Month: October 2024

So I let the blog slide for four days. At least I didn’t write about running!

So, Healing and Wholeness went well.

Monday morning I had a mediocre run, heavy legs and a slow pace. Tuesday was only a little better.

Yesterday morning when I sat at my desk and started putting my trainers on, I realised that I had the midweek Mass at St Helen’s, so I needed a homily on top of making the handout I had mostly ready for the (yesterday’s) Introduction to Reading the Epistle of James session. Midweek Mass went fine, then Staff Meeting, then a pastoral conversation, then ran to the bus stop (but just missed the bus), caught the next bus to Didcot Parkway, train to London, strolled from Paddington to the church (passing Ian Hislop on the way), arrived in plenty of time for Exposition and Mass before dinner and my talk — all of which went marvellously. Fr Alan and I nipped out for a pint after the talk; that was lovely as well.

Today I had a bit of a lie-in (for me), left the vicarage at about 8:00, navigated to Tottenham Court Road and Paddington, hopped aboard the local to Didcot Parkway, and settled in at home. That’s two days, now, without running — we’ll see how my legs feel tomorrow morning.

My work week will spill over to tomorrow, so no real ‘day off’, but that’s the lot of the part-timer. Ran my miles this morning in 13°, so perhaps this is the last no-hoodie exercise day. Coffee, fruit, shower, email, Morning Prayer, coffee, crumpets, marksheets, then I’ll go to Oxford for Dr. Glenn Black’s memorial service at the University Church. Maybe I’ll call it a day when I get back, or maybe I’ll see more bits and bobs to do. Tomorrow I haev sermon prep for the evening Healing & Wholeness service.

Maybe I’ll try to finish Wrede for fun.

My morning miles went very well today, much to my surprise. I felt limber and as strong as I needed to be — so tomorrow I’ll probably stumble along for a two-mile stagger. Then coffee, finishing up reading tutorial essays, fruit, Morning Prayer, the X3 to Oxford (slow as molasses inbound on the Abingdon Road), two good tutes, lunch at Oriel, and now home again.

In the course of my day, I noticed (via my RSS feed! RSS for the win!) Lucy Bellwood’s repost of Mandy Brown’s approving comments on excerpts from Deb Chacra’s How Infrastructure Works, viz.:

“But you can’t optimize systems in a context that’s changing, especially if it’s changing in unpredictable ways. Removing inefficiencies when circumstances are as anticipated means that there isn’t much slack in the system to respond when the unanticipated happens. Optimization is intrinsically brittle, because it’s about closely matching the output to the conditions, which means it’s vulnerable if those conditions change. What we’ll need from our infrastructural systems, more and more, is for them to be resilient, able to absorb uncertainty and changing circumstances either without failing or by failing gracefully and reversibly, rather than unexpectedly or catastrophically.”(Deb Chachra, How Infrastructure Works, p. 249)

“Making systems resilient is fundamentally at odds with optimization, because optimizing a system means taking out any slack. A truly optimized, and thus efficient, system is only possible with near-perfect knowledge about the system, together with the ability to observe and implement a response.
For a system to be reliable, on the other hand, there have to be some unused resources to draw on when the unexpected happens, which, well, happens predictably.” (Deb Chachra, How Infrastructure Works, p. 209)

Another way to look at this is that you cannot optimize for resilience. Resilience requires a kind of elasticity, an ability to stretch and reach but then to return, to spring back into a former shape—or perhaps to shapeshift into something new if the circumstances require it. Resilience is stretchy where optimization is brittle; resilience invites change where optimization demands continuity. (Mandy Brown)

I’ve been reminding Fr Paul for weeks now that there’s no slack in the system, and this is just what I had in mind. Even without the change/continuity angle (with which I have some quibbles), the bare fact is that ‘optimising’ itself entails eliminating the resource — the slack — that can equip people to deal with unanticipated stresses.Take away that slack, and you’re as much as saying ‘Let the stresses take their course’, harming both the goals of work and the workers who have to fight through to remain as close to the goals as possible.

Two miles this morning at a good pace, coffee, shower, Morning Prayer, then another cup of coffee with Margaret at R&R, then a tutorial Confirmation Class, then weekly Staff Meeting. I should be marking tutorial essays this afternoon, then an afternoon spent on marking.

Slipped to the third day again, but my running on Sunday and yesterday was good, on the whole. Sunday we had a healing service in commemoration of St Luke, which went very well. Yesterday the Remnant Clergy team prepared our rota for November, December, and January, I went for to my barber for a trim, and we had the Big Process Meeting with the Archdeacon. This morning I had a good run, coffee and fruit, shower, and will shortly head to church for Morning Prayer; later today I’ll go to the parish centre for Confirmation Class. Margaret’s away for the day, giving one of her periodic classes for a St Mellitus branch campus. Keeping busy, here.

