AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Two miles yesterday, fruit breakfast, academic work day of marking and meeting, ending with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Two miles this morning, hot breakfast, and the hope of a relaxing afternoon (till 16:00, when the Sodality will come together to pray the Evening Office for the Dead for Mother Ade).

People die all the time, obviously, and many people have died unexpectedly in the last two years. Still, Margaret and I were set back a pace or two by the news that our friend from Evanston days Mark McIntosh had died, in the same day that Sir David Amess was murdered, and my sister in…

The more learning our preachers and pastors have, the better. For if they have not much experience themselves, yet they know the Scriptures and the recorded experiences of the saints better than we do. The devil is exceedingly afraid of learning, especially where it is accompanied with humility and virtue. — Santa Teresa: An Appreciation,…

Well, this week has gone by fast. Running? Two miles, a day off, two miles, and this morning another two miles. Fruit breakfast, fruit, hot, and I’ll have fruit this morning. Lectures on Tuesday and Wednesday, some student meetings, marking (already!), and various other academic responsibilities.

Two miles, hot breakfast, Mass, more reading…

Two very casual miles, croissant breakfast, five student sermons, more timetable wrangling, and eventually, the end of Noughth. That’s not the same as a teaching week, but it’s still the first out of ten weeks of Michaelmas Term, so I’m 10% of the way there. I’ll take it. I slept nine hours last night, the…

Yes, I am a stickler for form. I do not deny it. But there is great reason to expect that those who publish quoted excerpts from [other] quoted works will cite their sources, and it scorches my toast when they just wave their hands and say (in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews)…

Yesterday, two miles, fruit breakfast, meetings with students, more meetings with stuydents, looking up alternatives and possibilities, emailing hither and yon, and so on. Cinema date with Margaret, one in which things exploded satisfactorily (for anyone old enough to remember, that’s the English translation for Big Jim McBob’s and Billy Sol Hurok’s ‘they blowed up…

Two miles, and on my run I saw two foxes, after having not seen any foxes for months. I saw them about a mile apart: the first, near the outlet of James Street onto the Iffley Road, and the second crossing Hurst Street near Henley. If seeing two distinct foxes is an omen, please let…

Two miles, fruit breakfast, Induction Week,Chapel Practice,

Two miles, Mass at St Barnabas (filling in for Fr Christopher), hot breakfast, first Mass of Michaelmas Term at St John the Evangelist, student Welcome Barbecue at St Stephen’s House, collapse in a heap.

Two miles, hot breakfast, video shoot for a promotional trailer, and tea for moving-in students.