A quiet night in the Acts of Hope study

Here we are in the study at home, Her Grace and I. I have been out a lot (meetings galore all week, a daylong diocesan committee retreat Saturday, chunks of time at the office including this afternoon and early evening) and Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extraordinaire, is peacefully settled on a stack of papers on the desk. Her furry grey self is breathing steadily as I sit here revising a syllabus. Usually I play music when I do this kind of work, but we are just enjoying the silence here.

Earlier today I listened to this fine piece of jazz, courtesy of Dennis. That's Classy Dennis of Psychology, Dogs, Politics, and Wine, not Classy Dennis, Brother of Acts of Hope, who also loves jazz.

First day of class, tomorrow!

Mother of God Similar to Fire

This rendition of a 19th-century Russian icon, Mother of God Similar to Fire, is by the Jesuit iconographer William Hart McNichols. It shows "the Mother of God on fire with prayer and the life of God within her."

First (administrative) week of fall semester

We're really busy here....



Lots of meetings this week. Lots of computin' still to do. All day retreat coming up Saturday for one of our church group. (That's Church Lady Jane, not Professor Jane.) Classes start Monday at 8:30 a.m. (Early morning History of Christianity, anyone?)

+Maya still napping. Jane, not so much. But a little, because she does obey her Extraordinary Feline.

On the Necessity of Naps: A Pastoral Letter from +Maya Pavlova

Beloved two-leggers and four-leggers all, and three-leggers and wheel-riders too,

Grace, peace, and purrs to you in the name of the One who feeds us and keeps us safe and provides us companions with whom to play.

I have been meaning to write this pastoral letter since my return from London and Lambeth, but have been much preoccupied with {{{yaaaawwwwn}}} the very subject of this letter. Canine and feline time, as my brother bishops +Clumber, +Airedale, and +Rowan have noted, is a time unfettered by the meetings and schedules of humans.

Yesterday afternoon, on the blessed Day of Resurrection, my Canon to the Extraordinary, having returned from church, had a light repast and headed for her bed, declaring that she ought to make up a deficit of sleep from the previous night. After jumping onto the bed and sniffing about, I decided to depart curl up on my own, on the other bed in the house, in another room. I am +Maya Pavlova and I sleep wherever I want.

We slept for well over two hours, so the two-legger said. Myself, I do not count.

When we got up, she was of a peaceful spirit and I of a sprightly one.

This led me finally to compose this episcopal admonition to you, my beloved.

I have noticed that the Canon to the Extraordinary is occasionally cranky. "Occasionally" is a kind, moderate, and appropriately Anglican word. So is "cranky."

There seem to be two ways of applying a remedy to this most unpleasant state of hers: dipping her in hot water (what she refers to as "a bath" or "a nice soak in the tub") or seeking the blessed peace of sleep.

Only one of these remedies, the second of the two, functions in all seasons (hot water is no remedy in the muggy summers of our fair state), is appropriate for all species (we felines never engage in such wet pursuits as "baths") and requires minimal shifting or changing of the clothing which fur-less two-legs must wear. The short version of this happy remedy is the nap.

Where, you may ask, is this nap mandated in Holy Scripture? And if we are Anglicans, what of the other sources of our common life? Are we not departing from tradition? What of reason? Notice, my friends, the three legged stool: and what better place for a small cat like me to curl up in a ball and slumber?

But I have digressed, or perhaps not. That is my privilege as a cat.

Holy Writ, my friends, does mention Jesus going to a place apart in the midst of his ministry. Certainly he prayed. But think you not that he had another thought as he drew apart to commune with the Creator? Get me away from these people!

You will argue that there appears to be in Holy Scripture no explicit reference to naps. There is, friends, there is. I speak not only of the blessed sleep of Jacob and his visions, and of the exhausted slumber of the weakened friends of Jesus in the garden --surely a sign of nap deprivation over the long term-- but of even more certain and detailed nap references in a recently discovered non-canonical writing, the Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena.

