Ember Days

Sunday evening musings

2012-01-29T16:14:00.004-06:00

Some people say that a parish's budget reveals what it values.

It is only because I refuse to believe that that I can stay where I am.

*****

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

2012-01-25T06:01:00.002-06:00

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

2012-01-22T12:24:00.004-06:00

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

2012-01-14T13:53:00.004-06:00

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

2012-01-05T06:36:00.003-06:00

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

2011-12-30T15:21:00.004-06:00

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)

2011-12-30T08:57:00.003-06:00

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)

2011-12-21T12:23:00.003-06:00

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

2011-12-13T07:21:00.004-06:00

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?

2011-12-13T07:01:00.002-06:00

"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

2011-12-12T06:23:00.004-06:00

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)

2011-12-08T06:00:00.001-06:00

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

2011-12-07T13:29:00.003-06:00

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

2011-11-30T11:50:00.004-06:00

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.

A long and self-indulgent post in which I announce, but cannot explain, my decision

2011-11-28T05:19:00.011-06:00

4:45 am. I promised the Dean that I would let him know my decision after Thanksgiving. Here it is, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I'll be at the Cathedral tonight to sing Evensong, and I still haven't made up my mind. "Do not worry beforehand about what you are to say," I think to myself as I lie in bed, clearly going to miss out on that last 45 minutes of sleep I could have had. Do not worry beforehand -- but "beforehand" is just about over, and I wonder what I'm going to say, what I should say.

I get up. Maybe I'll get some sign today at church -- something will go so spectacularly badly that I will know I have to flee, or else there will be some sweet moment that tells me I need to stay where I am. Last week we had Thanksgiving music for Christ the King; maybe today we'll have Easter music for Advent 1. Then, surely, I'll know.

Anyway, this needs extra prayer. Time for Morning Prayer. The Gospel is Luke 21:5-19, and there it is: "Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom."

God has quite the sense of humor.

If only those serendipitous moments from Scripture were a little more directive. I could really have used something more along the lines of "Yea, thou shalt go unto him who is very reverend, and thou shalt take from him that which he hath offered; for where the throne of the overseer is, there shalt thou find the land of promise."

Never seems to work that way.

Off to church. The Rector will celebrate at 8; I will celebrate at 10:15. The Rector has already emailed me to tell me how we'll do the entrance rite at 10:15 -- a hopeful sign. "And how will we do it at 8?" I ask him in the sacristy. This thought has not occurred to him. He leaves the sacristy by one door to find the organist. A minute later, the organist enters the sacristy through the other door, looking for the rector.

It's 7:55.

At breakfast after mass this one parishioner who is always talking about paying for me to take voice lessons is hitting that theme really hard. I want to strangle him. I know -- I think I know -- he doesn't mean it that way, but it's incredibly insulting to have someone constantly telling you he wants to send you to someone who will improve your singing. And I think: I am one big exposed nerve every time I come here. I'm just leaping at every opportunity to be offended. This is not good, or healthy, or sustainable.

I go to another table. This time it turns into a pastoral conversation. And I think: I am needed here, and useful, and it would be wrong for me to leave.

10:15. So here's how the entrance rite is supposed to go. The choir, standing in the narthex, will sing what is called an introit (though no one will enter anything while it's being sung). From the back of the church I will sing the Opening Acclamation and the Collect for Purity. Then a bell will be rung as the choir and altar party process to their respective places. Then, from the foot of the altar steps, I will sing the Kyrie (facing the altar), the Salutation (facing the people), and the Collect of the Day (facing the altar). It's not how I would have planned it myself, but at least there's a plan.

I take my position at the back of the church and signal for everyone to stand. The choir sings a stanza of "Of the Father's love begotten" (which of course is Christmas, not Advent, but whatever). I sing the Opening Acclamation -- the congregational response is very uncertain, since we haven't sung it in a year, and the choir isn't much better; they clearly don't know it. And then -- pay attention here, because this is where I'm going to go completely off the rails -- I sing the Collect for Purity. The choir sings the Amen a whole step lower than my reciting note. How random is that? I don't know exactly what has happened, but I have my suspicions, and I am furious. As I walk to the back of the procession, I snarl at the choir: "My pitch!"

Seriously? Did I just blow my stack because I gave the choir a G and got back an F? Something is seriously, seriously wrong here.

And I think: I am one big exposed nerve every time I come here. I'm just leaping at every opportunity to be offended. This is not good, or healthy, or sustainable.

More minor annoyances follow. The choir's version of the Psalm doesn't match what's in the bulletin -- the antiphons are too few, and in the wrong places. The sequence hymn is "This day at thy creating word," and I wonder why anyone would chose a generic Sunday hymn for the first Sunday of Advent -- and I strongly suspect it's because it's the last hymn before the Advent section begins, and our musician didn't pay close attention. The rector's sermon is a meandering, pointless mess, and I'm now hearing it for the second time.

I am unusually glad that there's a Confession, so I can get my head and heart back in the right place before I stand at the altar.

Coffee hour. I discover that Random Parishioner sorted through a bunch of materials for an Advent adult program, sent a selection for the rector to look over, and got back the reply, "I don't have time to look at these. We'll start something in January." That will be -- what? -- two or three months without any adult education. And what exactly is taking the rector's time?

Yet I still haven't made up my mind what I'm going to say to the Dean. I call to mind what I had done that morning, telling the rector that I'll be gone four Sundays in a row (Christmas with the family, Holy Name singing in the choir at St Michael's, Baptism of Our Lord giving a long-scheduled talk at the Cathedral, Epiphany 2 coming back from a Society of Christian Philosophers thing in Rome). And I have other absences planned, and I want to be free to disappear for big chunks of the summer. You can't do that sort of thing when you're on the payroll. And midway through the drive to the Cathedral city I think, "I can't do this drive every Sunday."

I'm at my usual pre-rehearsal Panera, rereading Julia Gatta's The Nearness of God, hoping for some insight I can use. "If we are being called to a new ministry," she says, "the reasons should be fairly compelling and have more to do with the work ahead than with dissatisfaction and ennui on our part." Hmm.

I get to the Cathedral and look for this morning's bulletin. There's an unrubrical hymn (a song of praise in place of the Gloria, which shouldn't happen in Advent) and -- yes, I was expecting this, indeed looking for it -- an uncanonically promiscuous invitation to Communion: "In the Episcopal Church all are welcome to receive Communion." The unrubrical hymn could be ignorance, but the violation of the Canons has to be defiance. I could correct the ignorance, but I would be powerless to stop the defiance. And obedience to the Canons is, for me, a matter of conscience.

See. It's not perfect anywhere.

An hour and fifteen minutes into rehearsal, the Nunc dimittis is falling apart. The basses simply don't know their music. The organist is radiating dissatisfaction.

At 5:00 we're lined up for the procession for Evensong. I am standing quietly, head bowed and eyes closed in prayer. The Dean sidles up to me. "Still praying?" he asks. "It's yes, isn't it?" I don't know how to respond. I thought I had made up my mind, but even then I wasn't ready to say anything.

After Evensong I took the Dean aside. "I think I have to say no. I left church mad this morning. I leave mad every Sunday. I don't want to leave mad."

I told all this to M when I got home. It was twelve hours after I had left that morning, and I was tired and grumpy. "I understand not wanting to leave mad," he said; "but I'm afraid instead you're going to stay and be mad. You can't do that."

Fair enough.

Wise things people have said to me recently

2011-11-21T15:25:00.002-06:00

"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."

Just say no

2011-11-20T12:12:00.003-06:00

Dear Rector,

When the organist tells you he's going to insert the Virgil Fox arrangement of "Now Thank We All Our God" as processional music between the Opening Acclamation and the Collect for Purity, you tell him no.

Rubrically yours,
The Postulant

P.S. The organist apparently thought today was Thanksgiving. We sang Thanksgiving hymns. The choir sang a God-of-the-harvest anthem. There was no "Crown him with many crowns." Fix this.

P.P.S. There has been no adult education for a month, and as far as I can find there are no plans for adult education any time soon. Fix this.

P.P.P.S. The Prayers of the People left out prayers for the departed. They do this every week. I've been bitching about this for years. Fix this.

P.P.P.P.S. The organist left no silence after the Fraction this morning. He never leaves a silence after the Fraction. Fix this.

A thought

2011-11-17T08:16:00.002-06:00

The fact that I haven't had time to give serious thought to the possibility of taking on a new job at the Cathedral rather suggests that I don't have time to take on a new job at the Cathedral, doesn't it?

Some reasons I should be the next Dean at Sewanee

2011-11-15T05:15:00.001-06:00

Here are some reasons I should be the next Dean of the School of Theology at the University of the South:

The last two deans were medievalists with Catholic sensibilities. Thus, my appointment would conform to the first rule of Anglican orthodoxy: "We've always done it that way!"
Clearly, the dean of Sewanee should have the same last name as the Archbishop of Canterbury. (I am prepared to change my name to Sentamu in a few years.)
I am a Tennessean and say "y'all" completely unselfconsciously.
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament will be offered regularly. I have an inside source who knows where the monstrance is kept.
As chair of a department with twelve full-time faculty, two dozen graduate students, two hundred undergraduate majors, and an army of adjuncts, I have administrative experience. Granted, it dates all the way back to August, but still.
I will champion brilliantly unconventional techniques for education and formation, including (a) polygraph examinations during the Creed and (b) a special video "Spot That Rubrical Violation" test as part of the GOE.

Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. I need all the help I can get for that application letter.

UPDATE

I can't believe I almost forgot the best one:

I frequently quote William Porcher DuBose in casual conversation.

Suddenly things get serious

2011-11-07T16:32:00.005-06:00

I've been a bit adrift lately, thinking vaguely about finding another place to land and bitching diffusely about my discontents but taking no steps to make things better. This morning, though, I met with the Dean of the Cathedral. We talked about how much trouble I've had coming down from the mountaintop experience at St Michael's, about my pull toward parish ministry and the obstacles thrown up by my current role as department chair, about my feeling taken for granted in my current parish, about how people in the parish are looking to me to provide the energy that my rector seems to lack -- and about how I'm just not in a position to do that.

A few hours after this conversation, the Dean emailed me: "I've prayed about it. How about coming to the Cathedral starting in January? Stipend would be $500/mo. We can reevaluate in June."

There is, I am realizing, a huge difference between thinking vaguely about possibilities and entertaining an actual offer.

I have some praying to do.

Tidbits

2011-10-30T15:57:00.004-05:00

Me to M after church today: "So the Rector has asked [Random Parishioner] to organize some sort of adult education to tide us over until Christmas."

M: "I swear, pretty soon you'll show up at church and there'll be a mop at the altar."

*****

That same Random Parishioner to me (lovingly): "St Michael's has ruined you!"

Why yes. Yes it has.

*****

I just emailed the St Michael's clergy to let them know that I'll be in town from St John the Evangelist through Holy Name and offer to help out if they need me.

It occurs to me that I may already be too late. In my parish we haven't even set the schedule for November, but at St Michael's they believe in this weird "advanced planning" thing.

*****

Am I attending our national disciplinary convention solely because it's in the same city as St Michael's?

DUH.

*****

I attended an LCMS elementary school. I remember very vividly that we sang "Fairest Lord Jesus" (to St Elizabeth) in chapel with some regularity. It was quite unlike the revivalist hymns we sang in my Southern Baptist church, and I rather liked it.

My fourth-grade teacher was an alto, and she sang harmony. This was an entirely new idea to me -- I was able to read music, of course (I had been playing the piano for a few years at that point), but the notion that one might actually sing harmony on hymns was a complete revelation -- and I happened to be sitting next to her in chapel when we were singing "Fairest Lord Jesus" when I first experienced this brave new world.

So if you're wondering why, on our unaccompanied stanza of "Fairest Lord Jesus" this morning, the celebrant was singing the tenor line with remarkable gusto, now you know.

A post in which I do not grumble about anything at all

2011-10-22T18:53:00.004-05:00

Random observations from diocesan convention:

I really, really like the Bishop of My Sojourn.

I have excellent, caring, supportive clergy colleagues.

The organist at Morning Prayer played with grace, flair, and elegance, supporting and inspiriting the singing without dominating it.

Our senior warden is awesome.

This is not helpful

2011-10-16T16:41:00.004-05:00

I get to church a little before 7:30. The very first person who sees me asks me when I'll be doing adult ed again.

The rector hears. "This is what I'm talking about," I say to him.

*****

"I thought we had lost you," says another parishioner after the 8:00.

I missed one Sunday.

I know it's because they love me and they like having me around, but this does not stop the phrase "Get off my ass" from running through my head.

*****

And why, exactly, am I here? The RC priest is preaching. I celebrate both services.

The rector makes the announcements.

*****

This morning I celebrated my 96th and 97th masses of the year. Clearly I don't quite get the concept of the non-parochial priest.

*****

If you're looking for pointers about how you can be an encouragement to the non-stipe who is reluctantly trying to back away from parish ministry for the sake of his own well-being (at the very same time that he feels deeply and definitively called to that very ministry), here's how it goes. An actual conversation after the 10:15 Eucharist:

D.: "So, were your ears burning yesterday?"

Me: "Why, was someone talking about me?"

D.: "T. and I were talking about how great it is when you're able to be with us. There's just a certain presence in the liturgy that's so much better when you're here."

And that, brethren and sistren, is helpful.

