Thursday, October 25, 2007
Comic Book Immortality By Association
MIT's alumni magazine put together an entertaining comic strip history of the alternately depressing and exhilarating post-Pathfinder era in Mars exploration. I know many of the characters personally, including the instruments... and have heard many footnote stories.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
For the Record
I was here yesterday. The celebrants of the union wore muted semi-formal attire and well-groomed white beards. There was a flower girl. The service began with the Shehechyenu, since one of the celebrants was born into a rabbinical family (several of whom were obviously present). The Psalm was 139 1:14, a psalm about the inexorable reach of God that in the middle has, "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well." The Epistle was 1 John on the necessity of loving the brethren in order to love God. The Gospel was Matthew 5:13-16, which while appointed in the BCP for weddings, seems even more appropriate for adelphopoesis.
The Rector said in his sermon today that people e-mailed him from far-off places, telling him they had awoken in the watches of the night and gone to holy places (such as Canterbury Cathedral) to pray for the couple. Amazing.
The Rector said in his sermon today that people e-mailed him from far-off places, telling him they had awoken in the watches of the night and gone to holy places (such as Canterbury Cathedral) to pray for the couple. Amazing.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
TV Priests I Dislike
Forget the Book of Daniel. The Episcopal priest of the moment is Brian Darling of ABC's Dirty, Sexy Money . I like the show. One of the characters bought his chauffeur a copy of Anabasis . Cool beans. But Brian Darling is a complete degenerate. My game during the last two episodes has been to determine whether he's an Episcopalian or not. He dresses in a style I only can call Anglo-Papist, but he apparently has a wife and daughters. He also has an illegitimate son who he's doing everything to avoid acknowledging. (Poor child. His mother is just as irresponsible.) I think he's supposed to be Rector of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue (a church is shown in the first episode that looks quite familiar...).
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Surface Pressure
The week has been full of ups and downs. Some of the downs were beyond my control, others not so much. Perhaps the most amusing of these setbacks happened a couple of hours ago when I noticed that a certain type of simulation I thought I finally had managed to figure out had some very high surface pressures (>100 times than they should be). I think I've tracked down the problem, but I feel rather embarassed...
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Meme from Lutherpunk and Anastasia
4 crushes (ones I can talk about):
1. Liz – 3rd Grade. We met at summer camp. We once thought we had made a growth enhancement drug out of baby oil and other secret ingredients. She's an environmental chemist now...
2. Katherine– 12th grade. Sophomore girl utterly wrong for me, though her poetry was good. I later learned that my mother conspired to get her as my prom date.
3. Carole – Between high school and college. She had a shampoo or something whose odor I always will remember.
4. Andrea – College. I wrote her an extremely embarassing mash note on whose account my ex-girlfriend still makes fun of me.
4 Pieces of Clothing I wish I still owned (and/or that still fit):
1. My father's Hobart wrestling shirt. It's a little too worn now.
2. My green sweater. It disappeared one night after a very good dinner with an old professor of mine.
3. My bar mitzvah suit. (The one I wore to my friends' bar mitzvot.)
4. My old field hat. Lost in the Guadalupe these three years.
4 names I’ve been called at one time or another:
1. Encyclopedia
2. Info[my name]
3. Green Pimple (a church secretary nickname as a matter of fact)
4. Godboy (there were two other Godboys...and yes, there was a Trinity reference...)
4 Professions I secretly Want to Try:
1. Judge
2. Hurricane forecaster
3. Baseball statistician (actually a friend of mine does this)
4. Television writer
4 Musicians I’d most want to go on a date with:
1. Vanessa Carlton, circa 2002
2. Kate Ryan, circa 2004
3. Kylie Minogue (whenever she appeared on Vicar of Dibley)
4. Natasha Bedingfield.
4 Foods I’d rather Throw than Eat
1. Eggplant
2. Most pork.
3. Shrimp, most of the time.
4. Brie.
4 Things I Like to Sniff
1. Olive oil.
2. Hair.
3. Bengay.
4. Clean clothes.
1. Liz – 3rd Grade. We met at summer camp. We once thought we had made a growth enhancement drug out of baby oil and other secret ingredients. She's an environmental chemist now...
2. Katherine– 12th grade. Sophomore girl utterly wrong for me, though her poetry was good. I later learned that my mother conspired to get her as my prom date.
3. Carole – Between high school and college. She had a shampoo or something whose odor I always will remember.
4. Andrea – College. I wrote her an extremely embarassing mash note on whose account my ex-girlfriend still makes fun of me.