Maya Magdalena, an ancestor of mine, is said by this scriptural fragment to have been a four-legged companion of one of the friends of Jesus. Certain references even indicate that she was for a time a faithful companion of Jesus himself. The surviving fragment of the Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena states that on several occasions, this four-legged feline wrapped herself around the ankles of Jesus and twice slept on his lap. Yes, Jesus had a lap. Was he not fully human and fully divine? Do humans not have laps?

Did Jesus not embrace small children and praise the insight of such little ones? Surely he saw also the beauty of dogs and cats. Anthropocentric editors of the Gospels and Epistles have suppressed the tales of animal companions. They have paid some attention to other animals: the wild beasts who with the angels fed Jesus in the desert, the ancient sacrifice of animals (+Maya does not want to hear of this), the beasts and birds and dragon in the Apocalypse of John. But what of the real and daily creatures, four-legged, winged, and slithering animal companions? Were they only the dogs in the story of the Syrophoenician woman, eating the crumbs under the table?

The Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena shows us that creatures of all kinds, especially felines, were bearers of the Gospel. Indeed, it is in a scene depicting Jesus with the sleeping Maya Magdalena that we hear him say, softly and admiringly, "Be ye like this feline of peace, and nap often, for of such behavior is the kin-dom of Godde made."

Increase the number of naps in your life, beloved. Your level of doctrinal irritation will decrease immediately. You will neither sue nor be sued. All creatures will appear more beautiful to you when you wake, though before you gaze at them you will feel the need to stretch and sigh, and so you must do, extending your limbs and breathing and perhaps grooming yourself before rising to greet the world again.

If you have not known the bliss of the nap, seek out a napper who may witness to you calmly and joyfully.

Are naps with other creatures permitted? I have napped with my human companion, when I so please. The decision is mine. The two-legger Caminante, a friend of creatures of many nations and a Canon in fair green lands, has shown us, in her electronic epistles, her feline companions curled up against one another. Love and nap with each other in freedom, dear ones, as the Spirit and your own free will move you.

+Maya has spoken.

Yours in the grace of recurring snoozes, with pastoral love for all, without exception,

The Right Rev. and Right Hon. Maya Pavlova, F.B.E.


Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to curl up in the sun by the window of the study. Meet and right it is that the Canon to the Extraordinary set up a cat-sized perch parallel to the window and the desk so that I might enjoy my leisure. I wish for you the very same. And if no one makes you such a perch, make it yourself. I also recommend the top of a pile of clean, soft laundry. - +MP, FBE.

P.S. To behold me in detail, click on photos to enlarge.

Friday cat blogging and the fleeting days of summer

More photos from the retreat center

About ten or twelve days ago...





Click on any photo to enlarge it and see detail.

The duck is stone, but the frog is real. ** Click to enlarge.

St. Francis thinks about it all.

Why is the stone bunny bigger than Francis?

In honor of the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, take a little time to slow down and contemplate the love of Godde and where the Spirit is leading you in your life.

Her Grace misses home

This came in last night from the Right Rev. and Right Hon. Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extraordinaire. I wasn't able to post it earlier today.

Beloved Canon to the Extraordinary and All My Friendly Humans,

I am getting homesick. You know we cats like our own turf, agile as we are in many venues. I miss North Carolina. There are plenty of laps to sit on here at Lambeth but the two-legged bishops keep getting up to run to the next event so I have to get up all the time too. There are humans everywhere and lots of hopping bunnies, so it's also hard to find a quiet corner for no-lap naps. I crept into the tent that has that nice cartoonist Dave Walker who likes cats, but he was busy giving interviews. +Clumber is tired and needs to get back to Pittsburgh and +Airedale to Fort Woof. +Rowan is fine as long as he has a place to play but even he is a little weary,and to be frank, I think he misses Lindy. It looks like we're going to come home early. I've had enough clotted cream. I'll text you from +Airedale's phone [note from Jane: where did this cat learn text messaging??] and let you know when my plane is coming in. Have the Newman's Organic Cat Food ready with a bowl of cold fresh water beside it.

