Ember letter #3

Dear Bishop:

When I was on the faculty at the University, I used to be grateful for the annual exercise of submitting a new CV to the Dean, with a page summarizing my professional activity for the year gone by. It was a good time to evaluate my productivity, to consider missed opportunities, and to reassess my priorities for the coming year. I was usually pleasantly surprised by what emerged.

These Ember Week letters come at a brisker pace, but I’m finding that they serve a similar function for me. The discipline of taking stock every three months is salutary, and in this case it arrests the feeling, which had been growing on me of late, that I’m not really getting anywhere. It turns out that I am getting somewhere; it just wasn’t where I intended to be going, so I wouldn’t have noticed the progress if I hadn’t been forced to attend to it.

I suppose the most striking thing is the sharp and decided lurch my academic work has taken in the direction of theology. Since my last letter to you I’ve accepted invitations to write two articles (one historical and one not) on theological topics and a book review on the new biography of Augustine, and to participate in a symposium at the next meeting of the American Academy of Religion. My academic work is looking more and more like that of a seminary professor all the time.

I have preached twice: at Saint Swithin's on Epiphany 6, and at SS Simon and Jude, Barchester, on Lent 1. I was quite pleased with how things went at Saint Swithin's, but last Sunday’s sermon was another matter. Perhaps it was just because I was pressed for time – my academic schedule has been surprisingly frantic, and I was out of town for the previous three days to give a talk at Wayne State – but I never quite felt good about that sermon. (I’m enclosing a copy anyway. The Epiphany 6 sermon is on the Saint Swithin's website, if you’re curious.) I put a lot of prayer and study into it, but I clearly also need time to let ideas percolate. I’m scheduled to preach again (all three services) at Saint Swithin's this coming Sunday and at SS Simon and Jude on Good Friday. I’m trying to work in as much preaching as I can, but I’m doing a good deal more playing than preaching. I’ve played nine Sundays in the last three months, and the extra income has been absolutely crucial.

Money, actually, has been the main area in which I can see real spiritual growth. This has been an area of serious transformation for me over the last couple of years, but especially in my time on sabbatical this year. My partner was scandalized a few years back when he found I wasn’t anywhere close to tithing, and of course he was right to be surprised. I made a commitment to increase the proportion of my giving by 1% of my income each year until I reached the tithe. Then the new rector came, and there was a lot of dissatisfaction, and I held back my contributions for a while and considered giving them elsewhere. But I came under conviction about that, and my attitude toward giving was really transformed. I came to enjoy giving in a way I hadn’t before and to be blessed by the opportunity to give, rather than to give or withhold my money in the same spirit in which I give or withhold my vote.

2005 was my 6% year. But in the fall, when I was planning my stay here in Barchester, I calculated my budget and found that the cost of keeping up two residences would put me in the hole each month by almost exactly the amount of my pledge to Saint Swithin's. I was sorely tempted – and I think I do mean tempted – to stop paying my pledge so that I could afford to take my sabbatical without going into debt. But I decided to be faithful to my commitments, and God has abundantly blessed that decision. The money I have been able to make playing the organ has exceeded the amount of my expected deficit. And this has been the second transformation in the financial side of my spiritual life. The first transformation was from a sense of duty to a spirit of delight; the second transformation has been from calculating what I can afford to trusting God to honor the faithfulness that he has granted me. The result: this year I’m tithing, three years ahead of schedule, and with a joy and abandon that I would not have thought possible.

I hope that your Lenten observance brings you more deeply into the mystery of Christ and renews your strength for the work God has set before you. You are, as always, in my prayers.

Yours obediently,

The Postulant