Something New

About a month ago, my blog started throwing Google alerts at everyone who visited — which meant that everyone who visited sent me earnest warnings that my site was the source of all manner of dire and vile infectious malware, and did I know? I did, and I have prevailed on philosophical theologian and web adept Christopher Roussel to conduct a far-reaching dissection, disinfection, revivification, and perhaps even an on-going vivisection of Random Thoughts and some of the other web content (we may transform Limature and the Disseminary and maybe even Theological Outlines from Movable Type — for which we’ll always be thankful to Ben and Mena — to WordPress, for which we’ll always be thankful to Matt. There are good people at the heart of the Web!).

Between then and now, I’ve bid goodbye to three colleagues (the Kent Three — Rich King, Yvonne Sherwood, and Ward Blanton), finished marking for last term and thrown myself into preparing two new courses (shared) for this coming semester, visited exotic Helensburgh with Margaret, finished a revised version of ‘The Strong Right Arm That Holds For Peace’ for a collection of essays to be published later this year, cooked up a gamification scheme for the Texts & Cultures of the Bible course on which I’m working with my sole remaining biblical staff colleague, preached once or twice, and hammered away at a couple of other projects.

The most important thing that happened in the interim, from my family’s perspective, has been my Mom’s moving to a new apartment on the mainland of Massachusetts. I’m calling this out here because — at this great distance from Nantucket — I was of absolutely no use in this process. My sister Holly and my cousins and my aunts (literally; I’m not just making a Pirates of Penzance reference, though I’m happy so to do) did all the background work, all the checking-out and negotiating, all the moving, and handled all the stress that attends such efforts. The commonplace word for such labour is ‘thankless’, but I refuse to allow her to go unthanked. Hol, you made it go, and I was just peering over from across the sea saying ‘Uh-huh’ or ‘Oh, I suppose so’ to Margaret, who operates the communication machines at this end. There aren’t thanks enough for that very extraordinary push — and though my acknowledgement be inadequate, it will at least be on the public record that I admire and appreciate all you’ve done.

And hey, Mom, we’ll come visit as soon as we can — as soon as the Border Agency gives us back our passports.

1 thought on “Something New

  1. I do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. I’d do nothing less for her……….but hope you two will see her here soon!

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