Lesser Feasts

  Yesterday I decided to buy a new suit to celebrate the new job. I quite like it, but let's face it: the socks are the best part. Medieval Ethics was graciously canceled because of low enrollment, so this semester it's just Intro to Philosophy. I have thirty students, whose names I'm going to struggle to learn because Georgetown is still requiring masking in class -- though nowhere else, which is super-science-y -- and so I have fewer cues to go by. But good heavens, they read the heck out of Plato's Euthyphro . Oddly, several people thanked me after class. Does that mean I did a good job? No idea. Maybe Georgetown students are just incredibly nice. One guy asked if he could put his pastor in touch with me so I could do an adult formation thing for his parish (a Lutheran church near Capitol Hill). Sure, why not? Another thanked me for being "reasonable": "I'm an atheist, so I was worried about this, but I like the way you took other views seriously....

Feast of Saint Augustine 28 August 2013 St Paul’s, K Street ✠ I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. As always when there is a saint, we have a biographical sketch. But today is the feast of my favorite theologian, my first philosophical love, and I hope you won’t mind if instead I say a few words from my own experience of Saint Augustine. It would be hard to overstate his influence. This largely self-taught thinker, imbued with a smattering of ancient wisdom, some second-hand Platonism, and an ever-deepening knowledge of Scripture, produced a body of work that remains vital and powerful. To a surprising extent, Christians still think his thoughts, still understand with his mind, still draw up battle lines around his controversies. Even in reaction, he wields influence: would anyone be invested in the misguided contemporary project of rehabilitating Pelagius were it not a way to take a stand against Augustine, like a rebellious teenager clumsily tryi...

Content warning: nekkid dudes in a weird painting. ***** I did a rough calculation: there were about 300 papers at this conference. Apart from the plenary talks, there were eleven sessions running concurrently at any given time. That's a lot of medieval philosophy -- more than I have an appetite for. But I missed more sessions than I would have liked, because my jet lag was absolutely brutal this time. ***** When I wasn't listening to papers or sleeping, I was out walking. I love long walks in cities. Paris was having a warm spell, and I made the (in retrospect obviously stupid) decision to walk all the way from my hotel to Sacré Cœur, a solid two miles away, on the hottest and sunniest day. Thanks to a timely rest and a liter of water, I was fine. My heart quailed when I reached the foot of the steps. Maybe I should take the funicular. No. Don't be ridiculous. You've climbed the Seven Hills of Edinburgh. You've walked in the Highlands. It's just steps. Turns ou...

The view from my balcony at the Hôtel D'Orsay  Normally I prepare for travel abroad. In the whirlwind of new faculty orientation and settling into my apartment and my new office, I just didn't this time around. I even managed to schedule an "onboarding" (I hate that word) call for my website redesign for Saturday morning, when I should have been getting properly ready. My packing consists of shoving back into my suitcase whatever I had taken out of it over the previous three days. (Conveniently, settling into my apartment did not include unpacking.) As soon as the call is over, I head for the airport. At some point I get a message from the place I'm supposed to be staying. If my French serves me correctly, they are telling me that for health reasons, they are no longer supplying bath towels. Google Translate informs me that my French is indeed serving me correctly. I'm not quite sure how you can advertise a place as "tout équipé" and then take away t...

  Orientation begins on Wednesday at 8 am, so I have no excuse not to be at Morning Prayer at 7:30. The rector officiates. He is Scottish. I worry that when we have lunch in a couple of weeks, I will alarm him by my enthusiasm for all things Scottish. For now, though, I'm just delighted to have been invited to celebrate at the occasional midweek Eucharist and participate in their very robust adult formation program. ***** The first speaker at orientation is the Vice President for Mission and Ministry, a Jesuit. He talks about Jesuit values, about Ignatian spirituality, and it's all very lovely. It will become clear to me over these two days that the university really does take its Jesuit identity seriously. ***** That's my first we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore moment. My second is when the provost speaks to us. My former provost was noteworthy for his ability to speak at indefinite length while conveying no information of any kind. My new provost is the opposite: clear, str...

My flight was on time, my bag came quickly, and I was at my apartment by 3:00. Perfect. I had forgotten how much light the place gets: Rather than unpacking, I decide to walk to the office and start settling in there. It's a pleasant forty-minute walk. I pass Christ Church, Georgetown, on the way to the entrance to the University and ultimately my new building. I'm eager to see how my nine framed Scotland photos turned out. According to an email, they arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, they are nowhere to be found. The departmental administrator suggests that I go to the mailroom and gives me very clear directions about how to get there, which I proceed to fumble mightily. After some random wandering, stairs leading nowhere, and a brief detour through the Esplanade of Confusion, I do manage to find it. The folks at the mailroom are super-helpful, but they can't find my packages. I send an email to customer service and hope for the best. At least I have time to unpack the thr...

John Houston,  Sunset over the Sea  (1971-72 I head up to Georgetown in six days. In that time I need to finish an external review for promotion, write two papers, organize an edited volume, and tinker with the syllabi for my two classes. Oh, and preach. Obviously, I won't get all of that done by Tuesday. Whatever the consequences of my overcommitment + occasional unproductive days + mountains of proofs to read may be, I will have to face them. (Academics know, of course, that there will be no consequences. That's one reason we're all so terrible about meeting deadlines.) Rather than feeling oppressed by my manifold and great deadlines, however, I'm mostly excited. Stoked. Chuffed. Looking back, I see I had a really good summer. Both Anselm volumes (the VSI and the translation volume) are fully completed and in press, with publication dates in late November. One promotion review is already done. I've chosen the readings (just not the assignments) for my classes. A f...