Lesser Feasts

Statue of Reginald Somerset Ward at Guildford Cathedral If I had all the time in the world -- or, more aptly, if I had exactly as much time as I in fact have, but made better use of it -- I would start a couple of podcasts.     One would be Noonday Prayer for each of the days of Lent (thus, not Sundays). It would be the full BCP service with a spoken meditation -- some poetry or poetic prose -- at the appropriate place. Ten minutes, tops, for people to use as a devotional during the day. Lent will be here very soon, but I may actually manage that one. I'll know more within a week or so. Watch this space (and the Cathedral website, and possibly the diocesan newsletter . . .). I've been wanting to do the Noonday Prayer podcast for a couple of years now. The other idea came to me when I was last in Scotland. I encountered the spiritual writings of Reginald Somerset Ward. I think they could be spiritually invigorating for a lot of people, and I'd like to make him available mo...

  Very cheap bookshelves groaning under the weight of unfinished projects Some of my Facebook friends report that they read impressive numbers of really serious books and were otherwise insanely productive in 2020. Others are lamenting that they read hardly anything besides annoying news, dominated by unpleasant electioneering and COVID disasters, and accomplished next to nothing. I am closer to the second category. I read a bit -- Susan Howatch's Starbridge novels, some fluff, some theology -- but the list (if I kept a list, which I don't, because that would be work, which, as I believe we've established, I'm not doing much of) wouldn't be impressive in either length or seriousness. I got some scholarly writing done, but I won't have anything with a publication year of 2020. And I'm beginning the year by missing a deadline. But I'm not missing the deadline by much, and I'm really not lamenting about my "lost" 2020, because, all things cons...