It's all been downhill since the Anselm book

2011-10-14T16:41:00.003-05:00

Jobs I enjoy, in descending order of how joyful and satisfying they are:

(1) being a priest
(2) doing philosophy
(3) teaching philosophy

How I actually spend my time:

5% being a priest
5% doing philosophy
10% teaching philosophy
80% fielding angry emails from irrational colleagues/writing 30-page reports that no one will read/complying with ever-shifting demands from a Heraclitean administration

Now this sounds promising

2011-10-13T06:48:00.003-05:00

I mostly comment on parish profiles to snark about how I'm obviously not the right fit. But take a look at this, from the Transition Ministry Newsletter:

They remain an eastward position parish, employing Rite I for most services, with great attention paid to their musical tradition. They value strong, fairly intellectual preaching. This is a place where beauty matters, and beauty interpreted in fairly traditional terms; Conservative in public life but socially liberal; Single/married, straight, gay will be of little account to these folks.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Seminary hiring

2011-10-03T05:48:00.003-05:00

(via the American Academy of Religion's job listings) One notices that they're considering hiring senior people.

General Theological Seminary

Early and Medieval Church History

The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (www.gts.edu) invites qualified candidates to apply for a tenure-track/tenured position in Church History, specializing in the early (patristic) and medieval church. The appointee will take up his or her duties on July 1, 2012. Rank will be determined according to qualifications and experience. Teaching responsibilities include foundational courses and electives in church history for M.Div., M.A., S.T.M., and Th.D. students. In addition the candidate must be able to direct Th.D. dissertations. Applicants must have a Ph.D. or Th.D., evidence of effective teaching, service to the church, and a good publishing record or indication of potential in this area. Familiarity with the Anglican tradition and a willingness to participate in the life of a seminary community are essential. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Candidates wishing to be considered for preliminary interviews at the AAR meeting in San Francisco should apply by November 1, 2011. Please send letter of application, curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation to: Chair of the Church History Search Committee, The General Theological Seminary, 440 West 21st Street, New York, NY 10011.

General Theological Seminary

Systematic Theology

The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (www.gts.edu) invites qualified candidates to apply for a tenure-track/tenured position in Systematic Theology to begin July 1, 2012. A secondary field of competence in ethics is particularly desirable. Rank will be determined according to qualifications and experience. Teaching responsibilities include foundational courses and electives in systematic theology and ethics for M.Div., M.A., S.T.M., and Th.D. students. In addition the candidate must be able to direct Th.D. dissertations. Applicants must have a Ph.D. or Th.D., evidence of effective teaching, service to the church, and a good publishing record or indication of potential in this area. Familiarity with the Anglican tradition and a willingness to participate in the life of a seminary community are essential. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Candidates wishing to be considered for preliminary interviews at the AAR meeting in San Francisco should apply by November 1, 2011. Please send letter of application, curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation to: Chair of the Systematic Theology Search Committee, The General Theological Seminary, 440 West 21st Street, New York, NY 10011.

I still smell of chrism

2011-10-02T17:13:00.003-05:00

Today was the bishop's visitation. Everything was seemly, reverent, and rubrical. Presbyters of the diocese, take note.

*****

There were two baptisms today. The bishop is not sparing in his use of chrism, and there was nothing handy for him to wipe his hands. After he had given the Peace, he turned to me, showed me his oily hands, and asked, "Would you take my mitre?" We then shook hands for the Peace. "That's the first time I've ever asked anyone to take off my hat for me," he noted.

Seven hours later, I still smell of chrism.

I like it.

*****

I know people mean well, but there is all the difference in the world between "It's so good to see you!" and "Where have you been?"

*****

I had a nice talk with the Rector after all the hoohah today. I told him I was hurt by being overlooked in the appeal letter. I told him I couldn't sustain the inconsistent treatment by which I am treated as though I have already checked out of the parish altogether and yet, at the same time, made to feel guilty for every Sunday I'm away. I told him that I will be looking for another place to land.

It may have been the first time in my life that I managed a conversation like that without defensiveness, without anger, without tears, but just calmly and matter-of-factly.

It's good that in my forty-fifth year I have finally managed to attain some modest degree of maturity.

*****

Of course, finding another place to land is not as easy as it sounds. The music and liturgy at St Thaddeus are good, but the rector's a terrible preacher and I hate the way he talks. The choir at St Martha's, where I visited last week, is really sounding nice, but the new rector's style of Eucharistic presidency is way too charismatic and loopy-swoopy for my taste.

Visiting other parishes with the thought "Could I be happy serving here?" is unedifying.

*****

There's always the Cathedral. It's way too far to go every Sunday -- but isn't the whole idea of this that I can't manage every Sunday anyway?

How to run off your volunteer clergy

2011-09-27T06:34:00.009-05:00

Expect them to be at everything.

The default assumption should be that they are at every service and every major parish event. If you leave it to them to tell you when they're available, they'll do only as much as they can manage. If, on the other hand, you assume that they'll be at everything, and they have to make a special effort to get their names off the rota, they will be subtly pressured to do much more than they can manage, leading to burnout and hastening their departure.

Don't listen to them.

If your non-stipe tells you that he needs to take a break for a few weeks, be sure to schedule him to supply for you (for free, of course) at least twice during that period.

Don't talk to them.

OK, so you've made the mistake of giving your volunteer clergy some time off. All is not lost. You can still run them off by avoiding communication with them while they're away. Do not share any important parish news or check in with them in any way. Remember: you keep in touch with colleagues and friends, not with minions.

Multiply small indignities.

If you have a visiting priest in for a month, unceremoniously dump the guy who has faithfully done that weekday morning Eucharist for you for years. If you send out a letter specifically naming and recognizing volunteers, leave out the guy who has done as much preaching and celebrating as you have for the last two years. This step takes some finesse, because if what you do is too blatant, people in the congregation will notice and say something. That's why I say small indignities -- they should be noticeable only to the non-stipe (and his or her spouse, who, let's face it, is probably a complainer anyway).

Complain about your salary or working conditions.

The most brilliant move I have ever seen along these lines was when a full-time and reasonably well-paid priest complained bitterly to a colleague about how, for the special worship service to be held that evening, the musicians were all being paid but no one had even thought of offering him an honorarium. Since his colleague wasn't being paid for full-time volunteer work (and had indeed spent a fair bit of his own money to travel to the parish and had given to support their music program), this complaint was not terribly well-received. Now not everyone can reach this level of offensive cluelessness, but it is certainly something for all runners-off-of-volunteer-clergy to aspire to.

Never offer them anything.

Even the occasional offer of a token housing allowance, reimbursement for mileage expenses, or whatever will make your volunteer clergy feel appreciated. This must be avoided at all costs.

Unedifying thoughts from Matthewmas

2011-09-22T06:20:00.005-05:00

St Luke's is beginning a modest capital campaign to retire some debt and replace the organ. As I was hanging around before the service yesterday evening, the Rector showed me the materials that are about to be sent out. The appeal letter includes thanks for the help of various staff members and others who have worked so generously without pay. Mentioned by name are

the deacon,
the head verger,
the former RC priest who does some preaching and teaching,
the young mother who coordinates the children's programs,
and the retired priest and her husband who have begun helping in various ways.

Does it strike you at all that someone is missing from that list?

I swear, I am this close to sending my tithe to St Michael's.

*****

The celebrant is praying the Eucharistic prayer. Two of the youth, young women who have been chatting and fidgeting through the whole service and are unfortunately directly in my line of sight, have become unusually animated, drawing my eyes away from the altar.

Wait a second. They're . . .

are they . . .

they're practicing cheers.

During the Canon of the Mass.

This would never have happened when Curate Classic was still here.

How I know I'm back at St Michael's

2011-09-19T11:48:00.003-05:00

It's midafternoon on Sunday. I'm having a cocktail with a friend, talking about vocational stuff, and I get a text from the assistant music director: "R u sober enough to sing E&B? Our tenor is broken down in West Mesopotamia!!??"

*****

It's noon on Monday. The Vicar calls: "The next time you're back in town, I'm going to be away, and the Rector is scheduled for all three masses. Do you want to be the celebrant at the solemn mass?"

*****

I just so feel so useful.

But I wanted it to be unanimous

2011-09-12T16:52:00.003-05:00

The rector of St Michael's, catching up with his flock after returning from sabbatical, told his Vicar that in general the various visiting clergy had about 50-50 support: roughly as many people liked them as disliked them. But there was one exception: "Everyone seems to adore Fr Postulant," he reported.

A few weeks later, Fr Rector has lunch with a parishioner and reports, "Finally, someone who isn't head over heels in love with Fr Postulant."

This is reported to me by the Vicar. Those of you who know me (even if only from this blog) will know that my chief reaction is not enormous gratitude that I am overwhelmingly loved by these wonderful people. Of course not.

My chief reaction is to wonder who this loathsome person is, and how we might go about having him or her excommunicated.

John Henry Hobart

2011-09-12T15:01:00.002-05:00

An email from a dear friend reminds me that today is the feast day of my favorite Episcopalian, Bishop John Henry Hobart. Somehow I managed to observe his day better last year, when it was dropped (because it fell on a Sunday), than this year, when it actually remains on the calendar. But you can follow the link if you're interested in hearing my spiel about Bishop Hobart and the Old High Churchmen.

Yes, I know, the first person to quote the canons is the loser

2011-09-04T14:17:00.004-05:00

[T]he Member of the Clergy shall have final authority in the administration of matters pertaining to music. In fulfilling this responsibility the Member of the Clergy shall seek assistance from persons skilled in music. Together they shall see that music is appropriate to the context in which it is used. -- Canon II.5 (emphasis added)

Guess what our sequence hymn was today.

No, really. Guess.

Wrong!

It was "Come with us, O blessed Jesus."

But wait, you say. What about the line "and though leaving now thine altar, let us nevermore leave thee"? What about "Now we go to seek and serve thee, through our work as through our prayer"? Isn't that a tad . . . premature . . . when we haven't even heard the Gospel yet?

Indeed.

Today we also had two arias from Elijah for Communion music: "It Is Enough" and "O Rest in the Lord." That's nine minutes or so of music. They got a late start for some reason, so Communion had been administered and the ablutions were finished well before "It Is Enough" was done, and there was still "O Rest in the Lord" to get through.

"It was really beautiful," said one choir member to me in the sacristy afterward, "but . . ." She didn't want to finish the sentence.

"But totally inappropriate," I said.

"Yes, thank you," she said, relieved. "It was a concert dropped into the middle of the liturgy."

And what did Elijah's turmoil have to do with anything in today's lectionary?

Our musician is brilliant, but he is not from a liturgical, lectionary-driven tradition. He needs help and guidance from the "Member of the Clergy" envisioned by the canons -- the rector. But the rector just won't give it.

And this Member of the Clergy, not being the Member of the Clergy, needs to learn to hold his tongue.

I am giving thanks for a very lovely day

2011-09-01T17:53:00.003-05:00

I am giving thanks for a very lovely day.

For the first time in my life, I have a nice office. Today I finished decorating it (translation: M. figured out where all the pictures should go, and I watched). I like the way the stuff on the walls speaks of different periods and facets of my life: posters from the plays I was in during graduate school (when I should have been doing philosophy), the teaching award from my previous university, the poster from the big lecture I gave during my sabbatical year, my ordination certificates, pictures of my nieces.

I had a good and helpful chat with a wise clergy colleague.

The spring course schedule is just about done, weeks in advance of the deadline. Everyone's preferences are being respected, the curriculum is the best and most balanced the department has offered in years, and it was all accomplished with great cooperation all around.

I wrote an enthusiastic letter of recommendation and actually meant every word of it.

A colleague who I used to think was awesome, but who actually turns out to be super-awesome, gave me great advice about how to be a department chair. Plus, I got to brag to her about all the great things M. is doing, and how he's mentioned in the current issue of a general-interest publication of some renown.

The hilariously inarticulate student email complaining about a course policy in one of my faculty's classes gave me a widely-enjoyed Facebook status update, but the student didn't come to my office today, as I had invited her to do. Win-win.

Job Wanted

2011-08-19T05:59:00.002-05:00

Priest (slightly used, like-new condition) seeks opportunity to exercise priestly vocation as liturgist, teacher, preacher, and pastor. Position must be compatible with full-time job outside the Church. Salary required, $0. Must not involve doing, for no pay, work that someone else is being well-paid to do.

A prayer

2011-08-05T18:28:00.002-05:00

Heavenly Father,

I have just two more days here.

Help me to finish strong.

I am exhausted. I am spent.

Help me to finish strong.

You asked me to be a pastor after Evening Prayer tonight. Thank you for giving me the words.

There will be confessions to be heard tomorrow, the mysteries to be celebrated, Evensong to be sung, a meditation to be written. Sustain me.

Help me to finish strong.

Sunday will be glorious, and it will be difficult. Uphold me.

Help me to finish strong.

Of long goodbyes

2011-08-04T12:01:00.004-05:00

It is my final week at St Michael's. There are a lot of "lasts" to get through, and a lot of goodbyes to be said.

I am leaving a place where I have been fulfilled and useful, where I have been able, for all too brief a period, to live into something approaching the fullness of priestly ministry. I have made wonderful friends, been treated to countless meals and drinks, enjoyed several years' worth of social engagements, read through huge amounts of choral repertoire in the company of two dozen or so very fine singers, and experienced fourteen weeks of exceptional hymn-playing and choral singing.

This morning was my last day at breakfast after the 7 am mass. As we were sitting down, the wife of one of the other visiting clergy turned to me and said, "They love you here."

I started to cry.

I love them too.

Right back at you

2011-08-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

I like this post.

Things I don't understand

2011-07-27T05:17:00.002-05:00

Why Tanner Cohen isn't a big star, or at least a regular on Glee.

