Month: April 2023

Two miles, legs a bit stiff but not ‘dead legged’, 10° in a steady, very light rain, at a surprisingly decent pace (considering my morning run by itself represented roughly half of what I walked in St Andrews, despite having done a fair amount of meandering). A little less sleep than would have been optimal — got to bed just before midnight, awake at 5:30 as usual — but I expect I’ll adapt back to my usual pattern of life satisfactorily.

What a delightful Holy Week in St Andrews! Fr Alasdair and I were not that familiar with one another in person, but (so far as I could tell) we got on famously this week, despite some of the theological (and perhaps theoretical) differences that often set people at odds. Likewise the congregation at All Saints — an intensely impressive small-to-medium size congregation that turned out in such numbers that yesterday’s procession during the Litany of the Saints nearly gridlocked itself as the altar party tried to squeeze into the path of the last contingent of the congregation. We had significantly more communions than we’d planned for — a happy problem indeed. Plus, I ran into T.J. Lang on the street, reconnected with Madhavi and the abundantly cheerful, ruddy-cheeked Gabriel, and spent days and long evenings conversing with Lil, Edward, Karlee, and Stephen. Nobody seemed to object to my preaching or deaconing (haven’t deaconed an ad orientem, Solemn High Mass since… I’m not even sure when, and haven’t done so regularly since I was serving at Christ Church (and even then, it was an Anglican Missal Mass rather than a Scottish Prayerbook (1929) (I think) Mass, hadn’t chanted the Gospel in a year or so….

‘The problem with action, as Daoism teaches and as Ged tries to teach Arren, is that it always, always, has unexpected consequences, often profoundly unwelcome ones.’
   — Alan Jacobs, 7 April 2023

The modern ideology that vests paramount significance in doing something, in making a difference, depends for its persuasiveness on obscuring (if not obliviating, at least for the short term that it takes to get elected or pass a controversial bill) the extent to which even our most careful, nonpartisan estimates of the future go significantly awry. And when was the last time you encountered a reliably careful, nonpartisan engagement with important matters of public concern? (I mean, our forecasting always takes pains to consider all factors, weighted equally, without cutting corners or cooking the books to favour our preferred outcome; but their estimates obviously come from cronies, crooked think tanks, filtered through ideological hacks’ self-serving rhetoric.)

Last night arrived, with the Vigil Mass, at which I preached; the Resurrection was celebrated, I slept as doth a log. This morning — supposing that I’d done my work for the parish and could sit back and simply ornament the morning Mass with my glamour — I’ll be deaconing the Easter Sunday Mass (it has been donkey’s since I deaconed a Solemn High Mass, but all will be well).

Then home to Oxford via a different route, for it was revealed to me in a dream that my Paddington-Oxford train was cancelled. Home about midnight.

The days have gone by quickly here, and very pleasantly indeed, in the most hospitable care of Lil and Fr Alasdair. The congregation expressed encouraging appreciation of Thursday night’s sermon, and I venture to suppose that tonight’s — connected to the Maundy Thursday homily as one bookend to another — may go down as well. The weather has been chilly but reasonably sunny, and if the town is heaving with tourists, it’s because it’s a beautiful seaside town with a historic links course, beaches (depending on how hardy one feels), a sorrowfully beautiful ruins of the majestic cathedral, a world-class university, and for some, the lingering glamour of Will and Kate. (I think rather of former students of mine Mary and Seamus, but I don’t expect that everyone would know them.)

The congregation of All Saints impresses me no end, and the rectory’s other guests contribute to a general converse of wit, insight, catholic devotion, hope, and Super Mario Brothers and Chekhov (You will have to ask Lil to explain that). Evening is coming, the Vigil will begin in about three hours, and I hear rumours that great things await. Bless you, all, and I’ll be in touch again soon.

I’ve been absent for the past couple of days for two related reasons. First, I haven’t run for these days (three including this morning); and second, I’m away in St Andrews to preach for Holy Week. That keeps me busy even when I’m not preaching, so I haven’t blogged.

