Lesser Feasts

  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

  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

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