Why Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler never received Emmys for their five seasons of portraying the best-written, best-acted married couple in the history of television.

How someone who's been a parish priest for nearly a decade can be so ill at ease in the liturgy.

How General is doing all this hiring without ever having advertised the jobs with the American Academy of Religion, or even on their own website.

Why our department's office manager isn't even trying to get on the good side of her new boss -- me -- but is instead ignoring my emails about two reimbursement checks that are now eight months overdue.

Why, on my return home, I won't just ditch my current parish and start over somewhere else, where I can establish proper boundaries from the beginning.

Why my rector hasn't bothered to inform me about major parish news -- important deaths and departures. (Thank goodness for concerned friends in the parish, and for Facebook.)

Where my over-developed sense of duty came from.

All I have to say after ten days of radio silence

2011-07-26T09:41:00.001-05:00

Well, the pattern of overfunctioning followed by meltdown continues, and indeed with greater intensity.

Gotta do something about that.

The hard stuff is the good stuff

2011-07-16T05:58:00.006-05:00

The life of a non-parochial priest -- well, maybe I shouldn't generalize -- let me just say that my life as a non-parochial priest is taken up mostly with the easy stuff. Sure, I've had problems with getting the balance right, letting myself take on too much at church on the side of a full-time job; but the aspects of priestly ministry that I ordinarily get to experience are the easy ones. (Well, OK, I do rather work myself up into a stew every time I prepare to preach. But presiding at worship and teaching are straightforward.)

Working full-time in a parish, though, I get to experience the hard stuff -- the stuff that doesn't come naturally to me, the stuff that's spiritually demanding or otherwise just plain difficult. I'm doing a funeral today for someone whom I never knew and who was not, I understand, a churchgoer; her son, whom I also don't know, is a parishioner. Preaching under such circumstances is difficult. I've been doing a lot of pastoral calls, visits to nursing homes and hospitals and to homebound parishioners. That's not something that comes naturally to me, and it takes a lot of energy out of me. I have become a counselor and confessor; I have been entrusted with confidences that it was painful to hear and asked for advice about situations that were frightening to contemplate.

These kinds of things -- all perfectly normal for parish clergy -- are, for me, the hard stuff. But I'm finding that the hard stuff is the good stuff. Preparing that funeral sermon was about as challenging a thing as I've done as a priest, but it refreshed me in my faith, and I have some hope that it will speak the word that needs to be heard in this situation. Pastoral visitation may demand a lot of me that isn't easy to give, but it turns out that I'm not actually that bad at it, and there's a joy in having ministered in that way that makes me wonder why so many clergy seem to avoid doing it. And is there anything I do as a priest -- other than administering the Eucharist -- in which I know myself to be a vehicle of God's grace more clearly than when I am able to say "The Lord has put away all your sins"?

The hard stuff is the good stuff.

In three short weeks I'll be going back to my normal life. I'll have to give up the hard stuff; indeed, it looks as though I'll be having to cut back pretty severely even on the easy stuff. But I'm grateful for having learned about the hard stuff. Perhaps I've caught a glimpse of what will, some day soon, be my new normal.

I rather hope so.

Bits and pieces

2011-07-13T17:57:00.003-05:00

Anglican cassocks now outnumber Roman cassocks among the clergy at St Michael's, and Southerners are now a majority.

Slowly but surely, brethren . . .

*****

The one respect in which I might make a good bishop is that, as it turns out, I'm good at giving pastoral care to clergy. Who knew?

*****

It is flattering when someone quotes back to me an old sermon of mine. It is disconcerting when someone quotes an old blog post.

*****

Our visiting seminarian used to attend Bishop Hobart's seminary but then transferred to study among the heirs of DuBose. I couldn't keep myself from asking him which seminary was more academically rigorous. He gave me the answer I was hoping to hear. But since I have readers and friends from both seminaries, I'm not telling.

Happiness is . , ,

2011-07-11T07:46:00.002-05:00

Happiness is . .

Vineyard Haven, Gott sei Dank, Rendez à Dieu, and Duke Street all in one service, all played brilliantly and sung with gusto

complimenting the director of the visiting choir on their very fine singing of Anglican chant and seeing how genuinely touched he was

an eighteen-hour day of worship and conversation that ends only because I know I do need some sleep

arriving much later than usual for Monday morning mass and knowing that the ever-reliable acolyte will have taken care of everything

Liturgy voice

2011-07-06T07:54:00.003-05:00

One of the fascinating aspects of doing the daily office and daily mass with lots of different acolytes is the discovery of how many people have a special "liturgy voice" that bears no relationship to their normal way of speaking. We all know priests who suddenly develop a slight English accent when they are speaking liturgically, or who flatten out their usual pitch patterns into something more monotone and Vincent Price-y. That's strange enough, but I'm talking about people who put on entirely different ways of speaking. There's one acolyte who swoops and soars in the most extreme sing-song; she can run up and down two or three octaves just in saying "The angel of the Lord announced unto Mary." There's another, who in real life has a pleasant and perfectly normal speaking voice, on the low side for a woman, who adopts a high-pitched, tweeting, chirping, tensely articulated voice for liturgical purposes, as though she's been sucking on lemons laced with helium.

Personally, I'd like to think that I manage to avoid "liturgy voice" by speaking with maximum pretentiousness at all times. But actually, I have to admit to one thing: I adopt post-coronal glides for liturgical purposes that are absent from my usual speech. Normally, 'new' for me is pronounced 'noo' and 'tune' is 'toon'; but if I'm preaching or celebrating, it's 'nyoo' and 'tyoon.'

Don't ask me why.

Sermon for Independence Day

2011-07-04T19:01:00.003-05:00

Independence Day
4 July 2011

✠ I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

I’ve heard two kinds of sermons on Independence Day. The first kind starts by asking why Independence Day is a Prayer Book Feast in the first place – and that’s a really good question, when you think about it – and segues neatly into the observation that we should not give to the nation the unquestioning allegiance, the unwavering priority, that we give to God. That is sheer idolatry – and (this kind of preacher warns us) we who love our nation are perpetually in danger of giving to the United States the reverence and love and fidelity that by right belong to God alone. The American republic, after all, is not the kingdom of God; and we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, not by the wisdom of the Founders.

I would think that this sort of warning against idolatry would be completely unnecessary – I mean, really, is our theology at all likely to be that out of whack? our patriotism that out of bounds? – were it not for the second kind of Independence Day sermon. This kind of sermon uses our national celebration as an occasion to explain that some law, movement, political party, or philosophy of governance is a clear affront to the Gospel and must be rejected in the name of fidelity to Christ – or that some other law, movement, political party, or philosophy of governance is obviously required by the Gospel and must be embraced in the name of fidelity to Christ. Such sermons in my experience tell us a lot about the preacher’s politics and very little about the Gospel – but leaving that aside, they do rather bump up against the idolatry problem, don’t they? If the Gospel becomes identified with a particular point of view in politics, and we demand and expect that the American republic will embody the kingdom of God, and its institutions will bring about salvation – provided, of course, that our favorite politicians are in charge and those other ones are cast into outer darkness – well, it does begin to sound uncomfortably as though we are looking for redemption from the nation, forgetting that we are strangers and foreigners on earth, and that we desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

So let me try a third kind of sermon: one that simply expresses thankfulness for this great nation, a nation that is not God, or the kingdom of God, but is surely a gift to us from God.

I am thankful that this is a nation founded, not upon an ethnicity, or a personality, or even a history, but upon a noble idea.

I am thankful that the nation so conceived and so dedicated has long endured, and that by the providence of God, government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the earth.

I am thankful for those who over two centuries and more have called us into a fuller realization of that noble idea, that all men and women are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator – not by courts or congresses, but by their Creator – with certain unalienable rights.

I am thankful for those who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties that we now enjoy; and I am thankful for those who, at this very moment, are beset by perils in their service of this country.

I am thankful that the thought of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness still inspires us and stirs our hearts.

I am thankful. Join me, brothers and sisters, in giving thanks for the great gift of this great nation – but, mindful that we are strangers and foreigners on earth, let us so express our thankfulness, and so use the gift of our liberties, that we do not cease to desire a still better country, a heavenly one, and to give thanks above all else for that greatest gift, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed, as is most justly due, all might, dominion, majesty, and glory, world without end. Amen.

I'm really not supposed to notice these things, but . . .

2011-06-24T18:03:00.004-05:00

Evening Prayer and Mass are in the choir. No one has set out the psalters, office books, and mass books.

The officiant for Evening Prayer is only half-vested. He sits in the wrong place.

The priest has no psalter. I hand him mine -- the one I just retrieved from the sacristy, because apparently we're on the self-service principle tonight -- and go rummaging in the choir stalls for a Prayer Book. I get lucky.

The officiant begins, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." 'Doth' has the vowel of 'moth' instead of the vowel of 'does.'

Time for mass. The celebrant and acolyte enter through the wrong door. The acolyte wanders off to some mysterious place of his own choosing. Two members of the acolyte corps who are present in the congregation send him back to the right place, where he squirms and sprawls for most of the Liturgy of the Word.

The acolyte is preaching. For some reason he has left his sermon text in the choir stalls instead of on the lectern, so he takes a curious detour before starting the sermon.

He pronounces 'prophesy' as 'prophecy.'

(Actually -- much as I hate to spoil this post -- it's otherwise quite a good sermon.)

Time for the Confession. The acolyte is supposed to start it, but he forgets, so the celebrant starts it -- except that what he actually starts is the absolution, spoken sotto voce while bowing low with the congregation silently wondering what to do. A priest who is in the congregation voices a hearty "Most merciful God," and we get back on track.

The mass intentions are a syntactical nightmare -- complete gibberish.

The gate of the altar rail should never have been open in the first place, but given that it was open, the acolyte should have closed it. The aforementioned two members of the acolyte corps deftly go forward and close the gate themselves, with a minimum of intrusiveness.

It's the wrong Proper Preface.

The celebrant is of course facing east, so the elevations to just below eye level really don't do the trick.

After the dismissal, the celebrant heads down the altar steps. He realizes that he forgot to osculate, heads back up to remedy that omission, and tries the descent again. This time it takes.

Meditation before the Blessed Sacrament (Trinity Sunday)

2011-06-20T08:35:00.001-05:00

Lord Jesus Christ,

There is a moment in the mass that passes without bells, without fanfare, almost without acknowledgment. But it is the most amazing moment.

The words of institution have been said, the Holy Spirit has been called down over the gifts of bread and wine, and the last echoes of the Great Amen have made their way into the air and vanished.

The moment passes without bells, without fanfare, almost without acknowledgment. But it is the most amazing moment.

For at that moment, we are assured that you are among us. At that moment the gulf between heaven and earth is bridged. At that moment eternity enters time and God again tabernacles among us. At that moment, as surely as in Bethlehem, you are present, body and soul, humanity and divinity.

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given! Without bells, without fanfare, almost without acknowledgment, this cataclysm of nature takes place, this overturning of all that we think we know about the transcendence and perfection of God and the limitation and brokenness of humanity.

At that moment we pass quickly to the words you have taught us to pray, and the memorial that you have commanded us to make, and we feed on your presence.

It is right, Lord Jesus, that we should hasten to pray as you have taught us to pray, that we should hasten to eat your flesh and drink your blood as you have commanded.

But is it not also right, Lord Jesus, that we should take that moment – that moment in which we are assured that you are among us, when the gulf between heaven and earth is bridged, when eternity enters time and God again tabernacles among us – and linger there for a while?

And so we kneel before you in awe and gratitude for this cataclysm of nature, this overturning of all that we think we know about the transcendence and perfection of God and the limitation and brokenness of humanity. We gladly, reverently, linger now in that moment in which the wondrous gift is silently given, and offer the bells and the fanfare and the singing and the shouts of joy that are surely meet and right when you are present among us.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the wondrous gift of your presence. Thank you for imparting to human hearts the blessings of your heaven. Bless us by your glorious presence as we linger now in the moment when the gulf between heaven and earth is bridged, when you tabernacle among us.

Blessed are you, Lord Jesus, our great High Priest, interceding for us, feeding us, and bestowing on us the wondrous gift of your never-failing presence. Amen.

In memoriam

2011-06-16T13:10:00.003-05:00

I learn from Mad Priest that Todd Bates, who blogged as the Anglican Scotist, has died at the age of 42. Despite the fact that Todd and I were both blogging Episcopalians writing on Scotus, living in the same state, and publishing in the same venues, I barely knew him personally; we met once at the American Philosophical Association, and that was it. Yet I knew him from his blog and from his scholarly work as a formidable scholar and a fine philosopher. Being myself just two years older than Todd, I can hardly conceive that he has departed this life. May God strengthen his wife and daughters to bear their loss.

Requiescat in pace et resurgat in gloriam.

The sickness unto annoyance

2011-06-16T07:43:00.002-05:00

As I have commented before in this space, I am seldom sick, and never for very long. So I am very put out by this lingering cold of mine, which tomorrow will enter its third week.

As an ill person with daily mass duties, you learn some interesting but wholly unedifying things.

You learn how quickly you can get through the canon of the mass when you're trying to outrace a cough.

You learn how to adjust your manual actions so as to minimize contact with, and breathing on, the bread and wine.

You also learn that doing this on the fly is very taxing for someone whose head is fogged with congestion and cold medicine.

You learn how to maneuver your non-dominant hand gracefully through several layers of vestments in order to retrieve the cough drops that you have unaccountably put in your left pocket.