4 Pieces of Clothing I wish I still owned (and/or that still fit):
1. My father's Hobart wrestling shirt. It's a little too worn now.
2. My green sweater. It disappeared one night after a very good dinner with an old professor of mine.
3. My bar mitzvah suit. (The one I wore to my friends' bar mitzvot.)
4. My old field hat. Lost in the Guadalupe these three years.
4 names I’ve been called at one time or another:
1. Encyclopedia
2. Info[my name]
3. Green Pimple (a church secretary nickname as a matter of fact)
4. Godboy (there were two other Godboys...and yes, there was a Trinity reference...)
4 Professions I secretly Want to Try:
1. Judge
2. Hurricane forecaster
3. Baseball statistician (actually a friend of mine does this)
4. Television writer
4 Musicians I’d most want to go on a date with:
1. Vanessa Carlton, circa 2002
2. Kate Ryan, circa 2004
3. Kylie Minogue (whenever she appeared on Vicar of Dibley)
4. Natasha Bedingfield.
4 Foods I’d rather Throw than Eat
1. Eggplant
2. Most pork.
3. Shrimp, most of the time.
4. Brie.
4 Things I Like to Sniff
1. Olive oil.
2. Hair.
3. Bengay.
4. Clean clothes.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
201! Woot!
No Unpleasantness Here
The only thing Michaelmas will mean around here is a school year beginning, drinking with colleagues taking their qualifying exams (after they take them), and a little angelic doulia . I have better things to do like forming a Thesis Committee. Oh, wait, that took about a half hour today. I need that "Easy button" my aunt gave me right about now.
EDITED TO CORRECT BOTH ERRORS. THANKS, READERS.
Yes, The Content on This Blog Has Degenerated
Blame it on the five things I'm trying to do at the moment and can't make progress on at the moment.
So let's have a little fun with the Prayer Book. The other day I was looking at the kalendar in the front and noticed once more the letters "A, b, c, d, e, f, g" that cycle next the days from Holy Name to Holy Name Even. The year begins on A and ends on A. What are these letters for? Well, I had a hypothesis. I remember from my childhood looking at the Tables and Rules for Finding Easter Day. They always mentioned the necessity of two parameters, the Sunday Letter and the Golden Number. Well, could the letters be related to the Sunday Letter? Indeed. the Sunday letter is defined as the letter next to the first Sunday of the year, except in March-December of leap years in which the Sunday letter shifts backward, A to g, g to f, etc.
So what's the Golden Number? Take the year, add 1, and divide it by 19, then find the remainder. If it's zero, the Golden Number is 19. Then look at March and April and find the Golden Number next to the date. That's not the date of Easter, but the Sunday Letter of the year following the Golden Number date is. In this way, you can calculate the date of Easter in a year not given in the Tables on pp. 882-883.
Let's work an example. Suppose you want the date of Easter in 2161 (points if you know why that particular date). The Sunday Letter is d. 19 into 2162 is 113 with a remainder of 15 (Golden Number!) (I forget long division for some reason now...). So we find that the Golden Number day is April 10, meaning that Easter will be April 12. The commenters correctly calculate the date in 2168.
This has been Liturgical Math 101.
The only thing Michaelmas will mean around here is a school year beginning, drinking with colleagues taking their qualifying exams (after they take them), and a little angelic doulia . I have better things to do like forming a Thesis Committee. Oh, wait, that took about a half hour today. I need that "Easy button" my aunt gave me right about now.
EDITED TO CORRECT BOTH ERRORS. THANKS, READERS.
Yes, The Content on This Blog Has Degenerated
Blame it on the five things I'm trying to do at the moment and can't make progress on at the moment.
So let's have a little fun with the Prayer Book. The other day I was looking at the kalendar in the front and noticed once more the letters "A, b, c, d, e, f, g" that cycle next the days from Holy Name to Holy Name Even. The year begins on A and ends on A. What are these letters for? Well, I had a hypothesis. I remember from my childhood looking at the Tables and Rules for Finding Easter Day. They always mentioned the necessity of two parameters, the Sunday Letter and the Golden Number. Well, could the letters be related to the Sunday Letter? Indeed. the Sunday letter is defined as the letter next to the first Sunday of the year, except in March-December of leap years in which the Sunday letter shifts backward, A to g, g to f, etc.
So what's the Golden Number? Take the year, add 1, and divide it by 19, then find the remainder. If it's zero, the Golden Number is 19. Then look at March and April and find the Golden Number next to the date. That's not the date of Easter, but the Sunday Letter of the year following the Golden Number date is. In this way, you can calculate the date of Easter in a year not given in the Tables on pp. 882-883.
Let's work an example. Suppose you want the date of Easter in 2161 (points if you know why that particular date). The Sunday Letter is d. 19 into 2162 is 113 with a remainder of 15 (Golden Number!) (I forget long division for some reason now...). So we find that the Golden Number day is April 10, meaning that Easter will be April 12. The commenters correctly calculate the date in 2168.
This has been Liturgical Math 101.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
My Outdoor Thermometer of Doom
My outdoor thermometer of doom is attached to my bike and is thus on my somewhat covered balcony. It presently records 111 F. This is not the scientific air temperature (I don't have a black hood for it etc.)...the closest reliable station records 98 F. Did I mention that the air conditioning in my building is broken?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Shameless Graduate Student Update
As you might be able to tell from my last post, it's been a week. The bad part of it really isn't mine to tell, but let's just say that I have appreciated Derek's trial offices for the dead.
