Month: April 2023

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It already felt a little out-of-date when the book came out in 2013–14 — but I suppose that it’s a successful metacynical tactic, so right-wing nihilists will keep trotting it out to win elections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.