No run this morning, though (since the rain has stopped) it’s not out of the question that I run later today. Coffee and hot breakfast, scrambling to produce a corrected service bulletin for tomorrow’s Mass, and gradual emergence into wakefulness in general.

Yesterday wasn’t a proper run, but this morning was a run, and a good one at that. Sadly, the weather is very foggy, but because I switched from the BBC’s weather app to the Apple app, I didn’t get the satisfying (if somewhat mystifying, no pun intended) MIST or FOG weather description. Good pace, legs felt all right, the only drawback was the fog that occluded the pavement beneath my feet, settled on my glasses, and gave the effect of inhaling a cup of water with each gasp.

Now, a nice cup of coffee, and fruit. Shortly, my shower, Morning Prayer, parish work for the morning, and in the afternoon the first New Testament seminar of the term, to be given by Oxford’s own David Downs.

My legs weren’t stiff or heavy this morning, but sleepy — as I felt in myself, to be honest — and running just didn’t properly work this morning. I put in my two miles, but I wouldn’t dignify them (even within the low standard of my exercise dignity) with the description ‘running’. Home, coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, and home again to get some clerical work sorted. Confirmation Class in the afternoon.

The temperature was hovering around 1° last week, so of course this morning’s run took place in warm, humid 15° weather. My legs took a while to wake up, but before halfway they were loose and comfortable, so that I finished at a good pace. It was probably the last time this year I could run without my hoodie.

Coffee, hot breakfast, shower, Morning Prayer, coffee and R&R, baptism preparation meeting, staff meeting followed by lunch together, service bulletin editing, and now I’m working at sundry kinds of writing. Not exciting, but doing my job.

Practically every day, somebody asks me, ‘AKMA, you know David Weinberger; he’s obviously an internet pundit, but what kind of guy is he really?’ (Well, not every day. In fact, I’m not sure anybody has ever asked me. But I wanted to talk about him, and this seemed like an easy way into the topic.) I do not plague such a person with my increasing neuralgia about the function of ‘reality’ and its constituent terms (‘real’, ‘really’, etc.) in contemporary discourse (more on that, inevitably, later). No, I speak forth and tell them, ‘David Weinberger is the living illustration of a mensch.’

Take today, for example. For a long time, many of us internet insiders knew that David had come up with the apposite witticism, ‘In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people’, a play on Andy Warhol’s ‘… for fifteen minutes’. It was a saying that fit both David’s interest in relationality and his understanding of how the Web of the late nineties and early aughts operated, what was exciting and distinctive about it. Then after about ten years, he found out that somebody else (Momus) had said it first. Rather than getting pissy and defensive, David went on a one-man campaign to publicise Momus’s prior art, and to deflect attention from his own subsequent independent generation of the aphorism.

Recently, he noticed that his own disclaimer on his blog had somehow been swallowed up by one or another supermassive gravitational disturbance, and could no longer be found online. So he hopped into action, and today [re-]published a public explainer and pointer to Momus.

Now, none of that was necessary. Anyone who knows David would have known he didn’t copy the idea from Momus. Indeed, I’m not in the least surprised that he hadn’t ever heard of Momus before someone pointed out the Scottish musician-blogger-zine-contributor’s use of the ‘fiteen people’ concept. But David has made the extra effort not just the first time he learned of Momus, but a second time, when he noticed that the first post was no longer findable.

That’s David. I’ll bet he’d even buy Momus a round if they were in the same pace at the same time (and assuming Momus wanted a drink; consent matters).

So the next time, maybe the first time, someone asks me what kind of guy David is, I’ll tell them the Momus’s Music Zine Massacree, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each photo to be used as evidence on his behalf. David’s a mensch, and I’m proud to know him.

Woke up near 6:00 (which is late, for me; I was awake late with the Rector, who came over for dinner), trainers on, ran my two miles at an adequate pace, coffee and fruit, shower, and Morning Prayer. I have a meeting this morning to plan for next year’s Women’s Day of Prayer, and the rest of the day to crack a letter I need to write to the Faculties Office at Canterbury. Whee!

In a new personal best ill-judged decision, I went ahead and ran this morning despite the drizzle that was falling when I first checked the conditions. By the time I had put on my trainers, hoodie, and (I thought, cleverly) a windbreaker shell, the drizzle had gotten heavier. By the time I was out on Caldecott Road, I wondered whether it might not make sense just to turn around and go home. It would have made sense. I didn’t.

So, I did run my short route, as though one and a half saturated miles were significantly more sensible than two saturated miles. My glasses were rapidly coated with water, the temperature was such that they were partly steamed over much of the time, I kept stepping into puddles. Bad, bad, bad decision.

But there we are. A mile and a half, cup of coffee, fruit, and in a few minutes I’ll shower and dress for Morning Prayer, after which I expect to take coffee with Margaret at R&R, and get some real, grown-up work done. Out of the rain.

