Ruminations about hermeneutics, theology, theory, politics, ecclesiastical life… and exercise.
Ran my miles (-1°), fruit and coffee, shower and dressed, did some last-minute preparation for today’s service, went to church early to prepare for our big Bishop’s Visit Baptism, Confirmation, and Reception into the CoE liturgy-palooza. We joined a hearty baptismal lunch, then tottered home with our little remaining energy reserves.
No revenge this morning, just an even colder run than yesterday would have been if I’d run. I walked a short while in order to get my fingers into a position that afforded them a bit more protection, as they had gone from prickly to full-on painful. Ran the rest of the way home, then, and said Morning Prayer, prepared my hot breakfast, showered, dressed, walked through tomorrow’s Baptism/Confirmation/Reception in the Church of England service with our prospective baptisands, confirmands, and… receptand? Came home, reorganised some emails and answered others.
Today’s twelve years since Aaron Swartz died. That’s on MIT and Carmen Ortiz.
Four below zero, and the pavements look frosty and slippery. I hate to miss a morning run, but this just doesn’t look a safe condition for running. I’ll have a cup of coffee, finish the grapes in the fridge, shower, and make my cautious and hesitant way to St Helen’s for Morning Prayer.
Two miles this morning, but this was much less a ‘pace’ morning and more a ‘survival’ morning, as in ‘not slipping on frosted pavement and falling into the path of an oncoming vehicle’. I didn’t actually fall at any point, though I lost my balance once, but I went extremely slowly throughout the run and slowed to a walk when pedestrian traffic became especially heavy. (I saw more runners out this morning than I have in a very long time, despite the hour being early and the temperature -2°. I cannot account for this.)
Rather, two miles in zero degrees (-6° ‘real feel’, which is a label I would not use in this more safeguarding-alert world). It was a pretty satisfactory run, a necessary run since I missed the preceding two days. But cold, yes. Coffee and fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, then back home to work on the newsletter front page. Under the circumstances, I keep saying to myself, under my breath, ‘Tuesday isn’t a church work day.’
…so I didn’t run. Coffee, shower, Morning Prayer, office hour at Throwing Buns (explainer), and home to work there.
Last night, before I went to sleep, snow covered the roads and pavements, so I was planning not to run. This morning, rain was washing the snow away and rendering the pavements slippery, so I confirmed my plan to not run. All the more, since I was unexpectedly asked — while we had a friend over for the afternoon/evening — to take the 8:00 service at St Nic’s this morning. So instead of running, I sipped a cup of coffee, dashed off a quick homily, and tried in vain to persuade the dogs to venture outdoors to relieve themselves.
Service went well, came home to the dogs, and now I’ll take the afternoon easy.
This morning sees the convergence of two worthwhile, if imprecise, online voices.
On one hand the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic quotes Diogenes Laertius as saying,
Mem?nasi d’ ho?toi
‘But these critics are all crazy…’
My own critical instincts were piqued to know more about what Diogenes referred to; I read the Greek as ‘[and] these are raving’, pretty close to what Weinersmith says, but I was curious. He adds ‘critics’, plausibly, since the context concerns a catalogue of contemporaries who found fault with Epicurus. The exact spin one applies to the perfect active indicate, third plural of mainomai could vary, but ‘they are raving’ is more or less equivalent to ‘they are crazy’. Hicks gives ‘But these people are stark mad’ in the Loeb (it’s L185, and the specific reference is to Lives of Eminent Philosophers X.9). In the comic’s context — ‘In ancient lterature, I found the perfect opening quotation for any rebuttal’ — it sounds as though Diogenes is defending himself, rather than Epicurus. But it’s great to see another popular-culture engagement with classical literature (apart from The Discourse over Emily Wilson’s Odyssey).
