Hiatus

I find myself posting less and less, and more out of a sense of obligation to keep the blog going than because I feel compelled to say anything. This blog has served its purpose well for me, and it has connected me with some wonderful people; but I think it's time to put it on hiatus. It may disappear in a few days.

Ecclesiastes 3, and all that.

Sunday evening musings

I've been reading GOEs. One of my exams is conspicuously intelligent and thoughtful, and I think I can identify, from internal evidence, the seminary and the diocese of the writer. I suppose it would be completely inappropriate for me to write to my rector-friend in that diocese and say, "Hey, find out who #xxx is. If you need a curate, that's who to call."

*****

My musician friends would disown me if I acknowledged that I really liked our choir's offering of the John Ness Beck "It Is Well with My Soul" this morning, so I am not in any way acknowledging that.

Any members of the congregation who claim to have seen me having some sort of religious experience during the second stanza

My sin -- O the joy of this glorious thought!--
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to Cross, and I bear it no more

must obviously be mistaken.

*****

There are many, many ways of modulating from F to G for the last stanza of Hyfrydol.

That wasn't any of them.

*****

The problem with interposing fol-de-rol between the Offertory Hymn and the Sursum Corda is that the second tenor who is celebrating the Eucharist will get all excited and pitch the Sursum Corda in L-sharp, way too high for the congregation.

He, however, will sound awesome.

An amusing piece about aspiring deans

If I were going to apply for a certain job, this piece from the Chronicle might suggest some useful advice.

Scattered thoughts from the usual pre-Evensong Panera

Ah, yes. I've had this student before, and now I remember: he's the one who is always making crazy arguments. "I think God is electrons," he says, and I groan inwardly.

And maybe a bit outwardly, now that I come to think of it.

*****

I'm celebrating at the 10:15 service. It's 10:20, and we're still waiting to go in. The verger starts to run back to the sacristy for the lighter, because the torches aren't lit. "Just let it go," I tell him, but he's off and running. When the procession finally gets going, I am of course the last person in. Just before I enter the church, I pass by the senior warden, who has been handing out bulletins. And I can't help myself: "This would never happen at St Michael's," I tell him

*****

The preacher tries to put it in perspective for me: "Well, we aim for perfection, but we don't always achieve it."

"No," I reply. "That's exactly the problem. We don't even aim for perfection."

*****

Email from a colleague for whom I just acquired a new laptop, a feat that took considerable effort and administrative creativity from me, the office manager, and the IT guy: "This computer is useless to me without x, y, and z."

You're welcome.

*****

Why does it require such an effort to give up on the idea of applying for a job for which I would clearly not be a serious candidate and that I might well not even enjoy doing?

The heart has its reasons, I suppose.

Just barely checking in

A week in Rome doing philosophy has left me with little time to blog, and little to blog about, but I will say this much. Though I will be traveling tomorrow and will have to miss church, I was at least able to invite my Reformed friends to attend a nearby church that welcomes all the baptized to receive the Sacrament. I so often have reason to be glad I'm an Episcopalian.

(I took advantage of having the church mostly to myself to sing Morning Prayer there rather late on Friday morning. I'm sure the guy who walked in during the second canticle -- the interim rector? -- thought I was vaguely crazy, which, let's face it . . .)

And I have had this line running through my mind all week:

Mrs Proudie bowed, and immediately changed the conversation. "Idolatry is, I believe, more rampant than ever in Rome," said she.

It's an unfortunate thought, perhaps -- but then again, I've noted before that I learned my ecclesiology from Anthony Trollope.

Of canonical residence

Though I recognize that it's canonically proper and not particularly uncommon, I continue to find the discrepancy between my canonical residence and my actual, physical residence anomalous (to say no more than that). I'm canonically resident in a diocese where I haven't been physically present since the day after my ordination. I submit an annual report to a bishop whom I haven't seen since he ordained me. There's practically no chance that I will ever live in my diocese. Meanwhile, I have the ecclesiastical equivalent of a green card in the diocese where I live and am likely to continue to live for quite some time. I see that bishop at least three or four times a year -- I will see him this very morning, in fact. But local policy is not to accept letters dimissory for non-parochial clergy, so I will continue to be a permanent resident alien.

