Lesser Feasts

  "Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Hebrews 3:15 (AV) Today, Lord:     today I want to hear your voice. Teach me how to hear it,     how to listen for it. Not the demanding voice of deadlines     or the seductive voice of pleasures; Not the clamoring voice of self-assertion     or the intriguing voice of what-ifs and why-nots. No, but your voice,     still,     small,     winsome,     light made music,     radiance captured in words          that are not quite words. Today, Lord:     today I want to hear your voice. Sharpen my ears to hear it;     soften my heart to receive it. If it is a voice of judgment,     soften my heart to accept your rebuke. If it is a voice of encouragement,     soften my heart to embrace your loving-kindness. If it is a voice of forgiveness,     soften my heart to fe...

  How exactly YouTube works is, of course, a great mystery. Some video clips show up because they're closely related to other things I've watched. I went through a few days when various renditions of "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego" kept popping up, clearly because I had watched this: (None of the subsequent versions could displace this one as my favorite.) But it's suspicious that videos about Scottish Gaelic started showing up, given that all of my admittedly strange efforts to learn Gaelic had been taking place on another site entirely. But I did have a certain feeling of achievement when I saw the title of the video at the top and knew exactly what it meant ! Indeed, I do  want to speak in Gaelic. I want to learn the language. I want to be in a place where they speak it. Summer, maybe? It will be a while before they let Americans in without a ten-day quarantine. In the meantime, I have plenty to keep me busy. It's Lent, so there's a Lenten study to d...

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"