October Listening

My October in music at last.fm

1 The Lemonheads 16 scrobbles
2 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists 12
3 Juliana Hatfield 9
4 Michelle Shocked 6
5 Alabama Shakes 5
6 Belle and Sebastian 5
7 De La Soul 5
8 k. d. lang 5
9 R.E.M. 5
10 The Slits 4

As always, the Mountain Goats are excluded so as to make room for more others.

Return To Two

Good run this morning in chilly weather. Not limber, but adequate leg liveliness and breathing. Cup of coffee, some grapes, a shower, on my way to Morning Prayer then check phone messages and a breakfast date with Margaret at R&R. Much, much to do.

Fourth Day Fail

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.

Week, End

Friday afternoon’s memorial service for Dr Glenn Black of Oriel was sublime, both in the general sense of ‘celestially beautiful’ and in the more technical sense of ‘so surpassing comprehension as to inspire awe’. I knew Glenn only very, very casually. We met at Burns Night at Oriel, where Margaret and I were sat next to, or near to, them. He introduced himself and said, ‘I believe you know my daughter.’ I had only just met Imogen once, I think, at that point in my time at Oxford, so it took quite a tour of my mental rolodex to put together Glenn’s last name with the quiet, but pointedly witty priest I had met in Michaelmas. After that, our paths crossed only rarely and briefly, to my regret. My impression of him was of a learned and graceful pillar of college and University life, and subsequent narration proved that impression sound. I have had the favourable providence to count Imogen a friend, and when Glenn died last winter I was particularly touched on her behalf, as Margaret and I were doing our best to handle the deaths of her mother and my sister.

The service was conducted by my colleague the Revd Dr Rob Wainwright, Chaplain of Oriel, with support from the Oriel Choir, but the ritual burden was borne by addresses from a colleague of Glenn’s from University College, from one of Glenn’s students, and from my colleague at Oriel Dr Katie Murphy. Each bespoke the distinctive privilege of having known him respectively as classmate and colleague, as his student, and as his successor as Tutor of English at Oriel. Each revealed precious anecdotes, well-told, and incandescent with the honour and dignity, humility and grace of a man who was an Oxford tutor par excellence. I hope to retrieve the addresses at some point; they will remind me of the heights of my aspirations, and of the distance of my attainments from Glenn’s. In this, they remind me of the testimonies to my own father.

When I got home (an hour and a half, roughly, on the Friday afternoon roadworks-and-an-ring-road-accident X3 route) I was utterly wrung out, and was weary most of Saturday as well.

So I didn’t run yesterday; instead, I walked my two-mile route, with very occasional, very brief intervals of trying out a running pace to see… no, that just won’t do either.

This morning I did run, a decent pace, then coffee and fruit breakfast at home, then I attended the 10:30 service at St Helen’s, home to work on my address for the Healing and Wholeness service, then led the service, now home for dinner with Margaret.

God bless us, every one.

Friday, But Not Friday

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.

Good Run, Good Read

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.

Back To The Coal Face

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.

Third Day Again

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.

Rain, Go

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.

Foggy Run

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.

Not A Run, Really

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.

Down, And Up

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.