their unbecoming conduct, or even worse clergy misconduct, is "within the appropriate guidelines of ministerial leadership". As it happens there are a few other living U*U ministers who can still serve that purpose well enough even though Rev. Tim Jensen's well documented insults and defamation presented a pretty solid case against him. . .

Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Jensen's unfortunate "legacy" of online "rants" is available for all to see unless his friends and relatives decide to "memory hole" his original blog posts and blog comments etc. Even if they do cover up and hide his more embarrassing blog posts and comments much of his online ranting has already been reproduced here and will not be "memory holed". No doubt Rev. Jensen's recent death will mean that more people will become aware of his "less than excellent" ministry now than might otherwise have been the case.

For Rev. Tim Jensen's sake, as much as my own, I regret that our online conflict aka "pissing match" never reached a satisfactory resolution before his untimely death and still remains unresolved. Had Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Jensen taken a moment or two to responsibly retract his insulting and defamatory allegations about me, and offer an acceptable apology for making them, those words and actions would have gone a long way to restoring (or creating) right relations between us, but Rev. Tim Jensen quite evidently had other priorities in his life and took *those* conflict resolving, aka peacemaking, aka right relations restoring moments for granted.

I had hoped, and still hope, that our online conflict would serve as what U.S. President Barack Obama might call a "teachable moment" that Unitarian*Universalists in general, and U*U clergy in particular, might learn from. I believe that with Rev. Tim Jensen's sudden death last Sunday our unresolved conflict is none-the-less something of a "teachable moment" for U*Us, albeit a somewhat different one than I had envisioned and hoped for. May this TEA blog post serve as yet another reminder to Unitarian*Universalists not take a single moment for granted when it comes to responsibly resolving conflicts within the U*U World in a manner that actually honors and upholds the purported principles and ideals of Unitarian*Universalism.

Such is life aka "So it goes". . .