I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center:
If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.
I've been in congregations where everyone imposes ashes on the next person, and I HATE it so much!!! But not because it needs to be clergy, but because it feels like a hostile act of aggression against introverts. I'm like "oh my gosh, just let me PRAY and don't give me more things to SAY and DO!"
15.02.2026 06:08 β π 7 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Both are good, but I actually think Holy Dying is the better of the two, so I usually tell people to start with that one and then move onto Holy Living if they like him and want more!
13.02.2026 09:31 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0I mean, I'm a church history professor who goes to daily mass (when offered), so the calendar is actually pretty central to my spirituality. And yet even as a historian, I sometimes feel like we're spending a disproportionate amount of energy looking backwards rather than forwards...
13.02.2026 09:26 β π 12 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Yes, it's also that the calendar often functions as a reflection of "us" and how we see ourselves as a church. But surely prayer book and hymnal are that as well, and we aren't seeing NEARLY the same level of engagement in terms of people proposing other kinds of liturgical changes...
13.02.2026 09:22 β π 8 π 0 π¬ 2 π 0(My deeply unsettling theory to explain what is going on here is that we are basically using the calendar as a way to write our own collective obituary, and so every diocese/ seminary/ organization needs a line in there remembering how great we once were...)
13.02.2026 09:20 β π 9 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Mostly joking but semi-serious proposal that we invent "Reverse Lent Madness" and use it to vote people off the Episcopal calendar since are narrowly approaching "every day is a feast day!" territory...
There are apparently a few dozen more in the works to come to General Convention 2027...
They're also in Weekday Eucharistic Propers if people don't have the 2006 edition and are looking for something still in print!
(There's been a mixed reaction to separating them from the rest of LFF, but people can't stop adding calendar commemorations and we needed to be able to bind the book...)
Ask Uzzah how well trying to protect God worked for him...
www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...
<sings> "One of these things is not like the others...one of these things is...an Anglican!" β
09.02.2026 17:54 β π 10 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Absolutely anyone!
09.02.2026 17:52 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Come study History of Christian Monasticism with me online next quarter! β
cdsp.edu/call-courses...
This 9 bedroom house right next to the Episcopal cathedral in Minneapolis was clearly meant to be an Episcopal monastery, right? I have the people, just not the part where it requires money to take a vow of poverty under conditions of capitalism...
www.zillow.com/homedetails/...
I might add that tradition also developed to explain why Joseph suddenly disappears from the Gospel accounts by the time Jesus is an adult. He doesn't seem like the type to just up and leave, and while he could have died tragically young, I think people wanted him to have had a gentler end...
02.01.2026 17:04 β π 6 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
1. How to Inhabit Time by James K.A.Smith
2.A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life by Zita Hitz
3. Queer Callings by Mark Jordan
4. Love in Time by Fannie Bialek
5. Lower than the Angels by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Most of what I read this year was related to specific research projects, but here are a handful of things I would more generally recommend:
31.12.2025 19:55 β π 5 π 1 π¬ 1 π 0(Honestly, really what I want is to teach all congregations to chant the psalms, even if they stuck to one psalm tone and one ending for everything Learning one tone is not hard, and the experience of chanting the psalms is just so much richer...AND makes it easier to stick together!)
23.12.2025 14:44 β π 4 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0My preference would be by whole verse since that is what works best when chanting and I think of chanting as normative and recitation as derivative, but I have admittedly found that "pause at the *" is really hard for people to do while reciting and still stay together.
23.12.2025 14:43 β π 4 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Choosing to believe that each apostle contributed exactly 1 of the 12 ingredients like it was a terrible potluck, and imagining what each one of them might bring...
04.12.2025 21:44 β π 8 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Come study church history with me! I'm teaching online classes in Episcopal history (starting in January), and the history of Christian monasticism (starting in April). I'm especially excited about getting to teach monasticism, and hoping it will draw a good enrollment! β cdsp.edu/call/online/
18.11.2025 14:37 β π 18 π 4 π¬ 2 π 1And the appointed OT reading is "Israel demands a king, assuring God that it will go really well and that the king will definitely never abuse power at all"!
14.11.2025 11:30 β π 5 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0(Although I somewhat regretted it after reading a great sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux about how Mary contemplates, Martha manages and administrates, and Lazarus cleans things! Maybe he can be there if he's actually washing the dishes and letting Martha do more important work!)
14.09.2025 00:17 β π 5 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0That one predates me, so I actually don't know. The extent of my interference in that feast was kicking Lazarus out and letting the girls have their own day again!
14.09.2025 00:15 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0I think it was intended to be v.6. (Give people 9 or 13 verses and there would be riots...Or, more realistically for Episcopalians, silent mutiny and just not doing all that!)
12.09.2025 16:25 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0I impulse bought something I've never seen before, which turns out to be a kind of squash! Me: "what is this?" Farmer: "Not sure, but I'd sautΓ© it. It gets soggy if you roast it." Me: "...okay, I'll take 2 of whatever it is!"
06.09.2025 14:43 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0In general, I'm on team "don't treat the Trinity as though you just read an organizational theory textbook and now think every hypostasis needs a clear job on your org chart", but if I wanted to defend it I would probably lean more on the creedal language of "giver of life".
03.09.2025 21:50 β π 15 π 1 π¬ 1 π 0
Also, I know you prefer not online, but you might like something like the certificate in Benedictine Spirituality at St. John's, which has a mix of online and short term summer classes: www.csbsju.edu/sot/academic...
I keep sending them Episcopalians, and people all seem to really like it.