I think I was complaining a few weeks ago about being overcommitted. Well, I'm trying to clear my plate a little at the moment by the best route possible: I'm writing papers. My first first author paper is currently under review at one of the big journals of my sub-field. Today, I sent around my next paper for internal review, which hopefully will be submitted to a journal that doesn't hear much from my sub-field but has a fairly wide reach. So I just may submit two papers of my own this summer.
Monday, I learned that an abstract of mine was accepted for oral presentation at a big conference in October. To most readers of this blog, this will not mean much. But I've been submitting abstracts to conferences for more than three years now and I always have to present posters. Poster sessions frankly are depressing. They tend to be sparsely attended and repetitious. But worst of all, presenting a poster is a sign that your work is not particularly interesting. Speaking at a oral session is proof that I finally do something that a large number of people might find interesting. And that's kind of cool.
I think I was complaining a few weeks ago about being overcommitted. Well, I'm trying to clear my plate a little at the moment by the best route possible: I'm writing papers. My first first author paper is currently under review at one of the big journals of my sub-field. Today, I sent around my next paper for internal review, which hopefully will be submitted to a journal that doesn't hear much from my sub-field but has a fairly wide reach. So I just may submit two papers of my own this summer.
Monday, I learned that an abstract of mine was accepted for oral presentation at a big conference in October. To most readers of this blog, this will not mean much. But I've been submitting abstracts to conferences for more than three years now and I always have to present posters. Poster sessions frankly are depressing. They tend to be sparsely attended and repetitious. But worst of all, presenting a poster is a sign that your work is not particularly interesting. Speaking at a oral session is proof that I finally do something that a large number of people might find interesting. And that's kind of cool.
Therefore We Shall Not Fear Though the Earth Be Moved and Though the Mountains Be Toppled into The Depths of the Sea
On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore south of New Orleans. Here is an item from New Orleans two years later that exemplifies to me a uniquely Anglican approach to mission . The article is especially good in pointing out that the high murder rate is a pre-Katrina phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, even before Katrina, civil society in New Orleans was starting to break down.
I once went to church with a man who would pray every day (and on Sundays during the free intercessions) for all of the children in the city who had died violently.
I can't say that I do the being present with those in pain thing well. But it's something to remember when you hear about people wanting to convert the lost. What about just being with those who are feeling lost and remembering those who have passed beyond all knowledge?
I once went to church with a man who would pray every day (and on Sundays during the free intercessions) for all of the children in the city who had died violently.
I can't say that I do the being present with those in pain thing well. But it's something to remember when you hear about people wanting to convert the lost. What about just being with those who are feeling lost and remembering those who have passed beyond all knowledge?
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Thomas Cranmer Has Left the Building
I just talked with a colleague at work, who told me he was going to "read and inwardly digest" something I sent him. He apparently is half Catholic, half Anglican... He is not going to bother to mark and learn, I guess.
So Where Do You Go To Church?
I came home yesterday to have the following conversation with my Nigerian roommate:
CS: It's hot. [ We have no air conditioning at the moment .]
MNR: Have you been indoors all day?
CS:No, I walked to church and then home and then to work.
MNR: Oh, where do you go to church?
CS: [ ILEOS ] Episcopal Church over the way [ I wave toward downtown Laodicea ]
MNR: Oh, so you are a Pentecostal?
CS: No, I'm an Anglican.
MNR: That's kind of like Catholic, right? [ Which is exactly what most Protestants say in this country. MNR is a Baptist. The Catholics I know seem to like comparing us to Lutherans. )
CS: You must be from the Catholic part of Nigeria.
MNR: Yes. Though I might know some Anglicans, I think.
CS: I've always been told there's plenty of them in Nigeria.
_______________________________________________________
The explanation for the Pentecostal guess is the use of Episcopal. MNR never has heard of Episcopalians, so he guessed it was a new Pentecostal group, being the most likely guess for something he hasn't heard of in a Nigerian context. I did not probe for name recognition of Peter Jasper Akinola, for whom we continually pray that he may not number the godly among the lawless.
CS: It's hot. [ We have no air conditioning at the moment .]
MNR: Have you been indoors all day?
CS:No, I walked to church and then home and then to work.
MNR: Oh, where do you go to church?
CS: [ ILEOS ] Episcopal Church over the way [ I wave toward downtown Laodicea ]
MNR: Oh, so you are a Pentecostal?
CS: No, I'm an Anglican.
MNR: That's kind of like Catholic, right? [ Which is exactly what most Protestants say in this country. MNR is a Baptist. The Catholics I know seem to like comparing us to Lutherans. )
CS: You must be from the Catholic part of Nigeria.
MNR: Yes. Though I might know some Anglicans, I think.
CS: I've always been told there's plenty of them in Nigeria.
_______________________________________________________
The explanation for the Pentecostal guess is the use of Episcopal. MNR never has heard of Episcopalians, so he guessed it was a new Pentecostal group, being the most likely guess for something he hasn't heard of in a Nigerian context. I did not probe for name recognition of Peter Jasper Akinola, for whom we continually pray that he may not number the godly among the lawless.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The Summer Is Magic
That is, it is a giant vacuum of time. I've been working for the last couple of hours or so to push a paper toward readiness for submission tomorrow. I was hoping to submit two other papers by Michaelmas. As it is, I know I have to submit one paper (and possibly do a bit of work on another one submitted at the same time) by Grosstestetide (look that one up). Unfortunately, neither of these two papers are the ones I intended to submit at the beginning of the summer. Oh, and there's my fifth project, which is paying half my stipend at present. As one of the postdocs in a related field (and a church friend) said to me recently, "You're 100% funded and 450% committed."