Well, I signed on for this gig so that I'd learn stuff. This just wasn't quite what I had in mind.

Interim discernment report

2011-06-13T08:20:00.004-05:00

From my time at St Michael's thus far I may have learned any or all of the following:

I would greatly enjoy being a parish priest.
I don't have the spiritual and emotional resources needed to be a parish priest.
I need to learn to say no.
Nine days of mass in a row is too much.
I miss my husband.
The eleventh day of a lingering cold is not a good time to be having deep thoughts about vocational discernment.

Today I'm feeling (2), but if one takes into account (4), (5), and especially (6), I am still hopeful that I'll ultimately conclude (1).

(3) is true in any case.

Also, very much (5).

Saturday evening musings

2011-06-11T18:17:00.003-05:00

Here's a recipe for a very fine social event:

The charming young host has remembered my favorite drink and even bought my favorite bourbon especially for me.

A couple of the other guests know all my old friends, and ancient nemeses, from Sewanee, St Swithin's, and the University of Barsetshire.

The conversation is earnest without being somber, frivolous without being flippant, and satirical without being uncharitable.

*****

The party was mostly musicians. The contrast with my experience with philosophers last week at that hideous conference could not have been starker. When I arrived in Barchester, I went straight to meet a friend for drinks -- thinking that it would just be the two of us and perhaps his dissertation adviser. But when I joined him at the pub, there were a dozen philosophers there; and the very moment I sat down someone asked me about Henry of Ghent on causal powers or some such nonsense. The whole conference was like that. Philosophers are relentless. They are incapable of chitchat. Thank goodness for musicians.

*****

I think it's a very safe bet that I will not be invited to that same conference next year. I skipped half the sessions, didn't say a word except when I was the designated commenter, and talked about preaching (of all things) in my commentary. All through my comments -- which were perhaps a bit lame, but at least they were amusing, and delivered with panache -- a very renowned (and utterly humorless) philosopher was giving me the stink eye.

Did I mention that I'm finding philosophers rather irritating just at present?

Of episcopal elections

2011-06-05T05:32:00.002-05:00

I see that the nominee described in this earlier post of mine has been elected. Good choice, I have to think.

In which the Postulant completely loses control of his schedule

2011-06-02T09:43:00.004-05:00

So I'm sitting at a Panera in the city that I have habitually referred to in these pages (pixels?) as Barchester, and I am thinking gloomy thoughts.

I'm here for a conference that begins in about an hour. It's the sort of conference that requires everyone to have read the papers in advance so that we can dispense with the most boring part of conferences -- the being-read-to by people who are generally not gifted readers -- and get right to the discussion.

I've read three of the ten papers.

I'm a commentator on one of the papers tomorrow. I received the paper on Monday, and what with four masses to celebrate, a bunch of other church responsibilities, and a day of travel between then and now, I haven't written those comments.

I barely have an idea what I'm going to say.

I get back from the conference on Saturday night. I'm preaching Sunday.

Any guesses as to how far along my sermon is?

Exactly.

There is a certain peace that comes when you recognize that you're so well and truly screwed that you might as well just accept it.

Scenes from St Michael's

2011-05-29T06:53:00.009-05:00

The summer intern, an undergraduate, is responsible for the homily for the next major feast; I'm responsible for reading it and commenting on it. Having forgotten that some undergraduates -- just not mine -- are smart and capable writers, I am filled with dread.

Not only is it quite good, but the kid has deftly incorporated an allusion to a hymn. What more could I ask for?

*****

I'm leaving after Evening Prayer, before the mass, since I celebrated in the morning. The Vicar, who is going back to the sacristy to put on his chasuble, sees me and gives me a thumbs-up. I wonder what that's for. Maybe it's because I saw the intern -- shadowing the acolyte -- without a Daily Office book and Prayer Book at Evening Prayer and discreetly supplied him with the necessary items. Maybe it's because I had been in the church praying while a difficult meeting was going on concerning a pastoral matter of some urgency. Who knows? I will just receive it gratefully.

*****

A certain Broadway megastar is appearing nearby in a famous musical. I am very excited about this, and since I am surrounded by Anglo-Catholics, I assume that I will have no difficulty finding people who want to go with me. It is at this point that I am reminded that there are musical theatre gays and opera gays, and I learn that apparently your higher-quality Anglo-Catholics belong to the latter tribe. I suppose I must go back to calling myself a Hobartian.

*****

As deacon at the Solemn Mass on Sunday, I am a bit befuddled by a couple of liturgical details. The Vicar smiles at me and says, "Late night last night?" In fact I was virtuously in bed at 9:00, having turned down a most appealing invitation for the sake of rest. So, no excuse: I'm just a bit stupid. Later, the Vicar misses an elevation, and I take some solace in that.

*****

I am returning from the reading of the Gospel. The organist is playing, and he begins quoting Tallis's "If ye love me," which at the earlier mass had been sung as well as I've ever heard it sung.

Jesus and I have a moment.

It's going to be tough to go home.

Note to self

2011-05-24T08:22:00.003-05:00

It doesn't how much you want to debrief after the walkabout and how much you enjoy the company of all sorts and conditions of parishioners. You do not stay out until after midnight when you have the morning mass.

Count it all joy

2011-05-23T07:53:00.004-05:00

It is Saturday afternoon, and I'm singing at a wedding -- my first time ever as a paid singer. (It occurs to me that with this gig and that one time I supplied at the Church of Saint Hezekiah the Unremarkable, my lifetime earnings as a singer are exactly equal to my lifetime earnings as a priest.) There are two to a part: the other tenor is (much) the better singer, but I'm supposed to be the better sightreader. And it's true that I'm better than he is, but I'm not winning any sightreading competitions today, alas.

At a few points during the service I get choked up a bit, thinking about my M., whom I haven't seen in three weeks and won't see for another ten weeks or so. That's quite normal for our summers, but the whole Celebration of Love business does rather get to one at times like that.

The sequence hymn is "Come, thou fount of ev'ry blessing." Before the service I had encouraged the organist to "trash it up" a bit for me, and he does play the heck out of it. The whole groom's side can watch me having the closest thing I ever have to a charismatic experience while singing "Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!" Presumably, though, their attention is fixed on other things.

*****

Sunday afternoon was another first. Somehow I had managed to get to this point in my life without ever having sung in a choir of men and boys. Since I didn't have any liturgical duties at Evensong and Benediction, I sang in the choir -- and it was glorious: Smith Preces and Responses, Noble Canticles in A minor (new to me), and Stanford's "For lo, I raise up" (see the post right before this one).

*****

I'm wishing I had a small pocket calendar. "Father, could I make an appointment with you for confession?" "Father, are you available for dinner on Thursday night?" "Father, do you have the Wednesday morning mass this week?" The big calendar sitting on my desk is not so useful when I'm actually fully immersed in parish life.

More random observations

2011-05-18T07:51:00.002-05:00

Among the many ridiculously excessive blessings I enjoy: when I write a book review and need a sounding board, I know exactly the handsome and charming gay Anglo-Catholic organist/philosopher who will point me to just the right bit of obscure German scholarship.

It's really quite something.

*****

We're using the Mozarabic chant for Prayer D during Easter (or at least a couple of us are), and I am surprised to find opinions on the matter rather divided. Clergy and musicians (the two groups overlap somewhat) quite like it, but lots of other folks are hostile to a degree that surprises me.

And here I thought we were both singing it so beautifully . . .

*****

The anthem for E&B this Sunday is Stanford's surpassingly weird "For lo, I raise up." There has to be some sort of story behind that anthem: I fell pretty sure it involves a lot of gin and someone betting Stanford that he couldn't set Habakkuk 1 to music.

We sang it last year at Sewanee, and Malcolm Archer told us that the St John's College men particularly like the line, "Yea, he scoffeth at kings." As in King's College.

I guess you had to be there. Anyway, take a listen:

I didn't think that ever happened (and other brief observations)

2011-05-16T11:27:00.006-05:00

I mentioned to someone last week that my sermon for Sunday was going to be quite short. "But that's OK," I said; "no one ever complains about a sermon being too short."

Since yesterday morning, at least half a dozen people have told me they wished the sermon had been longer.

*****

The choir here is so good, it almost makes me wish I weren't a priest.

*****

My liturgical life would be improved by the purchase of pants that aren't down around my hips by ten minutes into every service.

*****

My activities as a book reviewer and journal referee could be adequately accounted for on the theory that I don't want anyone other than me writing about philosophers whose names start with the letter 'a'.

Meditation before the Blessed Sacrament (Easter 4)

2011-05-15T20:14:00.003-05:00

(I tried to work in the Psalm [Coverdale] and the Gospel from this morning's Eucharist as well as the Gospel from Evening Prayer.)

*****

Lord Jesus Christ,

What will you say to us when we stand before you on that day?

We will say to you: “Lord, Lord, did I not preach in your name, and attend mass in your name, and fill out pledge cards in your name?”

What will you say to us when we stand before you on that day?

You are our Shepherd.
Grant that we who have heard your voice this day may follow where you lead.
Save us from the thieves and bandits – save us, even, from ourselves – who would kill and steal and destroy the abundant life that you have come to give us.

You are the Gate.
Grant that we who have fed upon you this day may come in and go out only through you.
Save us from the false paths that beckon us away from you, away from your green pastures and the waters of comfort.

You are the Solid Rock.
Grant that we who even now are kneeling in your presence may be firmly fixed upon you.
Save us from the sinking sand on which nothing can be built that will stand on that day.

What will you say to us when we stand before you on that day?

We will say to you: “Lord, Lord, we heard your voice and followed where you led.”
And you will say to us: “You have done the will of my Father; enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We will say to you: “Lord, Lord, we have entered by you, the Gate of the Sheep.”
And you will say to us: “Come in, and abide with me, and find pasture.”

We will say to you: “Lord, Lord, you have built us upon yourself, the Solid Rock.”
And you will say to us: “Then nothing will be able to shake you; for it is the Father’s will that of all he has given me, I will lose nothing.”

Grant, O Lord our Shepherd, our Gate, our Solid Rock, that on that day when we stand before you, and know you no longer by faith but by sight, we may hear these words from you, that we may dwell in your house for ever. Amen.

Moments

2011-05-09T19:54:00.009-05:00

Priest: "Liturgies with you are just like falling off a log."

Postulant: "You mean awkward and painful?"

*****

The choir of men and boys are rehearsing Stanford in A. It sounds lovely, except I would swear I don't hear any alto.

A few minutes in, the countertenors arrive. Cool. So it wasn't just my imagination.

******

Parishioner: "Thank you for being audible. That's the first time I've actually heard the mass in twenty years."

*****

I'm in the sacristy, getting reading before Sung Mass. The choir is rehearsing the Philip Ledger arrangement of "This joyful Eastertide." I turn to Father Curate: "It's just like heaven, being here."

*****

I'm reading the hagiography for Gregory of Nazianzus on his feast day: "Then, on a rainy day, the crowds in the Great Church of Hagia Sophia acclaimed Gregory bishop, after a ray of sunlight suddenly shone on him." I look at those assembled and say, "It's at least as sensible a method of choosing a bishop as anything we do nowadays."

Settling in

2011-05-04T17:51:00.002-05:00

I've been here just over 48 hours and I've already

improvised a homily on Monnica,
scheduled a pastoral visit,
sat around the breakfast table singing "I Love To Tell the Story" with a bunch of Anglo-Catholics,
discussed the relative merits of Trollope and Dickens with the Canon to the Ordinary,
attended five daily offices,
been invited to dinner with the local AGO, as their guest,
heard a nun dish dirt, and
broken the strings on an amice that is ready for the Great Sacristy in the Sky.

I love this place.

Summer

2011-05-03T08:57:00.003-05:00

I'm now safely ensconced at St Michael's. (The Rite of Ensconcement of a Priest is seldom seen these days, but we keep up tradition here at St Michael's.)

I have exactly two priorities this summer:

to spend more time at the altar, and
to spend more time at the gym.

("At the altar" is synecdoche. Or metonymy. Or whatever. Even the OED is vague on those.)

Granted, in this first week or so I have final exams to grade, a book review to write, and another little writing project to wind up. Next week, and then again in June, I have conferences to attend. But otherwise, it's all about the altar and the gym.

Thomas Sunday

2011-04-29T17:24:00.003-05:00

Since I share the name of the Apostle whom we consider this Sunday, I have been saving up observations for a killer Thomas Sunday sermon for many years now. Alas, this year passes, as every previous year has passed, without such an opportunity.

An email from the music director informs me that it will also pass without the singing of Hymn 206. I would have thought that not singing that hymn on the Second Sunday of Easter was on a par with not singing "For all the saints" on All Saints Day, but it's actually been years since I've sung Hymn 206 (in church).

Add that to the "when I'm rector" file.

The one moment

2011-04-25T05:42:00.003-05:00

Liturgically speaking, the Easter services ranged from dismal to infuriating -- to the point that during the offertory at the Vigil I turned to one of the acolytes, a priest who is (I hope) temporarily between jurisdictions, and said, "If I weren't afraid of getting both of us in trouble, I'd ask for absolution right now."

And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of the fire alarm, the gunshot noise caused by removing batteries from a wireless microphone that was still turned on, the flailings and peregrinations of unrehearsed altar parties, the choir's sole anthem crashing and burning at both morning services, and Victory played at a tempo that savored strongly of Defeat.