On the same morning, Greg Ross of the Futility Closet (based in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, bravo!) cites John Alexander Smith, who began his lectures:
“Gentlemen — you are now about to embark upon a course of studies which will occupy you for two years. Together, they form a noble adventure. But I would like to remind you of an important point. Some of you, when you go down from the University, will go into the Church, or to the Bar, or to the House of Commons, to the Home Civil Service, to the Indian and Colonial Services, or into various professions. Some may go into the Army, some into industry and commerce; some may become country gentlemen. A few — I hope a very few — will become teachers or dons. Let me make this clear to you. Except for the last category, nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life — save only this — that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.”
Mornings such as this make one proud to be a humanist.
I was saddened to read Stephen Carlson’s notice on Twitter that Richard Hays had died.
Richard was a tremendous influence on my early emergence into New Testament studies. He was one of the two lecturers (with David Lull) in the Intro to the New Testament class I took in my first semester at Yale Divinity School. That spring I took a class on parables with David Lull, and then in the autumn of my second year I took Richard’s Romans seminar and his class on the Literary Criticism of the New Testament, where the readings activated my first degree in philosophy, and introduced me to Derrida, Stanley Fish, and a variety of the sort of unsavoury characters who had been excluded from my undergraduate literary studies. He became a friend and mentor: we coached Little League and Pony League baseball together, including on our team as first baseman, pitcher (?), and future Prof. Christopher B. Hays of Fuller Seminary, and we watched the last game of the 1986 World Series together (with Chris) at Richard’s home. (As I recall, Richard was supporting the Red Sox, while Chris — to be contrary — was cheering for the Mets. I’m still fond of Chris anyway.) Richard supervised my STM thesis, which grew into my first published article. He read the epistle lesson at my ordination to the priesthood at [Anglo-Catholic] Christ Church, New Haven. After the service (and after his having come to the altar rail to receive the new priest’s blessing), Richard thanked me for asking him to read and for inviting him; he then added, ‘It helped remind me why the Reformation was necessary…’
When the demise of Seabury Western left me without a post, Richard arranged that I come to Duke for a year to cover his teaching, and allowed me the use of his office. Margaret TA’ed for him during her doctoral studies at Duke.
As I developed my own work, our academic paths diverged; Richard was unconvinced by my arguments in behalf of ‘differential hermeneutics’.
He was always, however, a kind, generous, patient colleague and friend, whatever our differences.
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Another good run this morning, despite the cold (-2°). I ran my miles without any physical complaints, so my ankle event night before last seems to have been only a passing incident. I may not be running tomorrow morning, as it’s supposed to snow tonight (!) and to rain on Sunday — all sounds inhospitable weather for running.
I glanced into my archives yesterday where I noticed that when I began running in East Oxford, I used to need to break stride and walk for a few paces, gasping and staggering as I ran. I sometimes muse that I’m not bounding as I run, the way younger people do; but neither am I unable to run, which I nearly used to be. I can very easily (depending on my shoes, of course) run to catch a bus, and when I stop I’m not slammed with weakness and shortness of breath. So it’s no fun, and the experience is still inexplicably variable, but I do see the activity as beneficial. Now, if only I could burn away the couple of kilos I acquired when eating platter-sized meals in the US at the SBL meeting….
I seem to have tweaked my ankle in my sleep. (When I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the loo, I was wobbling significantly going up and down the stairs.) Hence — taken with the subzero temperatures — I didn’t run this morning. Coffee, Morning Prayer, breakfast and some office hours at R&R, we’ll do a shop at Waitrose, and then probably home for the afternoon.
This morning, at last, I ran a fully satisfying two miles at a good pace with no impediments. I remembered what it’s like, and why I keep running (even though there are few if any manifest benefits). The temperature was around 1°, but without yesterday’s strong winds and overpowering gusts, and without the dead-legs that slow me to a walk.
Still keeping to an easy pace: reading, note-taking. I should make a couple phone calls this afternoon to schedule pastoral visits, but apart from that, I’m catching up on the reading and reflecting that’s part of my working agreement, but never actually happens when real events claim priority.