Author: AKMA

Good morning run, better time than average for the second day in a row (dragging my rolling average to a faster time), fruit and coffee, shower and dress, coffee and toast, once-over for the sermon, and off to church for the 10:30 service.

Beginning this afternoon, I have no extra ecclesiastical responsibilities till Friday, when I deacon for Friday Paul at the Mass for the Assumption at St Michael’s. This past week, four sermons in eight days with a funeral and wedding; this coming week, smoother sailing.

My run went all right, anyway. I have a wedding this afternoon, and before then I will burnish the homily for the wedding, and (and I hope not also ‘after the wedding’) prepare tomorrow’s sermon. I think that will be enough.

Having been offline for most of the summer, I wasn’t able to post here my acknowledgements of Jim Parkinson, one of the great men of letters of our time, and Bishop Peter Elliott, a great Catholic liturgical teacher.

And today is St Dominic’s Day, and as well as honouring the spiritual figure whom I so admire for catalysing a unity of scholarship and proclamation I try to uphold, the day reminds me of the last Van Morrison album that really comprehensively sank into my spirit (Moondance, His Band and the Street Choir, and St Dominic’s Preview; Tupelo Honey just didn’t register with me…).

Very good run this morning, well faster than average without pushing. Fruit and coffee, clean up, Morning Prayer, check messages at the parish centre, work on homilies, wedding rehearsal… I think that’s my Friday.

This is, what, five six big days in a row online? The battle-hardened heroes at Exact have identified an Albanian IP address that seems to want to shut me down. You may ask yourself, Why bother? What on earth would motivate anyone to block a site that gets about twenty-five hits a day (maybe more, I haven’t been checking) (Ouch, I just checked, and it’s closer to just twenty hits a day.)? Such is the nature of human perversity.

Yesterday’s funeral went smoothly. The contingent of bikers probably raised some eyebrows on Park Road, but friends show up to honour their friends, and I think we can safely predict that our deceased brother will not make a habit of drawing his colleagues to more funerals.

Now, to settle a wedding sermon for Saturday and a regular Sunday sermon for the Transfiguration (transferred) at St Helen’s. I’m hav ing a greeat time working on my academic essays; retirement beckons, when I can spend as much time reading and writing as I want, on my own timetable. More than a year away, but glimmering on the horizon!

I did time myself this morning, for another very average run. My legs were stiff, but not unwilling. I’m cooling down with fruit and coffee, then will clean up and go to Morning Prayer. Time will tell whether we go to R&R this morning; the suspense is unbearable.

I didn’t run this morning — dead legs, so I walked most of the way with occasional short tests of my limbs’ willingness (all tests negative). Hot breakfast and coffee, shower and dress, Morning Prayer, finalise and print sermon, funeral at St Michael’s, then home to read and write more. The journey of one essay, one presentation, and a seemingly endless stream of sermons begins with a single word. Two, ideally; or even more.

I did read a good bit and write a few words for my next essay, spent some time thinking about my upcoming paper at BNTS, and wrote some of the sermon for Wednesday, on top of taking the Communion service for Bridge House — so yesterday I had a full dance card.

This morning’s run was practically spot-on my five day rolling average. I caught myself at least once, thinking ‘I should pick up my pace!’, but self-awareness protected me from getting drawn into self-competition. Coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, then presumably home to work on academic and homiletical pursuits. I’ll also take a minute or two to work on the nib of a pen that’s been running dry.

Yesterday morning’s sermon went all right, and Margaret and I enjoyed a plesant cup of coffee (tea) in the square after church. I did get a tiny bit of work done on my current essay debt in the afternoon, but step by step is how it will get done. The rest was rest and reading and writing a sermon for Wednesday.

This morning’s run came in at a pretty average time. I’m sipping coffee and nibbling grapes, will shortly shower and dress before Morning Prayer, then back to R&R in the square. I’ll stop in at a care home midafternoon….

When I stopped timing my runs in March, I had hammered my times down to about 17:30 or so for the two miles. But I was no longer feeling neutral about exercising in the morning — I started to feel more intense annoyance and resentment about my morning runs, and I decided that any extra fitness I attained wasn’t worth the spiritual cost of beginning the day with vexation.I stopped timing runs, settled back down to my unambitious pace, and resumed my milder dislike of running. It was good. The unpleasantness of running was balanced by the evident health benefits. I am sure that I’m fitter, sturdier, and my weight has very gradually diminished since I started skipping rope in the mornings about six years ago.

As I said earlier, I begsn timing myself again this week, not with a view to improving my time so much as to observe my run, just as I didn’t set out to lose weight as a goal, but I have observed it as a side effect of the more important activity. So now, I’m running a more comfortable 20:15 or so. I still don’t like it, but it’s good, and the malignant competitive drive hasn’t kicked in.

And although we haven’t conquered the infection; we’ve nipped various vectors, but it seems as though someone is just directing a lot of hits at various addresses, most of which are no longer even there. Way too much traffic for three days, but my hosts are trying to figure it out — and if I go silent again, you’ll know that we haven’t been able to solve it. Yet.

So, haven’t burned through my bandwidth yet.

Ran and walked my two miles this morning. I’ve been running every day (barring rain) for a while, but my legs just didn’t feel like putting in the effort this morning, so I gave them a break.

Yesterday I had a parish visit and a meeting with a wedding couple (‘wedding couple’ = couple who will be getting married in the parish). Lovely times but quite full-on in terms of extraversion, so I came home and focused on Sunday’s sermon for a while. Today, if I finish the sermon promptly (d.v.), I will tackle my short introduction to Anglican biblical interpretation, and maybe Margaret and I will stroll out to a local pub.

This post may be visible only for a short while, as my hosting company and I haven’t been able to figure out just who has been hammering the site nor how we might stop them, and my monthly bandwidth allowance may burn up in a matter of minutes. Nonetheless, I’m still here to say ‘I’m trying’, and Tim (at Exact) is trying.

Someday I’ll post photos from our family holiday in June, and I might even post sermons from July, and tell some stories from both, but I’m not going to try till I’m sure the site is up and stable. I’ve kept running, and have resumed timing myself (but without letting myself get caught up in trying to improve my time).

I still love you, and I miss writing for you. Keep the faith.