While I do feel like a productive graduate student (if thin and stretched like butter spread over too much bread), I have to think of my thesis research, which feels a little too ghostly at the moment for my comfort. Some of what I'm doing is related to my topic, but part of me wants to have a clear research plan on paper. But frankly I don't have the time.
While I do feel like a productive graduate student (if thin and stretched like butter spread over too much bread), I have to think of my thesis research, which feels a little too ghostly at the moment for my comfort. Some of what I'm doing is related to my topic, but part of me wants to have a clear research plan on paper. But frankly I don't have the time.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Why I Love Jude Apatow Movies
Jude Apatow may be a producer, but he's a perfect example of how a producer can have a deeper creative influence than a writer or a director. I just saw Knocked Up, a film that is foul-mouthed, bare-breasted, and drug-laced and of more redeeming social value than almost anything Hollywood makes. I thought similarly about the Forty Year Old Virgin and his television series, Freaks and Geeks (somewhat cleaner). And the reason I like his productions so much is the way they draw character out of stereotypes. In what other situation would a black bouncer after being completely lambasted by a middle-class white woman in the threshold of middle age take her aside and admit that he can't let her and her pregnant sister (Katherine Heigl) into the club because, "you're old and she's pregnant" but will also tell her that he also has to enforce the club's racial quotas, too. Or in what other movie will a little girl "google" murder and look at pictures of murder victims without quite realizing the horror and the verity of their deaths. Oddly enough, I think Apatow brings us the real world. In the real world, people do not have such spectacular scripts, but they do have to confont the very same things characters in Apatow productions do. After I watch a movie like Knocked Up, most other movies seem like fantasy, which is not a bad thing.
I also like the way these movies treat marriage. It's easy to treat marriage as the inevitable boredom and conflict after the first flushes of love, partially because the first flushes of love happen years before the typical wedding day. It's also easy to treat marriage like the picture you want the kids to see as in the early years of the television sitcom, where at worst, Mommy is an incompetent. Instead, Apatow productions portray marriage as the estate entered into by two people who grow so deeply intimate with one another that such intimacy with other people in future is likely to be impossible. And it scares them. And they act out in ways designed to maintain their independence and personhood or their sexual availability. But in the end, they decide to spend their time with the person who can drive them to their deepest emotional lows and bring them to their greatest emotional highs because the only thing that presents the illusion of a better life is chemistry, which is pathetic in the end.
OK. It's not God's love for humanity expressed in Jesus Christ. But it's a good picture of the kinds of lives we lead as imperfect creatures.
Apatow's Will Ferrell movies are pure fantasy, though.
I also like the way these movies treat marriage. It's easy to treat marriage as the inevitable boredom and conflict after the first flushes of love, partially because the first flushes of love happen years before the typical wedding day. It's also easy to treat marriage like the picture you want the kids to see as in the early years of the television sitcom, where at worst, Mommy is an incompetent. Instead, Apatow productions portray marriage as the estate entered into by two people who grow so deeply intimate with one another that such intimacy with other people in future is likely to be impossible. And it scares them. And they act out in ways designed to maintain their independence and personhood or their sexual availability. But in the end, they decide to spend their time with the person who can drive them to their deepest emotional lows and bring them to their greatest emotional highs because the only thing that presents the illusion of a better life is chemistry, which is pathetic in the end.
OK. It's not God's love for humanity expressed in Jesus Christ. But it's a good picture of the kinds of lives we lead as imperfect creatures.
Apatow's Will Ferrell movies are pure fantasy, though.
I'm Not Sure How I Feel...
About the result of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly with respect to gay clergy. I come to this from a place a little closer to the ELCA than the typical Episcopalian in the CCM era. For twelve years of my life, I lived across from one of the ELCA's great seminaries in the city that was the birthplace of Lutheranism in America. While I never haunted the library there (despite the suggestion of one of my Rectors), I did learn to ride a bike on its grounds. When I was a teenager, I traveled to South Dakota and helped out with a joint Lutheran-Episcopal ministry in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, capital of the reservation of my ancestral tribe and the seat of the U.S.'s poorest county. I'll never forget Pastor Larry Petersen, the ebullient Minnesotan, who had been willing to minister to most non-Lutheran ethnic group in South Dakota. Pastor Petersen apparently reconciled with one of the Episcopal suffragan bishops of North Dakota some years ago after learning that one of the bishops' ancestors had killed the first family of one of Petersen's ancestors during the War of the Nakota against the Corruption of Sibley (usually called the Santee Uprising).