But then there was that one moment of unmistakable Easter joy. There was a young girl who had been asking to receive Communion. Her parents were not sure -- is she too young? Does she understand? Is she ready to be baptized? I had met with them to work through all these things. I baptized her -- she was very shy and nervous at the font, clinging to her mother. But when she came to me for her first Communion, she was bold. She stretched out her hands firmly as I knelt down to give her the bread. "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everlasting life," I said.

And those were the last words I was able to speak clearly for some time.

A short reflection for Maundy Thursday

2011-04-21T13:55:00.004-05:00

John the beloved disciple was at the table. He knew Jesus better than anyone else, loved him better than anyone else. But in that love there was much that was immature, much that still needed to be strengthened and tested and deepened and purified.

Jesus knew all that. But -- even knowing what was in John's heart -- he looked upon John, and loved him, and washed him clean, and gave himself to John as bread and wine.

Thomas was at the table too. He was the hard-headed, no-nonsense type -- absolutely fearless when it came to facing danger, but stubborn about believing the crazy things his fellow-disciples were sometimes ready to fall for. Just the facts, please. Just the evidence.

Jesus knew all that. But -- even knowing what was in Thomas's heart -- he looked upon Thomas, and loved him, and washed him clean, and gave himself to Thomas as bread and wine.

Simon the Zealot was at the table. He was a zealot -- that meant he was serious about his religion and serious about his politics. And maybe he saw in Jesus someone who could bring power and charisma to his own cherished views, someone who could serve his own agenda.

Jesus knew all that. But --even knowing what was in Simon's heart -- he looked upon Simon, and loved him, and washed him clean, and gave himself to Simon as bread and wine.

Simon Peter was at the table. He had infinite confidence in his own devotion to Jesus, but in just a few short hours, he would fail. In his confusion and weakness and shame, he would deny Jesus, and deny Jesus, and deny Jesus.

Jesus knew all that. But --even knowing what was in Peter's heart -- he looked upon Peter, and loved him, and washed him clean, and gave himself to Peter as bread and wine.

Judas was at the table. He was not merely going to deny Jesus; he was going to betray Jesus.

And Jesus knew that. But -- even knowing what was in Judas's heart -- he looked upon Judas, and loved him, and washed him clean, and gave himself to Judas as bread and wine.

Tonight we are at the table. We love Jesus, but there is much in that love that needs to be strengthened and deepened and tested and purified. We are too stubborn sometimes to step out in faith. We are ready to use Jesus for our own purposes. In our confusion and weakness and shame, we deny Jesus. Even, sometimes, we betray him.

And Jesus knows that. But -- even knowing what is in our hearts -- he looks upon us, and loves us, and washes us clean, and gives himself to us as bread and wine.

Of the due observance of Holy Week

2011-04-21T05:27:00.003-05:00

When Holy Week falls near the end of the semester, the other job is in its busy season too. I was originally scheduled to preach all three services on Good Friday (7, noon, and 7), but that turned out to be the only day I could get the Tenure and Promotion Committee together, so I'll make it to only one service that day and will instead preach tonight. I haven't been able to participate much at all in planning the Vigil. The Rector said he'd send me the bulletin when it was all done so that I could pass along the necessary information to the handful of choir members who will be there (I'm basically leading the music, and indeed playing the organ); but since it's Thursday morning and I have yet to see the bulletin, the time for preparation is pretty much gone. (I think I still have all the possible service music under my fingers. We'll see.) It's not my ideal for Holy Week, but that's life for the non-parochial priest.

In the midst of all this, though, comes the prospect of better things. A couple days ago I received the daily mass schedule for my first month at St Michael's. I'm down for 17 of the 48 masses. Add to that a few Sunday masses (that schedule is forthcoming), and I'll be at the altar as much in May alone as I was in the first four months of the year put together. Of course it's not the numbers that I care about -- that's just the sign that I get to be a regular parish priest for a while. I am so fortunate to have three months to experience that. And I don't have to be in charge of anything, which makes it even better.

Then next fall comes, and I start my gig as chair of Religious Studies. That probably means that most times will be the busy times, and I'll be able to do even less in the parish than I'm doing now. But I'll worry about all that when the time comes.

Anselm's Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ

2011-04-21T00:09:00.001-05:00

(Here is a fitting prayer for this, the 902nd anniversary of Anselm's death, falling as it does on Maundy Thursday. The translation is by Benedicta Ward.)

Lord Jesus Christ,
by the Father's plan and by the working of the Holy Ghost,
of your own free will you died
and mercifully redeemed the world
from sin and everlasting death.

I adore and venerate you
as much as ever I can,
though my love is so cold, my devotion so poor.
Thank you for your good gift
of this your Body and Blood,
which I desire to receive, as cleansing from sin,
and for a defense against it.

Lord, I acknowledge that I am far from worthy
to approach and touch this sacrament;
but I trust in that mercy
which caused you to lay down your life for sinners
that they might be justified,
and because you gave yourself
willingly as a holy sacrifice to the Father.
A sinner, I presume to receive these gifts
so that I may be justified by them.
I beg and pray you, therefore, merciful lover of men,
let not that which you have given for the cleansing of sins
be unto me the increase of sin,
but rather for forgiveness and protection.

Make me, O Lord, so to perceive with lips and heart
and know by faith and by love,
that by virtue of this sacrament I may deserve to be
planted in the likeness of your death and resurrection,
by mortifying the old man,
and by renewal of the life of righteousness.
May I be worthy to be incorporated into your body,
which is the Church,
so that I may be your member and you may be my head,
and that I may remain in you and you in me.
Then at the Resurrection you will refashion
the body of my humiliation,
according to the body of your glory,
as you promised by your apostle,
and I shall rejoice in you for ever to your glory,
who with the Father and the Holy Spirit
live and reign for ever. Amen.

Monday morning musings

2011-04-18T06:20:00.005-05:00

I do wish the chief liturgical officer of the parish (that would be the Rector) would communicate with the verger. Reliance on telepathy doesn't seem to be panning out. Of many highlights from the two liturgies, my favorite would have to be the spectacle of four people going forward to fill the three slots for reading the Passion. There was a bit of no-after-you-I-insist-go-ahead business, which resulted in the Deacon's removing her microphone, wiring the other candidate for third reader, and returning to her seat.

Not edifying to the people.

*****

Yesterday's entry in the revolving-door-paid-tenor sweepstakes at the Cathedral was about middle of the pack as far as voice and musicianship are concerned. He looked remarkably like Orlando Bloom, though, so there's that.

*****

The Dean greets me: "There's great enthusiasm for the idea of having you at the Cathedral as a Priest Associate -- so much so that they're even willing to pay you."

Now I have no intention of moving to the Cathedral -- it's a 90-mile round trip, and I'm happy where I am, and (thank God) I don't need the money -- but it's nice to be wanted.

Anselm on Atonement

2011-04-14T07:02:00.001-05:00

As part of this blog's continuing futile effort to combat misinformation about Anselm (whose feast day would be a week from today if that weren't Maundy Thursday), I am pleased to be able to link to this presentation on the topic of Anselm's soteriology.

Monday morning musings

2011-04-11T05:31:00.004-05:00

I put all my energy into my midweek presentation at the Cathedral and had nothing left for yesterday's adult ed offering in my parish. Sorry, guys. I am resolved to get a better handle on my schedule come this fall.

*****

Our offertory hymn is "When I survey the wondrous cross." For some reason the organist has decided to play it to Hamburg. There are puzzled looks throughout the congregation; one hears very little singing. The celebrant, who originated in a Hamburg-singing branch of Christianity, walks up the altar steps in time to belt out "Were the whole realm of nature mine."

After the service, the celebrant takes the organist aside and explains that Episcopalians generally don't know Hamburg. We're Rockingham people. He's a brilliant organist, but new to our folkways. And I must say: he played the heck of out that tune.

*****

I've been added to the email distribution list for department chairs in anticipation of my taking on that job this August. The very first message is a directive from the Provost, via the Dean, about "differential teaching loads" -- giving a heavier course load to tenured faculty who aren't producing research. That's a perfectly sensible idea, of course. But I think through our faculty list and realize that the only tenured person who isn't productive is our outgoing chair.

Neither of us is going to enjoy that discussion.

*****

Today it's our section on "Christian Economic Ethics." Among other things, we're reading Calvin on usury. Since we didn't deal much with Topic H in our week on sexual ethics, I'm tempted to address arguments like these, but perhaps that would undermine the even-handedness I've displayed so far. Last week, in talking about pacifism and just war theory and all that stuff, one formerly pacifist student embraced just war theory, while another student "went all Mennonite on us." Such a diversity of outcomes need not indicate that I'm doing a good job, particularly, but at least it shows that I'm not indoctrinating anyone.

Apparently God needs a two-by-four

2011-04-08T06:15:00.002-05:00

I kept praying for something, until I realized that I didn't actually want it, and I was just posturing.

So I stopped praying for it, and asked instead for the desire that I knew I ought to have, but didn't.

And God graciously awakened the desire in me, so I started praying again.

And in no time at all, the thing for which I had been praying was placed in my path.

I nearly missed it, though. It could hardly have been more obvious if it had been presented to me with a flashing neon sign, but my attention just glided right past it.

Fortunately, the thought "You do realize what that just was, you nimrod" recalled me to my senses, and all was well.

Obviously "keen and quick spiritual discernment" was not what I had been granted. Perhaps that should go on the list next.

How I know my presentation went well

2011-04-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

I got an "Amen" from an Anglo-Catholic.

Scenes from an ordinary day

2011-04-04T17:34:00.001-05:00

5:30 am. Why am I up this early? Well, at least I'll have plenty of time to prepare for class. It's Richard vs Reinhold in a fraternal smackdown for our first class on "Christian political ethics," and my first reading of the material gave me very few ideas.

8:30 am. I arrive at the office, my prayers said and my preparation done. As a work of supererogation, I look up some recent commentary that describes our Libyan intervention as Niebuhrian in spirit (Reinhold, not Richard). This leads me to video of a panel discussion from a couple years ago about Niebuhr and foreign policy and what was then the new administration. I promise myself that I won't rely on this video unless it is absolutely impossible to get discussion going.

9:00 am. There's an email from a student saying that she'll be a few minutes late because she's going to pick up treats for the birthday of her friend, another student in the class.

9:40 am. Class begins. Half of the students are missing.

9:50 am. Cupcakes and cookies arrive. Weakened though I am by three months of somewhat successful dieting, I manage to keep myself from attacking them like a swarm of locusts.

9:55 am. Discussion is not happening. I ask who has read the material. Three hands go up. I start the video.

11:30 am. Well, that wasn't so bad. Back to the office. There's an email from an undergraduate: "I just declared Philosophy as my second major and I'm planning to graduate in December. I need your medieval course, but it's not being offered in the fall. My adviser gave me permission to enroll in your graduate seminar as a substitute if that's OK with you." Yeah, like that's going to happen.

11:45 am. The adviser assures me that this wasn't her idea; it was the department chair's idea. Has he actually met any of our undergraduates? Or does he just want my graduate courses to be as frustrating as my undergraduate courses?

12:30 pm. I call up the assistant in the parish where I was ordained to discuss the possibility of going back there to get married. (They have same-sex marriage there.) Plans are beginning to take shape for a wedding on the thirteenth anniversary of our first date, though I'll have to remember to check on the football schedule -- no way we'd find a place to stay if there's a home football game.

1:15 pm. A colleague calls me into his office to be a witness/moral support/adviser as he confronts a student with her rampant plagiarism. "You know my intentions weren't bad," she tells him. "Intentions don't matter when it comes to plagiarism," I tell her. (If I have any pastoral sensitivity, I save it for non-academic purposes.)

2:30 pm. I wonder what possessed me to put Avicenna on my medieval syllabus. These things always seem like a good idea at the time, in much the same way that my commitment to give a talk at the Cathedral this Wednesday night on prayers of confession seemed like a good idea when I agreed to it months ago but is now causing me to consider whether I could feign illness convincingly. I'm going to end up parachuting in, commending sacramental confession to a bewildered broad-church audience, and then hightailing it out of town to leave the Dean to deal with the aftermath.

3:15 pm. I leave the library with a book on Avicenna in one hand and a huge cup of Starbucks in the other.

3:20 pm. Email from a newish parishioner whose six-year-old daughter I'm going to baptize at the Vigil: "My husband says Lent is feeling rather Catholic. You used to be Baptist too -- can we talk so that I can understand what's bothering him?"

4:45 pm. I

reflect on the puzzling fact that my Pandora station has gradually morphed from an Erasure/Depeche Mode/Pet Shop Boys/Yaz mix into a Jay Brannan/Ben Jelen/Joshua Bradin/Matt Nathanson-heavy playlist.
suspect it's all Toad the Wet Sprocket's fault.
reject the train of thought that leads me to apply such reflections to ecclesiastical affairs.
reflect further that these thoughts are not helping me with Avicenna one bit.

5:22 pm. "to the rock I cling . . . How can I keep from singing your praise?" And now Pandora has gone CCM on me. Andy Bell would be horrified.

6:30 pm. I conclude my day with a half-hour conversation with a colleague who is thinking of jumping ship to another department. What am I supposed to say? "Sure, go ahead and doom this department just as I'm taking over as chair. We've already hit the iceberg, but here's an ax. Have a go at the hull." Even I wouldn't say that. Time for home, and gin.

