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Of vanity

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  18 December 2022, being the Fourth Sunday of Advent I just got my teeth whitened last week. They have always appeared very stained-- flourosis , as my Edinburgh dentist and my Tampa dentist agree--and I have always been self-conscious about them. Zoom whitening cost me $500. My teeth now look, not gleaming, not preposterously glow-in-the-dark white, but fine. Fine. And just like that, I am no longer self-conscious about my teeth. Why I waited until 55 to avail myself of this cheap and easy fix is a mystery. It suggests (I should like to think) a laudable freedom from vanity, that excessive preoccupation with physical appearance that is one manifestation of the capital vice of vainglory, which is excessive preoccupation with appearance in general. (Not all writers in the capital vices tradition distinguish vanity about physical appearance from the more general vainglory that also concerns reputation, praise, status, and so forth: but tough. They're not writing this blog post.) But
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Lament for a friendship unhappily lost

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  A former friend of mine was back in my thoughts over the last few days. I'm not entirely sure why. It's been ages now since I came to the definitive realization that he was ghosting me. ("Ghost" in this sense is one of the finest recent additions to our vocabulary.) That realization long ago ceased to sting, and the unpleasant memory of the loss, like a quick, sharp, bitter taste, barely experienced before it disappears, rarely returns. It returned this time, strangely enough, in the company of a very good friend whose company and conversation I was enjoying tremendously.     Aristotle, who knew a thing or two about friendship, explains that the stability of friendships depends on a certain equality between the friends when it comes to whatever the basis of the friendship is. In a friendship of pleasure, one based on the enjoyment each friend has in the other's company, the friends need to have roughly the same kinds and amount of pleasure if the friendship is t
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Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

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Sunset on St Andrew's Day (yesterday), as seen from my office I think I've used that line as a title for a post before, but I don't care. It's a great song. Some beginnings are coming to an end this week. Yesterday was my last full day in DC until the spring semester begins. I devoted most of it to grading and teaching prep. Whoever decided that for my last full week of classes I would schedule two articles I'd never taught before clearly did not have my best interests at heart. The evening was given over to Solemn Evensong and Benediction at St Paul's, K Street, a splendid celebration of the 50th ordination anniversary of the Revd Canon Dr Tony Lewis, Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, whom I've know since my own K Street days. (He was also the preacher at the consecration of my new bishop back in September.) It was a nice smoky service requiring three masters of ceremonies, a dozen acolytes, and enough bishops to start a
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Musings upon (or at least adjacent to) the Feast of John Duns Scotus

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One of my better covers Blessed John Duns Scotus, OFM, died (according to tradition) on 8 November 1308, so today is his feast day, for anyone inclined to celebrate. I actually started writing about Scotus entirely because someone else suggested the idea to me. That's not a particularly respectable reason to start working on a historical figure (my reason for working on Anselm is even less respectable; I'll get to that at some point), but the interest quickly became quite sincere, and Scotus has taken over my life and then relinquished it in waves ever since. I currently owe OUP the definitive (ha!) book on Scotus's ethics. Yeah, well, I owe lots of people lots of things. ***** I spent last weekend at home in Tampa. It was not a successful visit, since I spent the whole time suffering, and then recovering, from a stomach bug. I did lose 3.5 pounds over the weekend, but not, I suspect, in the way my trainer was encouraging. Our dog, Tess, is not particularly cuddly. She like
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Introit for Sunday, 30 October

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Fall colors on campus  I reluctantly made the decision to stay in DC this weekend instead of going back home. Even with a direct flight and (so far) no hitches or delays of any consequence, commuting is tiring. I also knew I would need the whole weekend for work, so I didn't even let my DC friends know I would be around. (If any of you are reading this, I promise I'll do better next time.) It was a good week. I think feeling settled, even if only for a few extra days, helped a lot. I've started working with a new trainer, who is fond of words like "shredded" and "ripped" and would be scary if he weren't also a sweetheart. I attended the Eighth Annual Costan Lecture in Early Christianity on Wednesday, followed by a dinner with a dozen or so colleagues--"only non-toxic people," explained the New Testament scholar to my right. To my left was the speaker, the brilliant and engaging James F. Keenan, S.J. He knew my name but couldn't quite re
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The Georgetown Chronicles continue

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17 October 2022, being the Eve of St Luke the Evangelist Mid-afternoon flight back to DC (verging on late-afternoon flight thanks to a half-hour delay for a tire change). Tucked inside the notebook in which I drafted this post—much as Thomas Aquinas drafted his blogposts longhand, except that my handwriting is legible—is a schedule for the week to come. There are probably five people in the world who can read this, and I feel quite certain that none of them will see this post. It's a week between writing assignments in Intro, and prep should be minimal, since I'm teaching Anselm's On the Fall of the Devil . (If my students can trip me up on On the Fall of the Devil , I need to find another line of work.) So I've made up a chart to help me make the best use of my time. One column is marked "Appointments," the other "Tasks." Anything with a definite time goes under "Appointments." This includes class, office hours, and the usual routine stuff
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A tale of three cities (Part Two)

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  Tampa, Florida. Labor Day weekend. The kayaks have arrived. So too has the all-day rain. We have not yet been out on the lake. Washington, D.C., Thursday, 8 September. On my way back from teaching the first third of the Phaedo , the dialogue that recounts the death of Socrates, I hear some buzz from students about the Queen's health. "They're calling the family in." Back in my office, I connect to BBC News. Huw Edwards is leading the coverage of Her Majesty's death capably and with dignity. It would of course be silly to say that I thought the Queen would never die, and the death of a 96-year-old is not in itself surprising -- though it's a bit surprising when it happens just two days after she has welcomed her fifteenth prime minister, looking physically diminished but still cheerfully meeting the demands of her role. There are those who wonder whether it is appropriate for Americans to mourn the Queen. I say it's always appropriate to mourn an extraord
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