See you around…

I am thankfully distant from US politics, having lived here for almost fourteen years, so although I had heard about the policy fiascos emanationg from the Trumpocratic party I wasn’t aware of any particulars. So I was startled to observe that the Texas Legislature was considering a bill to require all classrooms to post the Ten Commandments (in the King James Version).
I gave a talk at the 2005 gathering of the Ekklesia Project a talk about politicians’ oxymoronic obsession for making fetish objects of the Ten Commandments; that’s the talk in which I coined the word ‘Sacramerica’ to describe the USA’s proclivity to autapotheosis, and in that talk I proposed some counterhacks to help us resist the ideology of American divinity. A few years later I edited and extended that talk into a chapter in Sam’s and my book about the Glasgow School of biblical interpretation; in the loonger recension, I discussed the case of Roy “Mall Creep” Moore who made a career out of trying to install Christian iconography in civic settings, in patent defiance of Constitutional mandates against establishing a state religion.
It already felt a little out-of-date when the book came out in 2013–14 — but I suppose that it’s a successful metacynical tactic, so right-wing nihilists will keep trotting it out to win elections (and fungible campaign contributions). I’d say ‘Plus ça change,’ but we all know that Americans will believe anything about French people….

As if to add insult to frostbite, my two miles this morning (actually at a decent pace, yay me) were run under lovely clear skies, dawn hinting on the horizon, dry as a bone, because the temperature was -1°.

I ask you.

Working on homilies for Maundy Thursday and Easter, packing my bags, girding myself for being away from home (albeit with lovely friends in a lovely town), reminding myself that there are a couple of teaching posts open that will not be resolved for a long-ish while, and there may be several attractive chaplaincies as well. Breathing deeply, cultivating detachment from material concerns, giving thanks for all that is good and beautiful and joyous in the world.

I walk past our local concert venues moderately often, and their billings are always filled with this or that tribute band. Now, I don’t begrudge musicians their night’s takings, and the public seems to demand tribute acts more than original bands or mixed covers-and-originals acts, so I suppose that if your ambition is to impersonate David Bowie for Devonshire devotees, then have at it.

So I wondered what sort of tribute act I might be able to perform with. Can’t really play any useful instrument; my voice, though loud, isn’t a tuneful rock voice; and I probably would have difficulty with all the technical details that professional musicians master.

I know: anyone up for a Fugs tribute band?

A very good pace this morning, clear skies, dry and calm, in 0° air. Yes, zero degrees, in April. The Home Office — as reported by the BBC — warned that I might see mist; indeed, it warned of MIST . Apparently the BBC thinks that this particular meteorological phenomenon warrants bold all caps, whereas mere gusty winds or thunder snow can make do with initial caps. And it’s all in sans serif, which constitutes another daily reminder that the world is declining into typographical tedium. ‘But it’s more readable on mobiles!’ I say it’s graceless, and I say the hell with it.

I know these running posts are boring. Runnning is boring (to me). But they keep me coming to the blog to write something every day, and if I keep at that, I may limber up my blogging muscles enough to resume writing more interesting things online. That’s the theory, anyway. At the very least, someday I may need medical treatment, or may set some weird world record, or… my imagination fails me… and the record of how many miles I ran on which days could be informative.

Two miles, 6°, dry, at a good pace. Palm Sunday early Mass at Cowley St John. Working on another job application, which feels as though it too is destined to bear no fruit (though it is requiring me to revisit reviews of my books, which are all either agreeably laudatory or predictably disapproving) (‘predictably,’ I mean, in the sense that they disapprove on grounds one could foresee with even a little apprehension of my arguments, so I don’t find these disappointing).

But everything lies in the shadows of fifteen years from my father’s death.

8°, just on the threshold of rain (but not quite), two miles, good pace. It’s been a few days, now, feeling a bit downhearted about job prospects.