Lesser Feasts

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 ...

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...

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...

  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...

 The first day of school requires a new outfit. Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 30 August. It takes me a little while to realize that something quite strange is happening. I look out and see books open. Texts are highlighted, underlined, marked up with Post-It notes. The students aren't just smart. They're prepared. I'm going to have to up my game. The only downside is that Georgetown is still requiring masks during class (except for instructors, as long as we stay six feet away from our students). Learning names is going to be difficult. After the first three class meetings I will know the names of the handful of students with distinctive hair, and that's about it. I absolutely hate  not knowing names. Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 31 August. This outfit  has started a new project that I don't quite understand -- something about videos to accompany a sort of great books curriculum for college students -- and they interview me for two different videos. There's a morning...

  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...

FCB Caddell, Head of a Young Man  (1934) My employment at the University of South Florida ended last week. I had a good run. They hired me with tenure, promoted me to full professor, paid me reasonably well, let me use up tons of sick leave when I was desperately ill, allowed me to go half-time for a couple of years just because I felt like it, and basically left me alone to do what I wanted to do. I'm not leaving angry. Far from it. But I am  leaving. Starting August 1 I will be the Isabelle A. and Henry D. Martin Professor of Medieval Philosophy at Georgetown University. I am thrilled beyond words about this. I get to be in a department and at a university where my focus on the Christian intellectual tradition isn't a generously tolerated eccentricity, but essential to the institution's self-conception. I get to teach, by all accounts, really first-rate undergraduates. Yesterday I started cleaning out my office. I'm not going to go all Kon-Mari on it, but any book tha...