I also gather from your letters that you have some more summer writing to do, and though you haven't asked, I know you do much better with a cat by your side when you are trying to think deep thoughts. My pastoral responsibilities are back with my creatures. I'll nap, you'll write, and we will both be the better for it. England was nice, but enough is enough. Besides, what else do we need to say? +Airedale has been clear as day that loving all creatures is what matters most. I've enjoyed being with my brother canine bishops. That was the best part of the trip, though I did enjoy the photo shoot with the other female bishops.

Once I am rested up, which may take some time, I intend to write a pastoral letter on the need for naps. I'm sure the two-legged bishops would be much calmer if they could nap as well as pray.

Faithfully yours, with purrs,

+Maya Pavlova, F.B.E.

"There's no place like home:" latest essay at the Episcopal Café

So much for no blogging. Today happens to be the day that my July essay is published at The Episcopal Café, and I promised you a link. Here it is, with a couple of teaser paragraphs below. (Neither is the paragraph on the Café front page, which really does not summarize or call attention to the major point of the piece. I think someone on the editorial staff just grabbed it because it sounded Lambeth-y, which the piece is not, at least directly. It's very much a personal reflection -- with broader implications.)

... This land is not my land nor the land my body loves. It is not the place of my birth. In other ways it is becoming home, not least because of the church. These simultaneous truths speak to me as I walk, step by step, on a quiet summer evening in a labyrinth bounded with stone.

... my life has schooled me for the church, for broad belonging, for holding many people – and peoples – in my heart at once. It is no accident that theologies of the communion of saints and of the body of Christ are among those I treasure most and find most sustaining. ...

Read it all here. The permanent link is here.

And if you are so moved, do write something in the Comments section at the Café. It's good for them to know that I have more than two readers. :-)

(If you have never commented at the Episcopal Café before, it's a bit arduous as you have to go through a sign-in procedure, but it's worth it and you will be signed up forever after that.)

Of course, Acts of Hope welcomes your comments right here, too. Thanks!

Earlier this week at the retreat center

Click photos to enlarge them.

Off to Our Nation's Capital in the morning.

Photos by Jane Redmont

Writings, blog slowdown, and a July archive of saints and stories

I keep waiting for my latest piece for the Episcopal Café to come out -- I turned it in July 11 -- but the Lambeth pieces have priority these days and my essay was not related to Lambeth, at least not in the narrow sense. (We columnists write on whatever we please, and then the Café editors publish as it seems appropriate.)

Luiz's monthly essay is up today, though, and it is not an As the Anglican World Turns one. It is a short, beautiful reflection about art as ministry.

You can also visit Luiz's Lambeth art blog here.

There was also a non-Lambeth essay the other day (can you tell I have Lambeth Overload?) on the subject of waiting. Very pertinent to Lambeth, of course, but with broader, daily application.

Anyway, I'll be back on blog when my Episcopal Café essay comes out, to post a link to it. Writer's vanity. (Also, I have a photo of +Maya with her nose in an English teacup, but have run into a technological delay. It's not Her Grace's fault, or that of her brothers, the canine bishops. It's Life As Usual.) Other than that, I am taking either a break or a slowdown here for a couple of weeks.



I have to focus on some writing projects, and I'm also going out of town for a bit in the middle of that period of time. The intrepid Mother of Acts of Hope (age almost 90) and I are meeting up partway between where she and Father of Acts of Hope live and where I live. We will be attending a performance by a cousin of mine in Our Nation's Capital and having some family time. I'll stay on briefly to visit friends and then head back here. The hordes return to campus mid-August (very uncivilized -- whatever happened to having school start after Labor Day?) and I am jealously guarding my solitude.

I also have to proofread a stack of pages from the forthcoming new edition of my book on prayer, catch up on my other blog, the one I have neglected this year and which serves the constituency of the diocesan anti-racism committee, keep working on the planning committee for the conference on the racial history of our diocese and do some course planning both for Guilford and for the theology module of the diocesan deacon formation program, which I am about to start teaching. Also I'm feeling moved to pray more, for the Lambeth gathering and in general, just taking time to be still and open to the Spirit. So, something's got to give.

I've also been musing about my blogging habits, both those present here and the comments I leave (and don't leave -- I have been writing comments and then deciding not to post them more and more often) but I will write about that when I have something coherent and thoughtful to say.