Am I the only one who finds this situation odd?

Notes from the APA

I show up first thing in the morning for a talk given by a famous metaphysician/fellow Episcopalian whom I know somewhat well. He spots me in the audience -- I'm wearing clericals -- and opens his eyes wide and makes a gesture in front of his neck that means "What's up with the collar?" He hasn't seen me since I was ordained.

*****

After the talk a young woman comes up to me. "Are you by any chance an Episcopal priest?" she asks. I say that I am, and she replies, "So am I." I suppress the thought but you can't possibly be old enough to be a priest, and we have a nice chat.

Have I really reached the age at which someone old enough to have an M.Div. and a Ph.D. in philosophy looks like a kid?

As a dear friend said me to recently, "Next thing you know, you'll be saying, 'hey you kids, get off my lawn!'"

*****

Seven hours of philosophy papers in one day is my limit.

*****

At dinner one philosopher tells me about attending the local Episcopal church for Christmas midnight mass. He's not a believer, but his mother is, and he went for her sake. "It was ghastly," he said. "The sermon was absolutely horrendous. It could have been about anyone. It had nothing to do with Jesus or the Incarnation or anything remotely appropriate. And it totally clashed with the Gospel reading."

That parish, I happen to know, is looking for a rector.

Therefore let us keep the feast (Part Three)

St Stephen and St John the Evangelist were out, thanks to travel. By Holy Innocents Day, however, I was settled in a hotel room, a fifteen-minute walk from St Michael's. I headed out in time to make it to Evening Prayer and mass.

As I walked along, a man with a huge duffel bag on his back looked at me. "Anyone surveiling my parcel will be put to death," he said.

Good to know.

A few blocks further, I heard a voice behind me. "And where are you going?" It was, of course, one of my St Michael's friends -- I had just walked past his building -- headed for church. We chatted as we walked along.

When we arrived, there were a handful of folks seated in the choir, ready to celebrate the feast. Nearly all of them were well-known to me. How odd, it occurred to me later, that I have a better shot at sitting down in a congregation full of friends in this parish a thousand miles from home than anywhere else in Christendom.

And thus, on my third attempt, I finally got a proper celebration of a Prayer Book holy day. I'm not saying that everything is perfect at St Michael's, but one can certainly count on them for that.

Therefore let us keep the feast (Part Two)

I have written before of my thwarted attempt to make good on my liturgical-new-year's resolution about the due observance of Prayer Book holy days. Today being the Feast of Saint Thomas, I decided to try a different parish's midday Eucharist -- this is the one with no parking lot, so I left myself plenty of extra time to find parking on the street. As it turned out, parking was extremely easy to find. "This is going well," I thought to myself.

At the appointed hour, the celebrant walked in. His stole was blue.

"Don't jump to any conclusions," I told myself. "Maybe that doesn't mean anything. I'll know for sure when we get to the Collect of the Day."

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Purify our conscience, Almighty God . . .

I tried. I really did.

It doesn't work that way

This is not a complaint, just an observation:

When I talk to people about putting my name in for parishes, I will always at some point say, "Of course, there would need to be a job for M in the area." Invariably, they will reply, "Oh, there are tons of universities and colleges around there. He would have no trouble at all finding a job."

It doesn't work that way. The academic job market is terrible. As the indispensable blog "100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School" explains, there are very few jobs, and academics have very little choice about where they'll live. This job season, for example, there are only four jobs for M in the entire country, and each of those jobs will get scores of applicants.

Of those four jobs, two are in fairly conservative dioceses where I'm not sure the bishop would even be willing to license me.

It's nothing divine providence can't handle, of course, but it's nowhere remotely close to being as easy as people think.

What? No reference to quoting DuBose in casual conversation?

"The ideal candidate will have a record of scholarly achievement, pastoral leadership, and effective administration; have an academic doctorate; and be ordained in the Episcopal Church."

