a collection of stuff
I haven't posted in a few days.
Friday at St Mark's we learned about Joseph Butler, who apparently didn't want to be archbishop because he thought the Anglican church was about to split itself asunder; plus ça change. During the service a couple came in, sat at the back and kept up a sotto voce running commentary; later they caught up with me in the street. "Excuse me," said the woman in a heavy German accent, "was that a Catholic service?" "No," I replied, "Episcopalian." "It was Episcopalian," she told her husband in German. I wondered whether to try out my GCSE German on them, but decided against it.
Sunday we went to St Gabriel's and Deacon DJ preached about prayer and spiritual exercises. She gave us all a copy of a list of attributes of God, with references, she had found over the last ten years in the Bible. It ran to both sides of a page in small print. She says she takes it with her in her car and prays over it when she hits traffic jams. There was lots of good singing, too, and we ended up with Cwm Rhondda which I'm afraid I sang far too loudly.
After that we went for Sunday lunch with Plexq and 5eh to celebrate Father's Day. (Riordon, a little like Jenny of old, has two daddies— as well as two mummies, like Heather— and therefore twice as much to celebrate today.) She gave me a beautiful present she'd made herself.
A couple of Sunday links: a paper that says that churches which are wrestling with LGBT issues today may also have to confront poly issues one day soon. And also a good article by someone at General Convention saying that we must put the work of reconciliation first. (I should add that I'm very happy that +Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected Presiding Bishop today: she sounds a wonderful person from all the biographies I can find, and I think we're in for another interesting nine years. May they also be nine years of proclamation, reconciliation, justice, faithfulness, and joy.)
And I have bust my working copy of metacity. I see working through diffs in my immediate future.
I heard today that my first-grade teacher is retiring after 32 years in the job. The world won't be the same without Mrs McCormack: she's definitely well within the top hundred people who made a big difference to my life. I must send her a card.
I said earlier that when people talk about the undoubted great good that came from the change from Latin services to English in the Book of Common Prayer in the 1540s, they never mention how it was also used as a tool of repression by the English government against linguistic minorities such as the Cornish (and the Irish, though strangely not the Welsh this time). Well, I am glad to say that the daily liturgical prayers posted by the Mission of St Clare (which are excellent to use, by the way, if you follow the daily offices in your prayers) actually did mention the Prayer Book Rebellion. So, good for them.
I have an interview tomorrow about possibly taking on another role at work (I'll say more if I get it). Think of me.