Month: March 2020

By all means think positive, hopeful thoughts, and certainly do whatever you can to minimise the effects of this plague; console, comfort, and treat anyone who’s been infected or is at risk. But it’s not too early to take a deep breath and begin to imagine a world in which some, perhaps many, people you know are going to die: people who are evidently at risk, people whom one can suppose ‘Yes, I can see how he might be one of the casualties’, people whom you’d never guess would be stricken down by something akin to an overpowered influenza.

We have abundant reason to think that all the systems that sustain our daily routine will be affected.

We have abundant reason to think that our loved ones, our neighbours, will be as susceptible as are people in faraway lands.

Two and a half weeks ago, we reminded people ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ That’s true even under sunny skies in robust health — but for the next few months, we will probably have to live it out, day by day. It’s time to start bracing ourselves, and one another.

7°, slightly shorter course, no particular feelings of tightness or limberness, particular shortness of breath, or anything else — just another mile, 10:10.

I remain mystified at the range of difference in my experiences of running when I run the same mile every day. Why isn’t the experience more consistent? Of course, I’d love it if I were faster and could breathe more easily, if my knees didn’t wobble and my muscles stay tight, but honestly, it would be a more intelligible matter if at least if felt largely similar day-on-day. 5°, light breeze, 10:15.

It’s a bit odd, waiting for the seemingly inevitable announcement that Oxford is closing, that we all are to self-isolate, that there will be no library access for the foreseeable future (yup, that’s the one I can’t process), that church life will be curtailed if not (as in Italy) shut down altogether… But I ran my mile this morning, knees resistant, air a chilly 4°, and it felt as though I had a lot of trouble oxygenating. For the last quarter mile or so, no matter how deeply I inhaled, it felt as though my llungs were still not processing the breath I’d just taken. 10:24, anyway.

8°, less breeze, 10:13.

10°, gusty breezes, still only 10:33.

I love the picture of Thomas Aquinas that emerges in the recent post from the New Liturgical Movement website (I know, RC traditionalists, yet important for me to keep an eye out for developments that affect my current post). It’s commonplace for readers of Thomas to infer from his dispassionate reasonings that he was himself a stolid, unimaginative creature, a sort of theological-genius-Bert from Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie. The only departure from this image of Aquinas that I recall from my first instruction in the Summa was the note that after his revelatory experience near the end of his life (6 December, 1273) after which he ceased writing and compared his prior exertions to straw.

The excerpts and exposition at NLM, however, foreground Thomas’s affective side. They underscore Thomas’s mystical side all through his religious life (he was often lost in contemplation at the Mass, sometimes when celebrating (!): ‘he sometimes became so absorbed that he just stopped and had to be roused by the brethren to continue with the celebration’ (NLM, citing Simon Tugwell, Albert and Thomas: Selected Writings (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1988), 264).

Though I have accorded his wisdom and analysis the greatest respect, I have not always admired St Thomas (sometimes particularly when I was cracking my thick skull against the Summa); but after years of use of his Catena, and under the influence of my beloved, and in frequent service at the altar, I’ve come to appreciate more than the conventional image of Thomas as arid rationalist. The fuller character of the Angelic Doctor touches me deeply, and I’m thankful for having grown better acquainted with the whole man.

I felt better this morning — it was 5°, clear, and my limbs were loose and mostly strong (I had some early twinges in my knees, but they faded quickly), and the same 9:59 as yesterday (short course again).

Stiff, cold, gusty breezes which made the 6° feel a lot colder, but a surprising 9:59 on the short course.

3°, but muscles still tight. 10:21.

Both yesterday and this morning, temperature around 0°, muscles stiff and tight, and times of 10:40 and 10:31.

I felt as though I was tight, not really opening up or stretching at all, and the air was crisp-cold and my breathing was laboured, but the timer says 10:05 (though is is approximate due to some wrong-button-mashing).

After making much of my week’s daily runs, I missed the last three days due to (a) a short holiday in Wells and (b) pure rubbish weather plus a late-ish sleep yesterday morning. This morning, on four hours sleep due to a late night at Oriel, cold and dry weather, I ran 10:24.