Meanwhile, have a look at this.

And in case you don't have enough to catch up on here on this season's blogging, the whole month of July 2007, complete with saints and sermons, is here. (Like all blog archives, it is in reverse chronological order.) Lots of fabulous women saints in July. And the month ends with the great Ignatius of Loyola, or Iñigo, as he was known in the Basque Country where he was born.

Oh, and speaking of writer's vanity: Dennis kindly left a note in the comments to this post informing me that an excerpt from of my Episcopal Café essay on women as global church was picked up by yesterday's Lambeth Witness. Lambeth Witness is Integrity's daily publication during the Lambeth gathering. The excerpt is on page 2 under the title "Some Guiding Questions." The full, original essay is here.

Off I go. Send a few prayers my way!

Or good vibrations, if prayer isn't your thing.

Thank you.

What the Web Hath Wrought

Even as I ponder a blog slowdown (you'll notice I am still writing at least once a day, so I haven't exactly slowed, and +Maya Pavlova did ring from England to say yes, there will be more pictures, but not quite yet) and my need for thought, prayer, and a break from Perpetual States of Distraction, I received in the (e-) mail a perfectly timely piece.

Beloved Elder Sibling of Acts of Hope, once again, has tapped into his sister's psyche and sent in just the right thing. And he doesn't even read my blog. Or does he?

I'm posting below the beginning of the article he sent, and you can read the rest via the link to the magazine. Please read everything I posted here. Don't do what we all seem to be doing, which is skimming and jumping around.

I have been wondering for months and months, really a few years (pre-blogging), what is the internet doing to concentration? to contemplation? to reading? I even wrote about it in the New Preface by the Author which will be out, with the Old Book, in the fall.

It's not as simple as "the internet has wrecked our brains." It's much more complex and not all negative. But it does make one think, and I am thinking.

No, I'm not going to stop blogging. I am just pondering how to blog, and live, more mindfully.

Apparently I'm not the only one. My friend Chris is about to change his blogging habits.

Have a read and see what you think.

Oh, and the salsa was very good. The food co-op was out of cilantro today and said "come back tomorrow" but driving four miles just for cilantro is a bad idea, so cilantro-less we shall remain. But there was very fine basil and I bought some and there is pesto in my near future.

Speaking of distractions.

Okay, now read:

What the Internet is doing to our brains
by Nicholas Carr
Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Link to full text here.

"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?" So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial brain. "Dave, my mind is going," HAL says, forlornly. "I can feel it. I can feel it."

I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going-so far as I can tell-but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what's going on. For more than a decade now, I've been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I've got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I'm not working, I'm as likely as not to be foraging in the Web's info-thickets-reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they're sometimes likened, hyperlinks don't merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)

For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they've been widely described and duly applauded. "The perfect recall of silicon memory," Wired's Clive Thompson has written, "can be an enormous boon to thinking." But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I'm not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances-literary types, most of them-many say they're having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. "I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader," he wrote. "What happened?" He speculates on the answer: "What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I'm just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?"
Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. "I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print," he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a "staccato" quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. "I can't read War and Peace anymore," he admitted. "I've lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it."

Anecdotes alone don't prove much. And we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition. But a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that we may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think. As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using the sites exhibited "a form of skimming activity," hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they'd already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would "bounce" out to another site. Sometimes they'd save a long article, but there's no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it. The authors of the study report:

It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of "reading" are emerging as users "power browse" horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.

Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it's a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking-perhaps even a new sense of the self. "We are not only what we read," says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. "We are how we read." Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts "efficiency" and "immediacy" above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become "mere decoders of information." Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It's not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains. Experiments demonstrate that readers of ideograms, such as the Chinese, develop a mental circuitry for reading that is very different from the circuitry found in those of us whose written language employs an alphabet. The variations extend across many regions of the brain, including those that govern such essential cognitive functions as memory and the interpretation of visual and auditory stimuli. We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.


There's more. Read on. Link to full text here.