Monday morning musings

2011-04-04T05:15:00.002-05:00

At staff meeting the Rector finally got me to say that the way we do the Vigil doesn't work. In the past, the congregation has consisted almost entirely of people who don't want to be there: extended families of baptismal candidates (often unaccustomed to liturgical worship), about half a choir (resenting the late hour when they're going to have to turn around and sing the next morning at 8:00), and a handful of spiky Anglo-Catholic liturgy obsessives who wonder why we do only two readings and no plainsong psalmody but figure that a loose approximation of a Vigil is better than no Vigil at all. For whatever reason, the Vigil doesn't register as an important service for the overwhelming majority of our parishioners. I had hesitated to speak about this, because I knew that what I was going to say would suggest doing away with the Vigil altogether. But under the Rector's gentle prodding, I said my piece.

And then, for a few golden moments, things began to look up. Let's do a full-blown Vigil, the Rector suggested. We could dismiss the choir and do unaccompanied singing, but lots of it. I offered to pay to seed the congregation with a quartet of good singers. We could actually start after sundown, as we should, instead of capitulating to the presumed desires of surly and reluctant attendees by starting early. Above all, we could do some educational work to make it clear to folks that the Vigil is the premier liturgy of Easter, and indeed of the whole year -- that (as I've heard one of our liturgics professors say many times) Easter morning is for tourists; the Vigil is for the natives. And whether we had a big crowd or a small one, at least we would do the Vigil as it's meant to be done; the worship of the Church would be carried on in its fullness and integrity.

I was getting really excited. A breakthrough, at last!

A few days later, I got an email from the Rector. It looks as though we're going to half-ass it after all.

Well, I suppose when you begin your liturgical planning two and a half weeks before the biggest liturgy of the year, you might as well half-ass it.

There's always next year.

There's some discouragement

2011-03-30T06:51:00.003-05:00

Would I have agreed to take over as chair of Religious Studies if I had known that one of the few remaining productive members of the faculty was intending to jump ship? Would I have forgone the sabbatical I so desperately wanted, and was awarded, to serve that department and make life easier for the dean who was conspiring behind my back with my soon-to-be-ex-colleague?

Grr.

My students are reaching unprecedented heights (or is it depths?) of idiocy. I met with a student yesterday who seemed sincerely surprised by the idea that quoted material has to be enclosed in quotation marks.

She's graduating at the end of the semester.

Of the 36 students who started my medieval philosophy class, 20 remain. 14 of them showed up yesterday for the last class before the exam. We were going over the most difficult reading of the whole semester, material that will account for about 30% of tomorrow's exam. And Academic Affairs wants to blame faculty for the high rates of failures and withdrawals in our classes. Heaven forbid that anyone hold our disengaged, entitled, lazy, chronically absent, and grossly underprepared students responsible for any aspect of their own educations.

I had to run off one student for extensive plagiarism on a take-home exam. The exam was in Christian ethics. Her unacknowledged sources included Bible commentaries and evangelical websites.

Here endeth the rant.

I'm going to white-knuckle it through the end of the semester and then, praise God, I'm off to "Saint Michael's" to be a priest for three months and give no thought whatsoever to teaching, administration, or anything else having to do with university life.

James de Koven

2011-03-22T07:09:00.003-05:00

Today we remember James De Koven. Lots of people will be quoting this, from his speech to the General Convention of 1874:

You may take away from us, if you will, every external ceremony; you may take away altars, super-altars, lights and incense and vestments; . . . and we will submit to you. But gentlemen . . . to adore Christ's Person in his Sacrament -- that is the inalienable privilege of every Christian and Catholic heart . . . the ceremonies with which we do it, are utterly, utterly, indifferent. The thing itself is what we plead for.

Good stuff, to be sure -- but I've always been partial to another line from that same speech:

It pleased God to give to Bishop White an utter abhorrence of all Calvinism.

Indeed.

After Evensong

2011-03-20T18:51:00.002-05:00

The clergy on staff didn't attend Evensong, for whatever reason, so I officiated.

I sounded like death.

Between Eucharist and Evensong

2011-03-20T13:37:00.003-05:00

Seriously, people. Don't make me tell you again about Lyons vs Foundation. "Lyons is shorter," says the organist to me after the service, ruefully. I suspect decanal interference.

*****

Why the Canon found it necessary to direct the People to read the italicized bits in the Decalogue, as if that wouldn't have been obvious, but didn't think to direct us to kneel, as the rubric requires ("The Decalogue may be said, the people kneeling"), I don't know. But what can you expect of someone who thinks the orans position involves holding your forearms parallel to the floor?

*****

Visiting other parishes either frees me to worship wholeheartedly or calls forth my inner Rubric Cop. Obviously, it's clear what happened today.

*****

Comments to me after the service:

. . . lots of "Oh, I so enjoyed hearing you on the descant." (In the tenor range, not the soprano, for those of you who are easily horrified.) My unspoken thought: "Well, if I had realized that the choirmaster had directed the choir not to sing it, I wouldn't have been so conspicuous."

. . . from an old friend, "You're losing weight. You look great!" Me, aloud: "Oh, thank you so much for noticing!" Unspoken: "Yes, I'm back to what I weighed about six years ago. That means I'm still rather overweight, but at least my ass is no longer eligible for its own Congressman."

Of episcopal nominees

2011-03-16T06:57:00.002-05:00

I see that a diocese where I once lived has nominated for bishop a priest who was serving in the parish I attended there. I didn't know him at all well -- this was back in the day when I was overcoming parish-life burnout by singing in the choir and doing absolutely nothing else -- but I do remember that one Sunday (I'm pretty sure it was Transfiguration, because August 6 was a Sunday that year and Transfiguration takes precedence of a Sunday) he preached an exceedingly fine Incarnational sermon. I was going to say that that's really all I ask of a bishop, but of course that wouldn't be true. Still, it's a mark in his favor.

Sunday afternoon musings

2011-03-13T12:44:00.008-05:00

Between the link from Thinking Anglicans (thanks!) and the impending Ember Days (this is the week, everyone, so fire up your word processors and/or quill pens), traffic has been gratifyingly high around here lately.

*****

I mentioned that the choir sang a Twila Paris piece this morning, and from the reaction of a couple of my organist friends you would have thought I had blasphemed against the holy name (the holy name being, in this case, Charles Villiers Stanford). So I reminded them that David Hurd has told us not to be such snots. Perhaps Dr Hurd was on my mind because we sang some of his service music today, as well as his fine tune Tucker (Hymn 322), which really ought to be sung more often.

*****

It is allegedly spring break this week. I still have tons to do, but at least there won't be any teaching -- grading, yes, but no teaching. I'm also working on a section introduction for an edited volume on models of God. Today I'm reading and commenting on a paper on divine impassibility, which is actually pretty good. Yesterday's paper, which was 90% stating-the-obvious and 10% wild-errors-of-interpretation, was rather less satisfying.

Odds and ends for the day after Ash Wednesday

2011-03-10T05:56:00.004-06:00

Three people yesterday commented on my somewhat slimmer appearance. I've lost twelve pounds, and I guess it's beginning to show. Also, it turns out that clericals are very slimming.

*****

My hope is that I will soon be able to wear my Anglican cassock without the band cincture popping off every time I move. (Or breathe.)

*****

Give your students a one-day extension on their take-home midterm, and suddenly you're their favorite person in the world.

*****

I wish I could go to the Chrism Mass today. I've never been able to attend. Next year I have to remember to build that into my syllabi somehow.

*****

Fr Scott Gunn will be posting essays on the 39 Articles -- an Article a day for the 39 days of Lent excluding Ash Wednesday. He says, "While I intend to give a nod to the historical reality of the article d’jour, I’m mostly going to use them as a launching point for a meditation (or rant) on the subject of the day’s article." Sounds good to me.

Remember

2011-03-09T04:13:00.003-06:00

Remember that you are dust -- but dust beloved by God. You are dust into which God has breathed his Spirit, dust onto which God has stamped his image; and God said, "it is good."

Remember the dignity of your creation.

Remember that you are dust -- but dust beloved by God. When we went astray, as dust will -- when we quenched the Spirit that God had breathed into us, and defaced the image that he had stamped upon us -- God did not abandon us. The Son of God stooped to share our dusty state, and tasted the death that is our lot, so that he might restore us to himself, so that we might be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.

Remember the cost of your redemption.

Remember that you are dust -- but dust beloved by God. You are dust that God has raised to new life through the sacrament of new birth, incorporating you into Christ's body, the Church, and making you one of his chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people.

Remember the glory of your baptism.

Remember that you are dust -- and to dust you shall return. But even when you return to dust, you will still be dust beloved by God. And in his love he will again breathe life into that dust, and stamp it again with his image, and draw you into the heavenly City, the new Jerusalem.

Remember the promise of your eternal destiny.

Remember that you are dust -- and to dust you shall return.

Remember the dignity of your creation. Remember the cost of your redemption. Remember the glory of your baptism. Remember the promise of your eternal destiny.

Remember.

Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A)

2011-03-07T05:53:00.003-06:00

✠ I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

He always looked like that, you know.

He was always dazzling, always glorious. He was God from God, Light from Light, so how could he look any other way? That dazzling radiance was the truth of his nature. But his disciples could not – in those immortal words – handle the truth. So he dimmed his radiance, and shielded them from his glory.

Jesus and the disciples are about to enter on a time of great testing. So on this one occasion he will let the barriers fall – let them see the glory that is always his, and hear the words from the Father that are always sounding – so that this glimpse of his glory will sustain them, as well as anything can sustain them, through the suffering that is about to come upon them all.

And indeed, the disciples cannot handle the truth. Peter babbles something ridiculous. All three of them – Peter, James, and John – throw themselves on the ground in stark terror. They cannot handle the truth, cannot keep their eyes on the glory that is always his, or bear the words from the Father that are always sounding – until Jesus touches them, and bids them rise, and they look up and see no one except Jesus himself alone.

The Church appoints this Gospel for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany – the last Sunday before Lent begins. It is meant to give us a glimpse of the glory of Christ that will help sustain us, as well as anything can sustain us, through the season of penitence and self-denial that is about to begin. Our collect makes the connection quite explicit:

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross.

But then it adds something that takes us into a whole new way of thinking about the Transfiguration, and about “the observance of a holy Lent”:

Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.

Be changed into his likeness from glory to glory – Our prayer is not that we will carry fond memories of his glory through our time of self-denial, to sustain us and strengthen us to bear our Cross. Or at least, our prayer is not just that. Our prayer is also that we will be changed into his likeness from glory to glory. Our prayer is that we will be more and more able to handle the truth of his dazzling radiance because we ourselves will share in that radiance.

N.N. spoke in our adult class last week about how we put barriers between ourselves and God. If “the appearance of the glory of the Lord [is] like a devouring fire,” as we heard in the first reading – well, then, keep it away from me, because I’m really not up for a devouring fire just now. And some of the ways we are tempted to keep Lent – and please know that I am speaking about myself here – are really nice ways of keeping the barriers up and avoiding the devouring fire while convincing ourselves that we are doing something spiritual. Giving up chocolate or coffee, or observing the traditional discipline of fasting, or taking on a new volunteer effort or an extra worship service, can easily be done in that way – sort of like an errand, like picking up your dry-cleaning or getting your oil changed, only, you know, spiritual. If we treat Lent as the season in which we do some extra spiritual errand-running, Easter will come around, and our spiritual checklist will be beautifully complete, but we won’t be one whit closer to God.

But let Lent instead be a time when we let the fire devour those barriers. Let Lent instead be a time when we face up to why it is that we can’t handle the truth – why it is that we have to shield our eyes from the glory. Am I always talking, so that I can’t hear what God is trying to say to me? Am I always on the go, when I need to be still and know that he is God? Am I always angry, so that I cannot know the mercy of God, or always fearful, so that I cannot know the power of God, or always grasping, so that I cannot know the abundance of God? And then ask God to break through the barriers that I have carefully built, and that I have carefully cultivated to keep the devouring fire at a safe, comfortable distance, so that I can be changed from glory to glory into the likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be ascribed, as is most justly due, all might, dominion, majesty, and glory, world without end. Amen.

Monday morning musings

2011-03-07T05:15:00.005-06:00

There is no need to try to turn a seven-minute sermon into a twelve-minute sermon. I will try to remember this the next time I'm tempted to wake up at 3:00 am on Sunday to "finish" a sermon.

*****

I see that the choir is singing Stanford's "Beati quorum via" today. "Isn't that SSATBB?" I ask the director; "do you have enough men?" I offer to check with the rector to see if I can sing the Stanford instead of helping with the administration of Communion. It turns out we have an extra priest anyway, so I am dispensable.

In the meantime, the most reliable bass has stormed off in a huff, so we're down to four men. The early-music professor takes the tenor, our best tenor sings bass (because the other bass isn't secure on the part by himself), and I get the baritone line to myself. I'm glad I volunteered for this one.

*****

Speaking of the best tenor: I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to covet our neighbor's voice, but his solo on the other anthem was very close to being an occasion of sin.

*****

Keystone Kops liturgy at the choral service yesterday. Between the new acolytes, the three large baptismal families apparently unaccustomed to public worship, and a verger who thought it made perfect sense to spend the first two stanzas of a four-stanza common-meter sequence hymn getting the two torchbearers to hold their torches in exaaaaaaactly the right way before beginning the Gospel procession, it was a bit rough.

*****

We stand for the post-communion hymn, "Come with us, O blessed Jesus." I think, "You know, one stanza of this would do just fine." As the second stanza begins -- unaccompanied, because this is a congregation that will sing four-part harmony unaccompanied -- I realize that the text is a dead-on summary of the main theme of my sermon:

Come with us, O mighty Savior,
God from God, and Light from Light;
thou art God, thy glory veiling,
so that we may bear the sight.

The problem with singing as loud as I do is that when I start getting choked up it's very noticeable . . .