Woke up early, ran two miles in the 1° (‘Feels Like’) air, legs were all right and felt positively loose by the last 100 metres or so, but nothing to boast about. Coffee, fruit, shower, finalised the homily, to church for the 8:00 Mass, did odds and ends around the church till the 10:30 Mass, then coffee hour and a Newcomers’ Lunch in the Parish Centre. By the end of lunch, my social energy was redlining and a warning light on my dashboard was flashing.

So home I walked, and have been semi-napping, faffing about online, reading, and generally trying to recharge my betteries.

Having located my hoodie, and having woken about a half hour before rain was expected to resume, I had no excuse for not getting up and running. I was stiff and creaky, and I set a diffident pace, but I did run my two miles. My leg muscles and related tissues protested mildly at the end of the run, but all has turned out well. Now, coffee, Morning Prayer, shower, and a hot breakfast in my future (homily preparation as well).

So, AKMA, how did your retreat go? The retreat was lovely — Aylesford Priory is a splendid place for spiritual meetings, retreats, or what you will, though rooms in the Old House can be inaccessible indeed (I expect the rooms in the conference area are accessible). Mysteries of the Rosary were explored, Masses were celebrated, Offices were said, rosaries were prayed, and a fine opening dinner at a Turkish restaurant and a closing night out at the Little Gem (somewhat to the astonishment of the regulars, especially at the clergy women in our group) all contributed to a refreshing encouraging, and mostly holy retreat.

I returned directly to Oriel, where I arrived in time for the pre-pre-pre-dinner drinks (pre- with the theologians at Brendan’s study, pre- with the philosophers at Oliver’s study, we missed out a round of pre-, I think, in Third Quad, then to Fresher’s Dinner with all the rest. Alex, Mimi, Anna, Ottavia, Jesse, and Ashley all seem to be as promising and agreeable a cadre of Orielenses as we expect.

I didn’t run while I was away, and I didn’t run this morning, as Margaret had washed my hoodie while I was away, and I didn’t know where to find it, and I was not going to run in 1° weather in just my t-shirt. Margaret and I breakfasted at R&R, and I caught up on email and worked on oddments (including Sunday’s homily) the rest of the day.

And so to begin streaming Slow Horses (the most recent series, we’ve already watched the earlier ones).

I sat at my desk yesterday morning, fully intending to write a post just after I said Morning Prayer — but something distracted me, and off we go again.

Yesterday’s run was once again a ‘dead-leg’ effort, making my way past and through the set-up for Abingdon Fair. It was a surprisingly good pace for the feeling of it, but it did still feel as though I were lifting logs for legs. We attended the Mass at 10:30, then heard Fr Patrick Goujon talk about the relation of the Ignatian Exercises to Scripture. If someone had told me that I’d listen to a forty-five minute talk on the Spiritual Exercises that communicated clearly, taught me a nuance or two, and didn’t fly over the heads of the assembly, I’d have scoffed — but Fr Goujon succeeded famously. An excellent job, winningly presented.

This morning’s run was much more comfortable, though the Fair blocked various bits of the run, and my pace was not what it should have been considering how I felt. Coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, then off to Aylesford Priory for my annual retreat, till Thursday.

Not referring to our back garden, though that might be an even more apt referent for the title — just, my miles this morning felt dully slow, tired, ineffectual. I did run, however, so full marks for that. It’s expected to be rainy tomorrow, and I’m going on retreat from Monday till Thursday evening. Coffee, shower, coffee and breakfast and a phone conversation with Fr Paul. This afternoon I expect to spend time editing the essay, perhaps walking to a grocer with Margaret; no sermon to prepare for tomorrow morning.

I’m glad to know so many octogenarians, but… My father died at 72.* Jean-François Lyotard died at 74, as did Derrida. Wittgenstein was only 62, for heaven’s sake. We won’t count all my rock’n’roll heroes who died young.

Anyway, I really want to see that hermeneutics book written and published while I’m still around to enjoy the satisfaction of sending it out to the world. And then, maybe I can write something interesting for a change!

* My father had been a cigarette smoker most of his life. My mum, beset by MS and a smoker, lived to 82; my paternal grandfather (a man of significant gravity, and a smoker) to 88; my maternal grandmother, to 83; my aunts Isabelle and Grace, 82 and 95 (well done, Aunt Grace!); my Uncle Rich is going strong in his eighties, and Aunt Harriet is… well, I’m too discreet to say, but she gives me encouragement. So my family does provide reason for guarded optimism.

This morning brought the coldest morning since springtime, as my miles ran through 2° clear, lovely air. I thought my pace was pretty lively, but when I checked the time on returning I was mildly disappointed by how long I’d taken. Ah well, never mind. Running, coffee, shower, Morning Prayer, more coffee and a pain au raisin at R&R. I have some parish writing to do, but I’ll also set about cleaning up the essay I submitted Monday and revisit my old friend Wrede. And it will be a joy. Reading and thinking — oh my goodness, what a rich satisfaction.