One of the Lutheran seminary students interned at my parish for a while, and he and I served together in a variety of capacities. I'll never forget his first time as subdeacon when I must have had a look of abject horror when he made no use of the water cruet during the Preparation of the Table. He was good-natured enough to accept the gentle correction of a fifteen year old boy. I imagine he's a great pastor now.
In college, a few of our peer ministers were Lutheran, including one who is now in a Ph.D. program at an institution a reader or two of this blog will know as their own. One so clearly called to the Ministry of Word and Table, he waits for the opportunity for a Synod of the ELCA to look past his sexual orientation to his call or more properly, he waits for some Synod of the ELCA to look at the love he has for another man and see the love he has for Christ and His Church.
And a few years ago, I found myself in a suburb of Houston, Texas for a summer and found a Lutheran church within walking distance. For ten Sundays, I worshipped happily and took Communion with them, even on the one Sunday of the month given over to the praise band. What surprised me was that even in a much more conservative part of the world, an old German-American pastor slipped quite liberal sentiments on the belovedness of gays and lesbians by God in his sermons.
Reading the resolution, I have to like part of it. I like that it refers to same-sex relationships as chaste. I like that it privileges the kind of same-sex relationships that I believe are appropriate for the Christian life and indeed best suited for civil peace. What I don't like is the limitation in it, a limitation that may be inherent in the Churchwide Assembly. It prays that the law not be enforced. It doesn't try to change the law. Maybe that's a victory. Maybe, the Churchwide Assembly is saying that these particular conduct standards for rostered ministers are a matter of positive law not divine law. But I warn my Lutheran brethren that the "no enforcement" bandwagon has wobbly wheels. The Episcopal Church has been in this situation for some years. What's good for Frisco isn't good for Fresno. I guess there was no way to say, "Well, we're going to pray and study for a decade but for that time, no one is to enforce this so we can have genuine discernment." That's too bad. All we are going to see is that the synods who had sort of openly gay clergy will have really openly gay clergy, and the synods who didn't will have some scared and closeted pastors.
One of the Lutheran seminary students interned at my parish for a while, and he and I served together in a variety of capacities. I'll never forget his first time as subdeacon when I must have had a look of abject horror when he made no use of the water cruet during the Preparation of the Table. He was good-natured enough to accept the gentle correction of a fifteen year old boy. I imagine he's a great pastor now.
In college, a few of our peer ministers were Lutheran, including one who is now in a Ph.D. program at an institution a reader or two of this blog will know as their own. One so clearly called to the Ministry of Word and Table, he waits for the opportunity for a Synod of the ELCA to look past his sexual orientation to his call or more properly, he waits for some Synod of the ELCA to look at the love he has for another man and see the love he has for Christ and His Church.
And a few years ago, I found myself in a suburb of Houston, Texas for a summer and found a Lutheran church within walking distance. For ten Sundays, I worshipped happily and took Communion with them, even on the one Sunday of the month given over to the praise band. What surprised me was that even in a much more conservative part of the world, an old German-American pastor slipped quite liberal sentiments on the belovedness of gays and lesbians by God in his sermons.
Reading the resolution, I have to like part of it. I like that it refers to same-sex relationships as chaste. I like that it privileges the kind of same-sex relationships that I believe are appropriate for the Christian life and indeed best suited for civil peace. What I don't like is the limitation in it, a limitation that may be inherent in the Churchwide Assembly. It prays that the law not be enforced. It doesn't try to change the law. Maybe that's a victory. Maybe, the Churchwide Assembly is saying that these particular conduct standards for rostered ministers are a matter of positive law not divine law. But I warn my Lutheran brethren that the "no enforcement" bandwagon has wobbly wheels. The Episcopal Church has been in this situation for some years. What's good for Frisco isn't good for Fresno. I guess there was no way to say, "Well, we're going to pray and study for a decade but for that time, no one is to enforce this so we can have genuine discernment." That's too bad. All we are going to see is that the synods who had sort of openly gay clergy will have really openly gay clergy, and the synods who didn't will have some scared and closeted pastors.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Blogging Has Been Light, Will Remain Light
Last Friday, I was talking with an older friend of mine about an upcoming conference in our field (she's been attending for over twenty years). I wasn't thinking about going, because I had nothing to present. My friend was saying that I needed to go and network etc. I'm thinking that my boss is a generous soul, but I'm not wasting federal money on a networking trip, nor on presenting research that I've essentially presented at two conferences.
Fast forward to this Wednesday evening, when I am writing an abstract for this conference twenty four hours before the submission deadline. Why, you might ask. Well, because I suddenly had something new to present. So because of this new project, I expect blogging will be light.
Chapter has resolved to include Abbot Cuthbert Johnson OSB in our prayers. That is all.
Fast forward to this Wednesday evening, when I am writing an abstract for this conference twenty four hours before the submission deadline. Why, you might ask. Well, because I suddenly had something new to present. So because of this new project, I expect blogging will be light.
Chapter has resolved to include Abbot Cuthbert Johnson OSB in our prayers. That is all.