When I am an old priest I shall wear purple

2011-03-05T06:17:00.002-06:00

I've never worn purple at the Eucharist. In the parish where I've served ever since I was ordained, we use blue in Advent and Lenten array in Lent, except of course for rose on Advent 3 and Lent 4. Purple is never seen. But it turns out that there is a very handsome purple chasuble -- a traditional gothic in damask with a velvet pillar orphrey -- hanging in the sacristy, completely hidden by some sort of sacred tarpaulin of (I should think) muslin.

On Wednesday I will offer the Ash Wednesday liturgy at the campus Episcopal chapel. It would be altogether unseemly for my joy in doing so to be in any way increased by the fact I will be wearing that purple chasuble, so I am by no means acknowledging that such is the case.

It's midterm time, and the harvest is plentiful

2011-03-04T05:43:00.003-06:00

Ms G:

Congratulations! You have transcended all previous dumb questions to reach unique heights of dumbness. Not only did you ask the dumbest question I have ever heard -- no one else found those directions confusing, and for good reason -- but five minutes after I had answered it, you asked it again! After you had left, another student jokingly asked me the same question. Everybody laughed. Then he added, "I thought you were going to punch her, man."

*****

Ms C:

The remedy for the rampant plagiarism I noted in your first draft is, I regret to say, not simply to break up your plagiarism into smaller bits in your second. It is to use freaking quotation marks. This is not difficult.

*****

Half of my Christian ethics class:

When I took up class time projecting Word on a screen so that I could show you exactly how to fix all those formatting problems, did you think I was doing that as some sort of bizarre entertainment? You must have, because you made all the same mistakes the second time around. Are you expecting me to break into your dorm rooms and edit your papers for you, like some kind of demented shoemaker's elf?

*****

Mr O-A:

You promised you'd turn over a new leaf this time, that you wouldn't flame out the way you did last year. But you sure have been missing a lot of class lately. I did appreciate that one excuse about how you have trouble waking up (for my 11:00 class). Too bad I saw you out running as I was driving in at 8:30. Priorities, my dear boy.

Monday morning musings

2011-02-28T05:47:00.004-06:00

I left for church yesterday morning at 7 and returned last night after a big diocesan liturgy at 9. 14 hours away from home on a Sunday -- but it was a glorious day.

*****

I was glad I didn't have to preach on that Gospel yesterday. "Do not worry. . . . Do not worry." I'm a worrier. And then preaching about not worrying, when my own life is so easy, and I know of so many anxieties and heartbreaks and fears in the congregation -- it would have been a tough sermon for me to put together. The Rector did brilliantly with it.

*****

I am apparently competing for the Grammy for Loudest Singing by a Priest in Procession. I think I have it all sewn up.

*****

Said at lunch: "That's not just ontological change. That's ontological folding money!"

*****

I arrive an hour early for the big diocesan service. A former student, who is heading up to God's Own Mountain to begin seminary this fall, greets me: "The MC is looking for a litanist. If I had known you were going to be here, I would have told him you could do it. You should go find him." Mindful of my tendency to want to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral, I delicately keep out of the MC's way. In the end, the MC -- who is the cardinal-rector of St Mike's and All Spikes -- does the Litany himself. He's very, very good.

*****

If they had deliberately constructed the service to press my emotional buttons, they couldn't have done a better job. The Declaration of Conformity is said three times -- twice in English and once in Spanish -- and that always gets me. Plus, the offertory anthem is Friedell's "Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether." Somewhat spoiling the effect of the latter is the chit-chat of a couple of priests behind me. I refrain from turning around and slapping both of them with my service booklet.

*****

Two priests have peeled off from the retiring procession and remain at the back of the nave for the final stanza of the closing hymn, "Christ is made the sure foundation." One of them is there to sing the descant in his freakishly loud falsetto; the other is there to poke gentle fun at his wannabe-countertenor colleague. It all works out quite nicely.

Of paid singers

2011-02-25T04:25:00.004-06:00

It must be difficult to find good paid singers around here -- or male ones, anyway. The small choir that does monthly Evensong at the Cathedral has one paid singer in each section. The soprano and the alto are both excellent. But we've had the same bass since this choir came into existence, and his voice is unimpressive (even now I can hear the late music director of my own parish, who sang with us for a while, and who rarely had an unkind word about anyone, pronouncing, "He's mediocre") and he doesn't read well. Our usual tenor has an enviable voice -- a very sweet tone -- but he reads even less well. He was unable to participate in our last Evensong, so we had a different guy in. I would kill to have this guy's range, and the slightly husky or smoky quality of his voice is really cool -- but the boy cannot read. At all. His solo in the Nunc dimittis of the Gerald Near "St Mark's Service" was catastrophic: wrong notes, wrong rhythm, a complete mess.

It almost made me regret that when we first started rehearsing the piece, and the director invited me to sing the solo, I declined. But I'm really not a soloist. And anyway, I ended up officiating (from the choir -- that can't be good practice), so if I had had the solo as well it would have felt like "Choral Evensong -- starring The Postulant!"

Of a rant and its aftermath

2011-02-18T05:40:00.004-06:00

The Dean was angry, but he was not one of those lucky men who are refreshed and stimulated by anger; it shook his self-confidence and upset his digestion and put him at a disadvantage with the world.
-- Robertson Davies, Leaven of Malice

I don't do well with anger.

Twelve days before the exam in medieval philosophy, I gave my students a review sheet: eight essay questions, some subset of which would appear on the exam.

There was, for example, an essay on Abelard's ethics, which was to be the last material covered in lecture before the exam. So my students knew in advance that they might be asked about Abelard's ethics. Did that prevent a third of them from skipping class that day? It did not.

Guess what I chose as a 25-point essay on the exam.

As I have told my Christian ethics class more than once, St Paul was not writing about my teaching style. In my class, you are definitely under law, not under grace.

And during that twelve-day period, when I asked my students in class what questions they had about the exam, do you know how many questions I got? Exactly zero.

Two questions did come by e-mail: both of them well-phrased and properly punctuated, focusing intelligently on a couple of points of detail, sent by the student with the highest quiz scores, who politely opened both e-mails by addressing me by title and surname (which is of course how I address him) and signed his name in full. And I thought: if he is the only person asking questions, this exam is going to be disastrous.

And it was. The grades were 1 A (from Mr Intelligent Questions, of course), 1 B, 3 Cs, 6 Ds, and 21 Fs.

So I marched into class yesterday with my rant all written out, because I quite frankly did not trust myself not to lapse into profanity if I didn't have a script. And I tore into them.

"This was an exceptionally straightforward exam," I said. "I gave you all the questions in advance. I did not ask you to draw any inferences that I did not draw for you in class. I did not ask you to interpret any texts that I did not interpret for you in class. I did not ask you to put material together in any way in which I had not put it together for you in class. I did not ask you to formulate any arguments that I did not formulate for you in class. I gave you absolutely everything properly labeled and categorized. I spoonfed you every single thing. All you had to do was come to class, pay attention, take notes, and prepare for the exam.

"But that's just the problem, isn't it? A lot of you miss a lot of class. Do you think just because I don't have an attendance policy, I don't notice who's here and who isn't? A third of you couldn't even be bothered to show up for the class on Abelard. Is it any wonder that the essays on Abelard were so crappy?

"Some of you are here, but you're not paying attention. You spend the whole class doing homework for other classes or facebooking or texting or whatever it is. Do you think I don't see this? Do you think the light rays only go in one direction? So it's no wonder that your essays read as if you didn't hear the lectures so much as overhear them. It's no wonder that you pick up a catchphrase here or a slogan here, bits and pieces of claims or arguments, but have no sense at all how any of it fits together or what any of it means. You don't know if a claim is a premise or a conclusion or a counterexample or an illustration.

"And how many of you who do pay attention take good notes? I can count on the fingers of one hand how many of you in this class are consistently taking notes, and have fingers left over. Again, do you think I can't see you? It's no wonder that your essays are full of vague memories of material that you couldn't be bothered to write down."

After twenty minutes in that vein, I said, "So here's what we're going to do now. I'm going to hand back your exams. Then you're going to go home and ask yourself whether you have the discipline to come to class prepared, listen attentively, take good notes, and study seriously for the next exam. And if the answer is no, you're going to drop the class. If the answer is yes, I will see you next week to talk about al-Ghazali."

And then I handed back their exams, returned to my office, and felt seriously sick.

One young man came to my office a few minutes later -- this was impressively bold, I thought -- assuring me that he was almost always in class (I knew this to be a slight exaggeration but not a total lie) and took notes ("I had eight pages of notes for this class" -- Really, I thought; eight pages of notes for ten 75-minute lectures? There's part of your problem right there). It's just that the material is so hard.

Yes, the material is hard, I said. But I laid it all out for you. All you had to do was spit back at me what I had patiently and methodically provided for you.

He even tried the "Other people agree with me that this was really difficult" gambit. And what am I supposed to say to that? The only honest response would be this: "The material hasn't changed, except insofar as I make it a bit easier every year. My expectations of my students haven't changed, except insofar as I get a bit more lenient every year. So I can only conclude that you're saying that you and your classmates are just much dumber than the students I had last year."

But even I wouldn't say that.

The student left, and I went to microwave my lunch, which I then promptly dropped and spilled all over the floor. (I'm telling you, I was a jittery mess.) Was I really going to be able to eat anyway, as waves of anger-nausea swept over me? Maybe I should just go home. How can I teach my afternoon class when I'm feeling like this?

I didn't go home, though. I got through my afternoon class pretty well, all things considered, went home and had a very, very stiff drink and lots of comforting talk with my M, and started to feel better.

But I don't do well with anger.

Now this kid I like

2011-02-16T05:08:00.004-06:00

From this morning's e-mail:

Hey,

I know there's been a lot of discussion in class about how we can approach the problem people are having with the homework assignments, and I think I've found a solution. I know this should at least help my grade if nothing else: if you came to my house and read the assigned readings to me while I am drifting off to go to sleep, highlighted the most imperative points in the articles, and maybe even brought some warm milk for me to drink, I feel that this would work for me. Also, if you wrote some notes about each article, maybe a page or so long, I think this would benefit my learning experience as well. Let me know what you think about it. Thanks!

Or people could procrastinate less, actually do the assignment, and come to your office hours to get a better understanding of what they're reading ... but I like the first idea better. Oh well, I guess I better start on the paper!

What happened to reading?

2011-02-14T05:26:00.005-06:00

I complain a lot about my students' writing, but their reading is, if anything, even worse.

Most of my students seem incapable of understanding even quite straightforward essays. In my Christian ethics class, we read a short piece by a Roman Catholic theologian who argued that confessional practice encouraged a moral theology that regarded moral norms as fixed and definite, focused on agents of wrongdoing rather than sufferers from it, identified sins with individual misdeeds and paid little attention to the social aspects of sin, and regarded immorality as a quality of actions rather than as a disposition of character. He then went on to note ways in which moral theology has been moving away from those emphases, and he offered a mixed evaluation of those newer tendencies.

My student read this as an argument against the practice of confession.

We read a big chunk of Luther's "Treatise on Christian Liberty," which is full of talk about how good works follow from faith, though of course they do not justify. A student responded as if Luther had denied any relationship between faith and works and left no place for obedience in the life of the believer.

Another student submitted a paper that attributed various claims to an author that the author simply hadn't made. When I returned his paper with numerous comments to that effect, the student sent a long e-mail that concluded with these words (and I'm cutting and pasting directly):

and one more thing sir, with all due respect and correct me if i'm wrong, i feel as though you do not realize that everyone will have a different point of view of what the argument of an essay was.i think and please sir correct me if i am wrong, that there is no right or wrong perceptions in these readings. it's about trying to understand what the author is trying to say based on your critical analysis and agree or disagree with reasons why you do? right?

To which I replied:

Of course people will have different takes on whether a given essay is correct or makes plausible arguments. That's not the problem -- I don't care whether you agree or disagree with the writer, whether your view agrees or disagrees with my view, or anything like that. But it does matter whether the paper shows a command of what the essay actually says. That's what was lacking in this case.

He replied:

well, i beg to differ my view and command of what the essay actually says, but thats the problem i guess. nevertheless that's not the case.

I wrote back:

I don't understand how I'm supposed to help you if you refuse to accept what I say about your writing.

And the exchange ended there.

In retrospect, what I should have said was, "I don't think you understand what is meant by 'Correct me if I'm wrong.'"

M. tells me that it's just in the last year or two that he's begun to get this attitude that not just one's evaluation of a text, but the very content of the text itself, is wholly indeterminate -- that any opinion about what the text says, about what the arguments or claims put forward in an essay actually are, is as valid as any other. This attitude was new to me.

In memoriam

2011-02-12T05:08:00.002-06:00

Fr Ernan McMullin, who taught me what little philosophy of science I know, died this week at the age of 86. He was easily one of the best professors I ever had. Oddly enough, considering that I had only one class with him, I have lots of memories of him.

He had had a long and distinguished career, and he knew everyone. Whatever we read, he had some story about the author -- how he was the only person at one famous philosopher's funeral, or whatever. For the students it became a running gag: "Our next reading will be from the King James Bible. King James and I were graduate students together, you know, and . . ."

There was the time one student began the statement of an objection with the words, "Forgive me, Father" and then wondered why everyone was laughing.

He once told a colleague of mine, "You write too much like a philosopher."

He officiated at that same colleague's wedding -- the only time I saw him function as a priest -- and preached an exceptionally fine sermon. At the rehearsal he was showing some of us around the Basilica and noted that the church boasts relics of all the apostles plus a piece of the Virgin Mary's girdle. "Wasn't it thoughtful of Our Lady," he asked with a twinkle in his eye, "to leave us a piece of her girdle?"