Behind the scenes

What the conflict-hungry press are not seeing, don't want to see, and probably don't understand because it is not made of sound bites, speed, or statements:

... I must say that the mood here is not what I expected at all. There is a deep sense of contemplation and reflection and very little focus on the politics of schism. There is also a whole lot of joy - and it is not superficial. The program has been designed so well and my hope for some good to come from this conference continues to increase - even more now that the bishops have arrived. ...

You can read about it in this heartening report from a Lambeth steward from the Diocese of Newark, (the Rev.) Michael Sniffen, via (the Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Kaeton's Telling Secrets.

P.S. An evening postscriptum: In the same vein, have a look at what Our Allie has to say. Thank you, dear stewards. Come, Holy Spirit.

Anglicans Online on women bishops: a must-read

I always love Anglicans Online's editorial reflections, which post every Sunday. Sometimes I forget to read them. I remembered this week, and all I have to say is

WOW

This is not usually my reaction to AO's essays. More often it is a discreet but deep, satisfied murmur of approval.

This time it is a huge letting out of a sigh of happy admiration.

The story begins with the tale of Irina Sendlerowa, about whom I read when she died many weeks ago and about whom some of this blogging community posted. Her face, radiant with goodness, is on the AO page too.

What does Sendlerowa have to do with women in the episcopate? Read and find out.

And this is not happy-clappy mush. There are steely, astutely reasoned arguments in the essay.

Not that there isn't a place for happy-clappy. But this is more: thought and joy, together. AO are always good at that combination, but they have outdone themselves.

Enough ecstasies from me. Go ye and read.

Once the week is over, I'll find the permalink and post it. For now, the essay is on the front page.

Summer slowdown: Sunday afternoon -- preaching aftermath, music, nap

I have preached on the akedah, the Binding of Isaac, one of the most difficult texts in the Bible, after being up half the night fiddling with the sermon and still not figuring out its conclusion till I was in the pulpit. We had a guest presider, the Episcopal Chaplain at Duke (though it also has "regular people," my congregation is a chaplaincy for three of the colleges and universities in Greensboro, so we are siblings of sorts), and it was great to have her with us. Ladies' day at altar and pulpit. Kevin is away at an ordination in Washington.

I may or may not post the sermon since I finished it on the spot and it's always hard to reconstruct. Same thing happened with my sermon on Jacob & the angel and the widow & the judge. Seems to occur with these wrestling-with-G*d stories.

There is an old-time music concert in Greensboro this afternoon with a group about which I hear nothing but praise, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and it sounds like great fun, outdoors and with fine music, but after all this biblical exertion I need a good long nap. After the nap, we'll see.

Here's a MySpace page I just found for the group. When you click, you'll hear some of their music. They are a young African American string band, and I think I'm going to be a fan.

Here they are via YouTube. You can see them as well as hear them in action. Great fiddling and banjo, and it's a jug band with a real jug. Good harmonies, too. MadPriest, are you listening? (Note: the Mad One has some good Sunday afternoon music himself. Have a listen.)

And yes, the computer is fixed. Still tinkering with bits of software I had to reinstall but we're up and running after a full "re-imaging" and installation of new and improved super-duper virus protection.

Her Grace is watching live kitty tv, also known as the bird activity outside the window.

As for Jesus, he showed up, right on time, and the congregation left well fed, to love and serve.

Praying for friends and enemies: on Bonhoeffer and GAFCON

Justin Lewis -Anthony at the Three Minute Theologian remembers Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the subject of praying for our friends and enemies and applies it to this GAFCON week. Read it here. [Oops -- this link never wants to work; both FranIAm and I have tried to fix it. So just click on the home site of the Three Minute Theologian, the first link above, and scroll down, and you will find the Bonhoeffer post. ]

Tip of the summer straw hat to Dave Walker at the Church Times Blog via The Episcopal Cafe's The Lead.

Luiz on "the spirituality of sweet tea"

My friend (and friend of several of our readers here) Luiz Coelho has a lovely essay on "The Spirituality of Sweet Tea" at the Episcopal Café this weekend. *Permanent link here, though the essay is still on the front page, till early tomorrow. *Sweet tea, a reality both Southern U.S. and Brazilian.* Thank you, Luiz.