Friday, July 27, 2007
One Shots
Thursday, Bloody Thursday
I've been having some health issues lately and needed some blood taken yesterday. Anyone who knows me in real life knows this is going to be fun. I have fainted a few times after blood was taken (even pinpricks) and I even fainted in a college history of science class on Harvey's Circulation of the Blood . Well, I told my doctor and nurse this, so they had me lie down and then the nurse suggested I breathe and recite some sort of mantra to myself as the blood was being taken. Thanks to *Christopher's endorsement, I went for the Jesus Prayer. No fainting. Yes!
According to Hatchett (may be a several part series)
According to Hatchett, the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom may not be of John Chrysostom, being found in later manuscripts of his eponymous Divine Liturgy but not earlier ones. I've always thought it ended abruptly and I was right. The traditional close would translate in Prayer Book language (it's used in a Eucharistic Prayer) to: "For you are gracious, O Lover of souls and to you, we give glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
I've been having some health issues lately and needed some blood taken yesterday. Anyone who knows me in real life knows this is going to be fun. I have fainted a few times after blood was taken (even pinpricks) and I even fainted in a college history of science class on Harvey's Circulation of the Blood . Well, I told my doctor and nurse this, so they had me lie down and then the nurse suggested I breathe and recite some sort of mantra to myself as the blood was being taken. Thanks to *Christopher's endorsement, I went for the Jesus Prayer. No fainting. Yes!
According to Hatchett (may be a several part series)
According to Hatchett, the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom may not be of John Chrysostom, being found in later manuscripts of his eponymous Divine Liturgy but not earlier ones. I've always thought it ended abruptly and I was right. The traditional close would translate in Prayer Book language (it's used in a Eucharistic Prayer) to: "For you are gracious, O Lover of souls and to you, we give glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
the Pope and One Big Book
On the Pope's Latest Works
I'm quite glad that the 1962 Missal will have freer use in the future. The replacement of the Missale Romanum and the early insanity associated with the Novus Ordo somewhat alienated one of my grandfathers from the Roman Catholic Church. I'm can't exactly justify his reasons, which I suspect had something to do with his own affection for the Latin tongue and a profound hatred for the folk mass, but I think many of my Roman Catholic friends will appreciate the opportunity to arrange a regular Tridentine mass wherever they can find a priest to say it. The especial benefit lies in a rich hymnody and an integrated seasonal rhythm within the old rite that is simply lacking in the new. The problems mainly lie in worries about anti-Semitism, cultural elitism, and fears of division in the faithful of the Roman rite. I've heard complaints about how this motu proprio is just going to embolden the fundamentalist RCs. I think there's a much wider set of Roman Catholics who would appreciate the old Mass than such a statement would imply.
On the latter document released by the Pope, I echo the common sentiment of lack of surprise. My reply would have to be, "If our Orders were invalid, so would yours be." Not only do I feel supremely confident in this statement on independent grounds, I am merely paraphrasing Saepius Officio .
Indeed, I was thinking of this little phrase especially, "Finally, we would have our revered brother in Christ beware lest in expressing this judgment he do injustice not only to us but to other Christians also, and among them to his own predecessors, who surely enjoyed in an equal measure with himself the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Saepius officio also contains a lovely little summary of Anglican eucharistic theology, though I'm sure it would not go down well with certain Zwinglians in our midst.
One Big Book
That's what I have to say about M.J. Hatchett's, Commentary on the American Prayer Book , which is nearly as large as my Bible and came today. It is helpfully organized to be a companion text to the 1979 BCP. Everything is in order. Indeed, there's even commentary on the Certificate. I may read a few pages before bed each night.
I'm quite glad that the 1962 Missal will have freer use in the future. The replacement of the Missale Romanum and the early insanity associated with the Novus Ordo somewhat alienated one of my grandfathers from the Roman Catholic Church. I'm can't exactly justify his reasons, which I suspect had something to do with his own affection for the Latin tongue and a profound hatred for the folk mass, but I think many of my Roman Catholic friends will appreciate the opportunity to arrange a regular Tridentine mass wherever they can find a priest to say it. The especial benefit lies in a rich hymnody and an integrated seasonal rhythm within the old rite that is simply lacking in the new. The problems mainly lie in worries about anti-Semitism, cultural elitism, and fears of division in the faithful of the Roman rite. I've heard complaints about how this motu proprio is just going to embolden the fundamentalist RCs. I think there's a much wider set of Roman Catholics who would appreciate the old Mass than such a statement would imply.
On the latter document released by the Pope, I echo the common sentiment of lack of surprise. My reply would have to be, "If our Orders were invalid, so would yours be." Not only do I feel supremely confident in this statement on independent grounds, I am merely paraphrasing Saepius Officio .
Indeed, I was thinking of this little phrase especially, "Finally, we would have our revered brother in Christ beware lest in expressing this judgment he do injustice not only to us but to other Christians also, and among them to his own predecessors, who surely enjoyed in an equal measure with himself the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Saepius officio also contains a lovely little summary of Anglican eucharistic theology, though I'm sure it would not go down well with certain Zwinglians in our midst.