Where could one find such a person?

Addition by subtraction

It's Friday afternoon. I'm sitting in my office, waiting until I have to leave for commencement -- I have a new Ph.D. to hood -- when my cell phone rings. It's my rector. "I just wanted to let you know that I've taken steps to end our organist/choirmaster's employment. I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else."

It is not entirely unexpected. Though I don't know the details, and don't particularly want to know, I have heard enough over the last ten months to know that There Were Issues. Something happened this past week, and it was the last straw.

"And who will play on Sunday?" I ask, thinking that there's a reasonable chance that he'll ask me to do it. I'm not exactly eager to play, because (a) I'm way out of practice and (b) it is the annual rose-colored observance of the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, and so I always want to celebrate on Advent 3. But of course I'm perfectly willing to do it if asked.

That's not what the rector has in mind. "The organ will be silent on Sunday. Most of the hymns will work well unaccompanied, and the choir can work out what they're going to do."

Great, I think. It's going to be more than the usual chaos.

By the time Sunday morning comes, the rector has spoken with everyone in the choir. Everyone gathers in the choir room at 9:30. The rector speaks briefly about the situation, and then we begin to talk through the liturgy carefully and methodically. Can we do the introit? Not the one that's in the bulletin, but there's another one we can pull out. How shall we do the first hymn? Unison on the first stanza, parts thereafter. Can someone give us a pitch so that we don't start too high or too low? The early-music professor has brought his recorder; he'll introduce the hymns. And so on.

Well, it was the best liturgy we've had in months. It was planned, and purposive, and appropriate to the season. The unaccompanied singing of the hymns (66, 615, 60) and Sanctus (S-130) was excellent. Everything flowed. There was even silence after the Fraction.

People felt the difference. I heard again and again: "That was wonderful." "We don't even need an organist." "It finally felt like Advent."

And it gives me a chance to talk to the rector about liturgical planning -- and about working with the next musician (and yes, I already have my eye on someone) -- in a positive way. "That worked so well. Let's do more of it!"

It's the most wonderful time of the year (if you're a postulant or candidate for Holy Orders)

The next Ember Days are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of the third week of Advent: December 14, 16, and 17.

See here for a post about what to write about in your Ember Week letter.

The Prayer Book has collects for the Ember Days in traditional and contemporary language, along with propers for the Ember Days (scroll down to #15).

And don't forget Derek Olsen's post on the Ember Days.

It's a very good thing they don't rank priests

It would be incredibly tacky of me to note that our philosophy department was just ranked in the top 10 departments for medieval philosophy in the English-speaking world, so I won't say anything about that.

Therefore let us keep the feast

One of my liturgical-new-year's resolutions was to make a serious effort to attend mass on every Prayer Book holy day. This is not as easy as one might hope. There are lots of parishes, but only one always has a Eucharist on feast days (and that parish has no parking, which presents its own problems). Fortunately, today, Saint Andrew's Day, is a Wednesday; and regular Wednesday Eucharists are rather more common. There were two noon Eucharists within a forty-minute drive of my office, and I decided to try the parish that (a) has a parking lot and (b) is named for Saint Andrew.

I put in my "Advent at Saint Michael's" CD and hit the road, feeling extremely pious and seasonally appropriate. And all was well until I actually got to the church. I had forgotten: yes, they have a parking lot, but they rent out spaces during the week. All the spaces designated for the parish were full. All the rented-out spaces were full.

Nothing.

I drove around for a bit. There was no street parking anywhere remotely close.

Thwarted!

It was too late by this point, so I headed back. As I pulled back into my usual parking space at school, the CD was ending.

Well, I tried.

And at least I got to hear "Lo, he comes with clouds descending" right before I returned to the Crisis of the Day.

Wise things people have said to me recently

"Less bitching. More joy."

"You do realize St Michael's isn't your soulmate, right? There are other parishes out there for you."

"Powerful and successful people know how to say no."

"I hear there's a nice job open at the Cathedral."