AKMA’s Random Thoughts

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.

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.

Another three-day interval, in which I haven’t been too busy to blog, but quite the opposite — too relaxed and casual to blog. My runs have been cold and mostly adequate up till this morning, during which outing I mostly walked, as my knees were not having it. They weren’t painful so much as just not flexing and bouncing; it as as though instead of having proper knees, I had metal hinges mid-leg.

I did promulgate another public-domain digital edition recently. Alistair Stewart (now of Codrington College) noted to me that he’d have a use for a clean digital version of John Adamson’s sermon ‘The Duty Of Daily Frequenting the Publick Service of the Church’ (1698), so as a productive distraction I whipped through it. It’s now in my nook at the Internet Archive. To Adamson is also ascribed the authorship of ‘The Cavalier’s Farewell To His Mistress, Being Called To The Wars’ on the basis that the only extant manuscript copy of the poem is found in Adamson’s commonplace book, one he began in 1658. Anyway, one more item of Anglican documentary historical interest cleaned up and made more digitally useful.

At a satisfactory pace, no physical hindrances (though I turned my ankle a couple of times at uneven pavements, no lasting effect), but 5° in 100% humidity does get into your bones. I gave a penultimate once-over to an essay, and will begin once- or twice-overing another till the end of January, at which point I’ll send it in and then at last it’ll be all hermeneutics all the time (all the time that’s not owed to parish or teaching).

For the first time in several days, my morning run went moderately well. I ran freely, if not smooth- and bounding-ly, and my pace was good. I was not uncomfortable (apart from the chilly weather) and although one of my ankles wobbled just a little when I was starting out, everything went fine thereafter. Then fruit breakfast, coffee, and Morning Prayer (at home today), shower, then toast and a second cup of coffee. Off to a good start.

I wish every diary publisher were obligated to include December at the head of the next year’s calendar; I’m having to carry two diaries around with me to navigate these last few days of 2024, and it’s a nuisance, and I have a strong suspicion that I’ll lose one or another agreed occasion by looking at the wrong calendar.

I didn’t run yesterday morning; I needed the time for (a) allowing a lie-in after Tuesday’s Midnight Mass; (b) making pancakes for Margaret for breakfast; and (c) working out the homily for our 10:30 service, after being dissatisfied with the joined-up-ness (the lack thereof) in the late service’s homily. Honestly, I felt that the homiletical inkwell had run dry, and I was afraid that I would be reduced to liturgical dance or (shudder) some improvisational Thoughts for the Day. The sermon turned out all right, the service was lovely (if a little loose in its joints, as it were), and we had impressive numbers for both the midnight and the Christmas morning services — extremely reassuring, since Sunday services had been running a bit light. But all went well, hundreds of the Body of Christ gathered to receive the Body of Christ, and even the least satisfactory of the sermons from Sunday 4 Advent/Christmas Eve/Christmas Day was evidently pleasing to some in the congregation, so I’ll chalk that up as a job satisfactorily done.

After we got home from church yesterday we had leftover soup for lunch; Margaret took a nap, and I sat dozily in the living room until I experienced (and here I will steer toward delicacy rather than candour) a dramatic turn in digestive circumstances. I can’t think of anything specific I ate that would account for this; I suspect that it was part of my body purging the tensions and pressures of the past week(s). Whatever the cause, it was distinctly unpleasant, but (so far) short-lived. It did mean, however (to return to the point) that this morning I mostly walked my two miles, as my stomach didn’t relish being bounced up and down as I ran.

I didn’t run yesterday morning; I woke up early and realised that the sermon I’d prepared for the 10:30 service just wouldn’t preach, at least not that morning. That meant I had to come up with a sermon between 5:30 and 10:30, and I did at least cobble something together sufficient unto the day. Then we rested until evening, when the Big Coral Service happened — the church rammed full, the choirs in good form, and the greatest story ever told to narrate.

This morning I did run, though the ‘real feel’ temperature was -5°. Morning Prayer, early office work in R&R, pastoral visit, hurried lunch, home communion and a lot of storyplistening, and that’s a wrap for the 23rd.

I set out on my morning run in 5° temperatures, which Apple’s weather app assured me felt like 1°, and you will hear no argument from me on this point. I got about three-quarters of a mile in, when I noticed that the atmosphere around me was no longer simply cold, but had become cold and wet. by the end of my first mile, it was positively raining. At the same time, my legs were limber, my breathing was all right; the only problem came in drops from above. So, was it a good run? It all depends on the context.

We’re having a visit from our friend Ed this morning, and I’m hammering away at my homily before and after Ed’s visit. Then the last Sunday in Advent, with Mass in the morning and Lessons and Carols in the evening, and the beginning of Christmas week — whee!