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...

The clergy and staff at the Cathedral were asked to write short pieces for the parish newsletter about our hopes for the next year. I went all Romans 5:5 ("hope does not disappoint us") and noted that I was glad we weren't asked to write about our expectations, wishes, or resolutions. The kind of hope that does not disappoint us doesn't cover everything we'd express by saying "I hope . . ." There's something between hope and wish, or between hope and daydream, that doesn't come with a nice Scriptural warrant but is still worth musing on at this time of year. So here are some hopes for 2021, or wishes, or daydreams, or just generally things that would be nice and don't seem impossible. I hope I figure out some new way of offering teaching and formation. I'm toying with the idea of a podcast. I hope I find some new activity in 2021 that I enjoy as much as I enjoyed hillwalking in 2020. Kayaking? I hope I get elected to the General Board of ...

I suspect we all have things that are perfectly innocuous in themselves but we postpone as long as we can because they just irritate us for some reason. Getting my car serviced is one of those things. But when the low-tire-pressure light is on, even I feel a certain degree of urgency. So I made my appointment at the dealership and interrupted the pressing business of the day -- which was already urgent enough to displace the more-important-but-less-urgent work I should  have been doing -- to have my car looked after. I am about to sit down at a table in the waiting area when I hear someone call out, "Father!" (I do love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. And I wasn't even wearing my phylacteries.) One of my brother priests is also having his car serviced. He invites me over, and I sit down and we talk, first about nothing very much, but gradually more seriously. Parish ministry -- he is a rector -- can be difficult, and he has had a rough time of it lately, t...

   Robert Traill Rose, "Primordium Vitae," 1899  Salvation to all that will is nigh;   That All, which always is all everywhere,   Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,   Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,   Lo! faithful Virgin, yields himself to lie   In prison, in the womb; and though he there   Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He'll wear,   Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.   Ere by the spheres time was created thou   Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;   Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now   Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,   Thou hast light in dark, and shutt'st in little room   Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb   --John Donne, "Annunciation"

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...

My time in Edinburgh is drawing to a close, so I'm beginning to wrap things up. Yesterday I gave my research talk to the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities -- quite a different experience from the first two times, since it was all disembodied. I was very careful to make the talk accessible to a broad audience of humanities folks, which is not easy for a fairly technical subject that requires a good bit of background to motivate it. Judging by the comments and questions, I think I succeeded, though at the expense of annoying the one other philosopher in the group, who clearly wanted a technical talk on the metaphysics of substances, powers, and dispositions, instead of the general-audience talk on virtues and the good life that I had so carefully prepared. (This particular philosopher practices that version of philosophy-as-blood-sport that I associate in particular with, well, her department, of which I used to be a member.) After my talk I turned in the keys to my of...