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 ...

  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...

  Sir David Young Cameron, Lorne I love D. Y. Cameron. His landscapes show a wide range of color palettes, but the work is always recognizably his, and I'm strangely drawn to the darker, more muted paintings. I know this landscape. I've hiked in this landscape. I've fallen into bogs in this landscape. What a joy to have this week of giving thanks and slowing down. I've been reading an actual novel -- for pleasure! -- Patrick Gale's A Perfectly Good Man . I've recorded eight more episodes of the Noonday Prayer podcast . I have offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass (and/or commemorated the Lord's Supper, according to your preference). And yeah, I've acquired a Scottish landscape painting I quite love. Almighty God, Father of all mercies  . . .

The initial capital from On the Procession of the Holy Spirit , which goes unmentioned in the book (Bodl. 271 f 109r). 'N' of course stands for New York. Getting away to a place where I had nothing to do but write during the day and catch up with friends in the evening has proved to be more productive even than I had hoped. Last week I wrote the chapter on the fall of the angels. On Monday, thanks to the realization that I basically had already written the Atonement chapter, I finished that chapter as well. (Copy-and-paste plus maybe three hours of editing was all it took.) That means yesterday I started chapter 7, "Life in the meantime." This one may take a while longer because I don't have a clear plan for it, just a jumble of themes: living on the knife-edge between heaven and hell, the central concepts of obedience and order, grace, what goes on in the prayers and meditations, why Anselm thinks you definitely shouldn't marry your late husband's brother...

  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...

By the time I remembered I was supposed to sign up for worship at Old St Paul's, I was too late, so this morning I went to the Cathedral. It's my last Sunday in Edinburgh (for now). Tomorrow I take the train down to London; on Tuesday I fly home. So today is about getting ready to leave, taking care of unfinished business, and taking stock. The first bit of unfinished business was a print in the window of one of the galleries in Stockbridge that I had decided to buy. So after the service I walked down to Stockbridge. Ah, the Stockbridge Market is open. There's nothing in the fridge; maybe I'll find something I want for lunch. And behold! a booth selling Scotch eggs. I had just  been thinking that I hadn't had a single Scotch egg the whole time I've been here. That's lunch sorted. And then there was a bakery stall, where I found a piece of cake that surely could not be as delicious as it looked, but the experiment seemed worth conducting. Then on to the galle...

If you want to be persnickety about it, I've never actually made it all the way to the very tippy-top of Arthur's Seat. There's a point very near the top where the path becomes quite narrow and exposed, and I get that out-on-a-ledge feeling, and my fear of heights tells me not to go any farther. But if I make it that far, I count it as attaining the summit: I've managed physically to reach the highest point that's possible for me psychologically. The last time I attained the summit was in the spring of 2016, before the Late Unpleasantness occurred. It was pretty taxing for me: more so, no doubt, because I was carrying an extra twenty or thirty pounds. Even a few months of walking around hilly Edinburgh doesn't quite prepare me to spring up Arthur's Seat without pausing for breath, I find. When I was back for the Festival in August of last year, I gave it a shot again. I didn't get terribly far up before I had to call it quits. I was still too weak from m...

Saturday, 3 October 2020 I'm barely even sore from yesterday. Weird. All the more reason to go ahead with my even more ambitious plans for today. After an even more severely edited Scottish breakfast -- I got the quantities right this time -- I get ready for my walk. It's cold and rainy, and the forecast is for rain all day, but fortunately I have waterproof everything. I even remembered to pack my contact lenses, which I pretty much never wear, to avoid the annoyance of rain on my glasses. So I am very much ready to go. Except I forgot the cardinal rule: "Be bold, start cold." I have put on everything, and as I venture out into the rain and the cold I think I need it all. But a couple of miles in, I am miserably sweaty, and consequently cold. I take off a layer and then think, no, I don't think it's a great idea to risk another nine miles when I've already botched my thermal regulation so badly; that feels like a good way to get sick. So I head back, some...

Friday, 2 October 2020 I edit down the full Scottish breakfast to what I think will be a manageable amount of food. It's still too much, but what I can eat of it is delicious, and I will certainly be well-fortified for my morning walk. I've decided to limber up with something easy, so I head over to the Gynack Mill Trail , which is basically flat. This will help me break in my walking boots and test the Viewranger app on my phone. The boots, which I have miraculously remembered how to lace properly, turn out to be a perfect fit. The app takes a bit of getting used to, but it's easier than trying to navigate with map and compass whenever the waymarking is inadequate and the path ambiguous. Which is often. So I don't exactly manage to follow the trail, but I do have a lovely hour's walk. The sun is out. It's warm for October in the Highlands. The sound of rushing water is the only thing I hear. I'm definitely ready for a serious walk after lunch. *************...