One Big Book
That's what I have to say about M.J. Hatchett's, Commentary on the American Prayer Book , which is nearly as large as my Bible and came today. It is helpfully organized to be a companion text to the 1979 BCP. Everything is in order. Indeed, there's even commentary on the Certificate. I may read a few pages before bed each night.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Conference Madness
Many academics read this blog, so let's ask a few rhetorical questions:
Does one day of your conference wrap up with a discussion of advising the government about how to execute a multibillion dollar project? Note that the government is legally obligated to listen to your advice and yet present government officials believe that it is illegal for them to consider the advice as the primary influence on decisionmaking (and keep hinting at that at every conceivable opportunity).
Do presentations involve standing in the hot sun for two and a half hours, wondering why you didn't bring sunscreen or water?
Do you find vocabulary from your ecclesial life appearing occasionally in presentations but meaning completely different things?
Yes, so that's my life at present.
Today, I also made my first operational weather forecast for another planet. On that note.
Collect for Astronomy
O Lord, who is adorned with light and whose glory the heavens declare, prevent us in all our humble inquiries into Thy works. But we especially beseech Thee to favor our probings into the waters of the Deep and to give us a clear vision of thy sublime creature [ target name ]. May the instrument be tuned to its proper settings, the target be tracked precisely, and the computers read, write, and analyze without pause or error. Bless, keep, and prosper the handiwork especially of the operator, for if we be incompetents, Lord, thou and she alone may preserve our observations unto utility. This we ask, Father, through the Word and Wisdom of all the worlds, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Does one day of your conference wrap up with a discussion of advising the government about how to execute a multibillion dollar project? Note that the government is legally obligated to listen to your advice and yet present government officials believe that it is illegal for them to consider the advice as the primary influence on decisionmaking (and keep hinting at that at every conceivable opportunity).
Do presentations involve standing in the hot sun for two and a half hours, wondering why you didn't bring sunscreen or water?
Do you find vocabulary from your ecclesial life appearing occasionally in presentations but meaning completely different things?
Yes, so that's my life at present.
Today, I also made my first operational weather forecast for another planet. On that note.
Collect for Astronomy
O Lord, who is adorned with light and whose glory the heavens declare, prevent us in all our humble inquiries into Thy works. But we especially beseech Thee to favor our probings into the waters of the Deep and to give us a clear vision of thy sublime creature [ target name ]. May the instrument be tuned to its proper settings, the target be tracked precisely, and the computers read, write, and analyze without pause or error. Bless, keep, and prosper the handiwork especially of the operator, for if we be incompetents, Lord, thou and she alone may preserve our observations unto utility. This we ask, Father, through the Word and Wisdom of all the worlds, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Reconciliation And Free Stuff
Free Stuff
Today, I was notified that I had won $100 of Amazon.com credit out of a random drawing from a group of Cambridge University lab monkeys. Future purchases likely will include Hatchett's commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, Modern Talking's magisterial eighth album, America , and the last Harry Potter book. Sadly, this made my day. It was a very boring day of making posters for a conference next week, documenting new model features, and monitoring terrestrial and martian weather. I really can't wait for the conference next week.
Reconciliation
Lately, the local courts have been ruling that the property of certain parishes who have forcibly sought alternative episcopal oversight actually belong to the Diocese of Los Angeles. For some in this neck of the woods (such as everyone's favorite former Orange County soccer mom, Rev. Ms. Susan Russell), this turn of events has led to a bit of gloating. Observers in the wider church wonder what the consequences of these decisions shall be in the vicinity in Fresno, though these issues will require settlement in the Supreme Court of Ionia, I mean, California.
Our bishop, Jon Bruno, Anglo-Jesuit former police officer and football player, is on record as saying that he wants to reconcile with the four parishes who are squatting on diocesan property. Kristy Harding today asks a fair question: "Yes, because a lawsuit is just the way to make them want to rejoin TEC. Is this real?" Kristy doesn't doubt +Bruno's desire to reconcile. She wonders whether it will work.
It's a good point, because reconciliation usually requires at least one side (and preferably both sides) to admit their sin against the other. I really don't see this happening in these four cases.
Lately, I've been reading the harsher parts of the Rule in which St. Benedict faces the reality of living in community, not just a godly community but one with an understanding of authority and the rule in law in the midst of disordering civilization and organizing barbarism. He has to distinguish between the venially vicious, those who because of human frailty breach the requirements of the community's life and those who actually intend harm to the community's life, to the community's being. For the former, Benedict seems inclined to the Wisdom literature and depends on deprivation and corporal punishment. For the latter, the New Testament church discipline is more of an inspiration. Warning, reproof, chastisement, and finally cautery.
It's hard to extend this model. The tyranny of bishops is something that repulses the American mind, and tyranny soon becomes anything that we consider intolerable. When does the teaching authority of a bishop rise to the level of disrespect to a parish that theologically begs to differ? No one can answer this. No Episcopal bishop therefore is an abbot. No one allows a bishop the formation privileges of an abbot, for fear they will some day seriously disagree with their bishop. O Lord, bless and keep the bishop...far away from us .