Requiescat in pace et resurgat in gloriam.

Shame on me for doubting you

2011-02-08T05:18:00.002-06:00

There is really no sense in which I'm actively looking for a parish job right now, but I do check the openings and occasionally click through to something that looks interesting. One parish that caught my eye had a tab on their website labeled "Understanding Our Spirituality." Oh, brother, I thought to myself; this is going to be deliciously awful.

But instead I saw stuff like this:

As a person ages and passes through life changes – especially crises involving, hurt, loss, and grief – the religionless, private spirituality morphs from one shape to another, as the individual tries to adapt an autonomous spirituality to the changing and sometimes unexpected events of life. Usually detached completely from relationship to a sovereign God and lacking any concept of a Savior external to the self, a self-created, religionless spirituality can leave the hurting person utterly alone and forced to seek strength, wisdom, and peace in times of need purely from the limited inner resources of the ego. There is no expectation that God might speak. There are no companions on the spiritual journey with whom to pray and share a common commitment to God and one another. Without roots in a spiritual tradition (read: “religion”) with its sacred scriptures and disciplines, and lacking the support of a spiritual community that shares a common path, the religionless “spiritual person” can become a tragic figure: narcissistic, self-absorbed, self-directed, self-contained —and rootless. People like this are all around us, drifting sometimes from the fringes of one cult to another or one teacher to another, unwilling or unable to accept any spiritual authority or to make any lasting commitment.

Now isn't that refreshing?

Monday morning musings

2011-02-07T04:51:00.003-06:00

There is no correlation between how well-received a sermon is and how good I think it is. I thought yesterday's sermon was pretty middle-of-the-road, but gosh, did it speak to people.

*****

The new organist started yesterday. Hymn-singing is going to be absolute bliss. And when the choir sang Vaughan Williams's "O Taste and See" at Communion, I nearly started crying.

*****

On the other hand, the organ was tweeting and hooting and rumbling and sounding demon-possessed much more than usual yesterday. The Rector suspects the organist is doing it on purpose to encourage thoughts of a replacement -- admittedly much needed. Bad, bad organist.

*****

It could be always be worse: I had an e-mail yesterday from an organist friend who told us how two of his sopranos actually got into a shoving match right before the procession. They were arguing about who would get to process first. This was all visible from the nave! Can you imagine?

Sermon for Epiphany 5 (Year A)

2011-02-06T04:38:00.004-06:00

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A)
6 February 2011

✠ I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’m sure you’ve heard people say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” I’m never sure exactly what that’s supposed to mean, but I think people who say it are boasting a bit. They think being religious is something immature, stifling, uncool. (These are the same people who say, “I don’t believe in organized religion.” I always want to tell them, “I don’t believe in organized religion either. I’m an Episcopalian.”) They think being religious is for the unimaginative, the simple-minded, the naive. But being spiritual – well, that’s much better, much more enlightened, much more sophisticated.

There was something similar going on in Corinth, and Paul had heard about it. Some of the Corinthians were boasting that they were more spiritual than the rest. Unlike the majority of people, who were stuck in their entry-level Christianity, these “spiritual” folks had a special wisdom. They had seen into mysteries that the ordinary believer just couldn’t grasp. They thought most of the Corinthian Christians were immature, simple-minded, naive. But they were spiritual – much more mature, much more enlightened, much more sophisticated.

Paul is not having it. Where are you getting this business about special wisdom and higher mysteries? Is that what I preached when I came to you? Absolutely not! “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” – the very message that, as we heard last week, is “foolishness to those who are perishing.” And now you “spiritual people” are boasting of your wisdom, claiming to have seen into a deeper mystery, insisting that you are the only ones who are truly “mature”?

Very well, Paul says: you claim to be mature – you want to talk about wisdom. Then I’ll speak to you as to those who are mature; I will lay some wisdom on you. And he goes through and brilliantly uses their own vocabulary against them, point by point, until he has set out what it really means to be spiritual.

In today’s epistle Paul sets out four marks of the truly spiritual. The first is that those who are truly spiritual have their spirituality as a gift, not as an accomplishment. It is a gift from the Holy Spirit. And because it is a gift, it is not ground for boasting. Spiritual people do not draw attention to themselves. Spiritual people don’t go around talking about how spiritual they are. Spiritual people do not boast of the gift they have received; their mind is not on the gift, but on the Giver. That’s why Paul says, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” “Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the Cross of Christ, my God.”

The second mark of the truly spiritual is that they do not judge by human standards. Paul says, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.” The Corinthian Christians who prided themselves on their superior wisdom, their more sophisticated spirituality, were taking their cue from the world around them. The idea of a special knowledge available only to a few was a powerful cultural force, and these “advanced” Christians found it irresistible. Who wants to be just another Christian when you can claim to have something that makes you part of an elite?

And what are the powerful cultural forces that we Christians today find practically irresistible? The fear of being thought unsophisticated is very powerful. The delight in looking down on others who do not see eye to eye with us is very powerful. The eagerness to believe the worst of those who are on the opposite side from us in politics or religion is very powerful. But the truly spiritual are taught by the Spirit, who pours out the love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The third mark of the truly spiritual is that they discern the things of God. Paul says, “Those who are spiritual discern all things.” Now this does not mean that the truly spiritual are omniscient. It means that because they have the Spirit, they can discern the movement of the Spirit: “for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God,” and “we have received . . . the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” This is exactly why the spiritual person is not subject to the powerful cultural forces that Paul calls “the spirit of the world”: the spiritual person knows that those forces belong to “the rulers of this age who are doomed to perish.”

The fourth mark of the truly spiritual is that they have the mind of Christ. Paul says this boldly and without hedging: “we have the mind of Christ.” Not “you should really make an effort to have the mind of Christ” – stating it not as a command or an aspiration or an admonition, but as a plain fact: “We have the mind of Christ.”

You stupid Corinthians – I’m paraphrasing slightly now – you stupid Corinthians, boasting about your special wisdom, taking pride in your oh-so-sophisticated spirituality, judging by the spirit of the world, when all along you have the mind of Christ. You have the mind of Christ – all that is needed is that you use the gift that is already yours.

This is not a command to work at becoming what we are not, but an invitation to accept what we already are. Jesus speaks the same way in today’s Gospel. It’s not “Why don’t you have a go at being the light of the world for a change?” It’s not “You need to work really hard to become the salt of the earth.” It’s “You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world.” Gift, not accomplishment. Present reality, not future hope.

We have the mind of Christ. We have the Spirit that comes from God. Come, Holy Spirit, and dispel every mind that is not the mind of Christ, and every spirit that is not from God, that we may discern all things, even the depths of God.

Please ignore my venting

2011-02-04T06:05:00.003-06:00

Things I can't actually say to my students

Ms P: You have probably heard teachers say that there is no such thing as a stupid question. That's not actually true. Stupid questions are quite common. But in twenty years of college teaching, I have never heard another question that even comes close to being as stupid as your question at the beginning of class yesterday.

Ms W: I'm sorry. This class is not working out for you. Every time you speak in class, you reveal fundamental confusion. I ask "What is the main argument in favor of p?" and you raise your hand and offer the main objection to p. You clearly have no idea what's going on. Ever. Please drop the class before you take the first test. It's not going to be pretty, and you seem like a nice woman, despite your bewilderment. I don't really want to see your reaction to that first grade.

Mr W: So nice of you to join us for what I believe is the first time, here in the fourth week of classes. Congratulations on managing to take your first quiz -- you now have one entire point! You might consider, next time, writing your name on the quiz in such a way that I can actually read it. Your signature looks like "D_____ ______." Be glad there was no one else whose name started with D whose quiz was unaccounted for.

Mr P: Could you please not wear that sleeveless workout gear to my class? No, I can't tell you why not. Ask your buddy who always sits next to you. I suspect he finds it troubling too, for similar reasons, though -- bless his heart -- I don't think he's ready to admit that quite yet.

The people who chose 'unicorn' on that one multiple-choice question: Seriously? That was a joke answer. 'Unicorn' is never right. As a lawyer-priest friend of mine likes to say, "That violates the rule against being a dumb-ass."

A sermon for the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple

2011-02-03T05:43:00.005-06:00

So I'm on my way to church rather early, because the rector and the new organist and I are going to fiddle with The Toaster to see if we can make it sound better. (Among other serious problems is the fact that the principals sound so harsh that they're unusable. Since the principals are the most basic stops on the organ -- the ones that sound like organ as opposed to sounding like flutes or strings or trumpets or whatever -- that's a fairly serious problem. Our organ can't make organ sounds. Anyway . . .) The rector calls me on my cell phone. He will have to leave at 4:00 to attend to some pastoral matters, so in addition to celebrating at the 6:30 service, I'll need to preach.

Crap. I hate preaching with no preparation.

I get to church and we get to work. The rector adjusts amplifiers (he understands that sort of thing), the organist walks around the building to hear how things sound, and I sit at the console playing hymns and as much as I can remember of big Bach pieces and a truly regrettable improvisation on Picardy. By the time we're done, the sound of the organ has improved enormously.

The rector leaves, and then I go over Sunday's services with the organist. This takes quite a while, because we have a few hymns to choose, and there's a baptism at the choral service, and we need to take time to talk about the choir, and on and on.

At 5:30 I finally get to go into the church and think about a sermon.

At 6:00 the rector returns unexpectedly. "Do you want to preach after all?" I ask hopefully, since I still have no idea. "No, you go ahead," he says. We chat for twenty minutes or so about pastoral matters, and then it's time to vest. When the service begins at 6:30, I still don't know what I'm going to say.

I really, really hate preaching without preparation.

At some point, my thoughts began to take shape. This is (more or less) what came out:

*****

I have the wrong picture in my mind for this Gospel. I know that. In my mind there are only five people in the Temple, and they have met because today is going to be the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, and there is a spotlight on the Baby Jesus.

But that's the wrong picture. There are lots of people in the Temple -- priests going about their daily rounds, worshipers of all kinds, tourists. There is noise and chaos. There are all kinds of people, with all kinds of reasons for being there.

Why are you in the temple?

Mary and Joseph are in the Temple because that's what the law says, and they follow the law. It's been forty days since the birth -- have you been counting? forty days -- and the law commands them to go to the Temple so that Mary can be purified and Jesus, as the firstborn, can be offered to God.

So Mary and Joseph are in the Temple because they are doing what the law commands.

Why are you in the temple?

Simeon is in the Temple because the Holy Spirit has led him there specially on that day. God has told him that he will not die before he sees the Messiah of Israel, and on this day the Holy Spirit sends him to the Temple to see the One whom he has been longing to see. And the Spirit opens his eyes to see that this child is the One, and he says, "Lord, now you can dismiss your servant in peace, because I have seen what you have promised."

So Simeon is in the Temple because the Holy Spirit has sent him there to see God's salvation.

Why are you in the temple?

Now Anna -- she didn't need a special reason to be in the Temple. She was always in the Temple. You couldn't keep that woman away from church. "Happy are they who dwell in your house! They will always be praising you" -- that was her favorite verse. And so Anna was in the Temple, as she always was, praising and worshiping God. And on this day God showed her something extraordinary, and she praised God in a way she had never been able to praise him before.

So Anna is in the Temple because Anna is always in the Temple.

Why are you in the temple?

And Jesus -- well, I'm tempted to say he's in the Temple because his mama brought him. But that's not quite right, is it? For his mama wouldn't have brought him if he had not, for us and for our salvation, chosen her to be his mama. So this is no passive, helpless infant. Jesus presents himself; he offers himself in the Temple to his Father, as he will offer himself on the Cross.

So Jesus is in the Temple because he chooses, for us and for our salvation, to be in the Temple.

Why are you in the temple?

*****

I was fairly happy with how that turned out. At least, it worked well in the moment.

I still don't like preaching without preparation, but at least I've learned to do it without panic, and that's something.

Sunday afternoon musings

2011-01-30T13:05:00.007-06:00

Today we played one of my favorite games: Name That (Other) Tune. For "Tell out, my soul," we used Birmingham -- a perfectly serviceable tune, but I've always been partial to Woodlands. And for "In the cross of Christ I glory" we used Rathbun, which I've never cared for; I've always loved Tomter, even before I had the experience of singing with, beside, and for the composer and becoming a big fan of his.

*****

It is an ironclad law that if you assign a feminist essay on how women's voices have been excluded from the theological tradition, you will get at least one reply that invokes the most sickly-sweet, vomitous Marian piety imaginable as a rebuttal. You don't have to be much of a feminist to think that the transformation of the Lord's mother from the skeptical, opinionated, feisty woman we encounter in the Scriptures into a saccharine icon of intense but non-threatening piety rather supports the feminist case.

*****

Nothing, however, beats one student's declaration that Scripture commands men to love their wives "as though Christ loved the Church."

*****

"Use the right word, not its second cousin," wrote Mark Twain in his criticism of James Fenimore Cooper's prose style. "Second cousin" at least suggests some sort of recognizable connection. With my students, it's more like "use the right word, not a hippopotamus."

Well, now, this is exactly the sort of post I need to read . . .

2011-01-27T12:19:00.001-06:00

. . . right before I go off to teach my philosophy of religion class.

The question behind the question

2011-01-27T11:34:00.003-06:00

I just got an e-mail from a parishioner that started off like this: "What made you want to become a priest?"

I'm not sure what the question behind that question is, but I doubt it's anything good.