I'm struck by the fact that several of us who are Café columnists have been writing about slowing down, contemplation, Sabbath, overwork, overscheduling, and related matters.* (Today's column by Luiz, and also here, here, and here and probably some others I've missed.) *We're noticing the speed and superficiality of the culture around us and its production-centered values and trying to dip into our traditions to find deeper and more thirst-quenching waters.

{...drinking chilled,* unsweetened peppermint tea, slowly... and waiting for a North Carolina thunderstorm to descend on us...}

* no ice cubes

Summer slowdown; holy communion (redux).

Still pondering the matters I mentioned two posts below. Thanks for your thoughts. Keep 'em coming! (Slowly and in your own time, of course.)

Summer slowdown; holy communion

Deirdre Good, colleague and friend, writes about academic summers and provides a link to the sage summer advice of Ms. Mentor, who is the Miss Manners of academe and writes for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Thank you, Ms. Mentor.

Life has quieted down here. The academic year is over. I have met some immediate deadlines and taken care of the most pressing household concerns. I've visited my parents, attended the memorial service for my mentor, and traveled again for a major professional obligation. I have gotten some rest.

I canceled my attendance at a conference this past week and weekend. It was my first absence in 15 years and I was supposed to help give out an award to a terrific scholar, Barbara Hilkert Andolsen of Monmouth University, whom I had nominated for the honor. But there were two other women speaking in tribute to her, and I e-mailed in my tribute, which someone else read on my behalf. I stayed here, getting into a steady rhythm of life, enjoying the reunion with my congregation this morning.

I am one of those very blessed people who worships and helps lead worship in a wonderful congregation. I have not capitalized "holy communion" above because the communion we shared this morning, the communion with Jesus and with each other, is also a broader communion. Our visiting preacher, Bob, spoke of this with different words but in the same spirit.

In this time of summer slowdown, I (and some fortunate others) can move into greater mindfulness, attentive to the ways in which all our lives can be both attentive and eucharistic. One can rarely have the latter without the former. Do we gulp down our food our savor it? Do we approach our dinner plates, our dishes, our piles of unsorted papers, our work, our encounters in stores and homes, with haste? with dread? with pleasure? with resentment? with hope?

If we feel dread, do we take time to know that we are feeling it? (I asked myself this very recently about two small tasks I was dreading and which were growing bigger by the hour because of the dread.) Not to wallow in the feeling, not to over-analyze it, but to notice it?

If we meet a person, a task, a place, do we meet that person, task, or place, as reverently as we would the moment of Holy Communion?

There is still work this summer: completion of small and large writing projects; getting the new administrative staff person settled with the diocesan committee I chair (we are all volunteers, but she is paid through a small grant we have) and starting to plan for some teaching I'll be doing in the diocesan deacon formation program; a few other things.

But life is less riddled with the term-time lurching from one fire to the next with metaphorical fire extinguisher in hand. I have more control over my time and over the rhythm of the days.

There is more time, of course, to attend to inner realities, and those can be as challenging to face as the outer ones. Still, there is more space to be reverent. I try not to mourn the times I was not able to be reverent, mindful, eucharistic, in this past packed year. Perhaps summer can also be a time for reconciliation: for forgiveness of self as well as others.

In this way too, summer holds the promise of sacrament.

Are there ways in which you have, hope for, struggle toward, a sacramental summer?

Still more writing: "Reclaiming the Sabbath" at the Episcopal Café

Given the way time and lack of time have been issues in my life all year, there is a certain irony in my having written this month's column for the Episcopal Café on Reclaiming the Sabbath.

But we always preach to ourselves, and I think this is an issue for all of us. What the essay addresses more specifically is the Sabbath and the overscheduling of churches, particularly here in the U.S.

Enjoy.

And don't forget to read Luiz's fine piece on religious freedom from yesterday.

Writing (with continuing doggie theme)

Father of Acts of Hope, who is a pretty good writer if I may say so my(daughterly)self, once gave me a copy of this -- I think when I was working on my first book. He gave me the black and white version, though. I still have it. Lo and behold, there is a color version on the Web.

In lieu of Friday cat blogging. Told you, we are dog-friendly here too.