I remember the example of the aftermath of the Council of Whitby in which Saint Colman resigned the see of Lindisfarne and founded a new monastery in the west of Ireland. But I think this was Colman's admission that the Celtic party no longer could minister effectively within the Province of York. And this is the generality at the root of these situations. If the Diocese of Los Angeles takes over these properties, will they be genuine centers of life and mission or will they be bulldozed and sold (as Stand Firm commenters claim)? The ball, as far as I am concerned, is in Bishop Bruno's court.
I know what I'd do. I'd go myself quietly or send trusted friends to visit the church a few times, walk about the neighborhood, read the annual reports, and think and pray carefully about whether the Kingdom of God as a whole would be better served by this parish or a new Episcopal congregation built in the ashes of this one. If the former, I would remember that those who gave in the past gave for the work and spread of the Kingdom of God. I would go to the Rector and Vestry of the parish and draw up an agreement in which the parish admitted they had no right to do what they did and the Bishop admitted that the trust of former generations was upheld in the work of the parish. The latter case would be harder but necessary. I would give the parish a year from legal finality to vacate the property, a year for both parties to plan to start again.
It's a tricky balance between avoiding handing our disputes outside the circle of those who will judge angels and dulling the effect of the temporal sword that restrains evildoers. The balance comes when we let the courts settle the issues of civil righteousness ( meum et tuum ) but let God's concerns direct how matters will play out in the end.
Today, I was notified that I had won $100 of Amazon.com credit out of a random drawing from a group of Cambridge University lab monkeys. Future purchases likely will include Hatchett's commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, Modern Talking's magisterial eighth album, America , and the last Harry Potter book. Sadly, this made my day. It was a very boring day of making posters for a conference next week, documenting new model features, and monitoring terrestrial and martian weather. I really can't wait for the conference next week.
Reconciliation
Lately, the local courts have been ruling that the property of certain parishes who have forcibly sought alternative episcopal oversight actually belong to the Diocese of Los Angeles. For some in this neck of the woods (such as everyone's favorite former Orange County soccer mom, Rev. Ms. Susan Russell), this turn of events has led to a bit of gloating. Observers in the wider church wonder what the consequences of these decisions shall be in the vicinity in Fresno, though these issues will require settlement in the Supreme Court of Ionia, I mean, California.
Our bishop, Jon Bruno, Anglo-Jesuit former police officer and football player, is on record as saying that he wants to reconcile with the four parishes who are squatting on diocesan property. Kristy Harding today asks a fair question: "Yes, because a lawsuit is just the way to make them want to rejoin TEC. Is this real?" Kristy doesn't doubt +Bruno's desire to reconcile. She wonders whether it will work.
It's a good point, because reconciliation usually requires at least one side (and preferably both sides) to admit their sin against the other. I really don't see this happening in these four cases.
Lately, I've been reading the harsher parts of the Rule in which St. Benedict faces the reality of living in community, not just a godly community but one with an understanding of authority and the rule in law in the midst of disordering civilization and organizing barbarism. He has to distinguish between the venially vicious, those who because of human frailty breach the requirements of the community's life and those who actually intend harm to the community's life, to the community's being. For the former, Benedict seems inclined to the Wisdom literature and depends on deprivation and corporal punishment. For the latter, the New Testament church discipline is more of an inspiration. Warning, reproof, chastisement, and finally cautery.
It's hard to extend this model. The tyranny of bishops is something that repulses the American mind, and tyranny soon becomes anything that we consider intolerable. When does the teaching authority of a bishop rise to the level of disrespect to a parish that theologically begs to differ? No one can answer this. No Episcopal bishop therefore is an abbot. No one allows a bishop the formation privileges of an abbot, for fear they will some day seriously disagree with their bishop. O Lord, bless and keep the bishop...far away from us .
I remember the example of the aftermath of the Council of Whitby in which Saint Colman resigned the see of Lindisfarne and founded a new monastery in the west of Ireland. But I think this was Colman's admission that the Celtic party no longer could minister effectively within the Province of York. And this is the generality at the root of these situations. If the Diocese of Los Angeles takes over these properties, will they be genuine centers of life and mission or will they be bulldozed and sold (as Stand Firm commenters claim)? The ball, as far as I am concerned, is in Bishop Bruno's court.
I know what I'd do. I'd go myself quietly or send trusted friends to visit the church a few times, walk about the neighborhood, read the annual reports, and think and pray carefully about whether the Kingdom of God as a whole would be better served by this parish or a new Episcopal congregation built in the ashes of this one. If the former, I would remember that those who gave in the past gave for the work and spread of the Kingdom of God. I would go to the Rector and Vestry of the parish and draw up an agreement in which the parish admitted they had no right to do what they did and the Bishop admitted that the trust of former generations was upheld in the work of the parish. The latter case would be harder but necessary. I would give the parish a year from legal finality to vacate the property, a year for both parties to plan to start again.
It's a tricky balance between avoiding handing our disputes outside the circle of those who will judge angels and dulling the effect of the temporal sword that restrains evildoers. The balance comes when we let the courts settle the issues of civil righteousness ( meum et tuum ) but let God's concerns direct how matters will play out in the end.
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