Dear friends,
I am hoping to finish up and send this post by the last day of January in the 2025th year of our Lord. Barely. By the skin of my teeth.
It’s been an unusually busy month for me. The busyness is on account of a combination of seasonal illness (according to NPR, someone in our house will be sick for about 58% of the year!), a bit of travelling (I was at a Communion Partners’ gathering for a few days), a busier-than-usual pastoral schedule, a couple writing projects, and the last big push of significant work for the Primate’s Commission, Reimaging the Church: Proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st Century.
Writing
I had a few things come to fruition over the past while.
First, an article I’d been working on for the last year or so was accepted in the Anglican Theological Review. It is up online, but it has not yet appeared in print. It’s titled “A Tale of Two Doctrines: Marriage in the Diocese of Toronto” and is frankly pretty technical. For non church-nerds, the article is my attempt to grasp how the church makes decisions about doctrine. This relates primarily to Holy Scripture but also to church law or canon law, the authority of bishops, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Here is the abstract:
I reviewed Creating the Canon by Benjamin Laird for the Center for Pastor Theologians Journal. I liked the book. You can read the review on page 141 here.
A review I completed quite a while ago also came out in the most recent edition of The Journal of Anglican Studies. This one is of G. R. Evan’s Crown, Mitre and People in the Nineteenth Century: The Church of England, Establishment and the State, which was good for me to keep abreast of nineteenth century scholarship, even if it was a bit out of my wheelhouse. See it here.
I wrote a couple of little pieces for our parish newsletter, The Crucifer. One on Robert Hayden (who I am reading now) and another on post-Christmas anxiety.
And of course, I am preaching each week. Because of some scheduling changes I’ve been mostly at Christ Church South.
Reading
This has been a great month or so of reading. Here are the highlights:
The most significant and meatiest work I’ve been into recently is Jon Fosse’s Septology which includes The Other Name (vol. 1), I Is Another (vol. 2) and A New Name (vol. 3)
I first came across Fosse in a reference to him in one of Image’s news letters (I think), but had a difficult time tracking him down. I recently discovered I could listen his magnum opus on Libby. I quickly purchased a hard copy because this book has been so edifying and challenging.
The plot of the book is difficult to describe, and maybe even a little boring. Septology chronicles the thoughts of a Norwegian painter, Asle, over the course of a week of Advent. Each section occurs of the course of one day. Asle is concerned about his alcoholic friend (also named Asle, also a painter) and tries to take care of him. The book is written as first person narrative, but it suddenly glides into third person, recalling stories from Asle’s (which one? We can’t always tell) past. The atmosphere that Fosse creates is like a fever dream, but a good fever dream, one I didn’t want to end. And the book doesn’t pull punches with its consideration of suffering and theodicy. Asle (like Fosse) is a Catholic, and his thoughts drift to the prayers of the church, to meditations on the hiddenness of God (taking cues from Meister Eckhart).
I really want to write a piece about this book. But, alas, time is short!
I read Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy. This was a really eye-opening book for me. I am not sure I can follow Shrier in all of her conclusions, but I was especially struck by her discussion of iatrogenesis in psychotherapy, and how this often overlooked (or never considered). I will be far more careful recommending therapy to others. My own experiences have been mixed. The good has been really good, and after reading this, I understand the bad a little more.
Sometimes I start thinking about the bread and wine in Holy Communion, and how they become Christ’s body and blood (I lean Catholic, for what it’s worth). And then my man Thomas Cranmer reminds me I am thinking about the wrong questions. The point of Communion is receiving and being transformed by Jesus, not whether or not bread becomes flesh. Reading his A Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament was healthy reminder of this. Also, a reminder of why I love Anglicanism.
I was on a Karl Ove Knausgaard kick over the holidays so I picked up and read his book, Autumn. It’s a weird book, because it is (sort off) a letter to his unborn daughter, followed by short reflections on everyday objects. So it’s not a novel, more an essay collection that has some loose coherence. He writes on things like apples, cars, lice, thermos flasks, and pain.
Finally, I finished reading Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ. I have never really read anything much by Rohr, and he kind of has a reputation for being heterodox. A friend and parishioner suggested we read this book together. It has not been a bad experience. But overall, the feeling I’m left with having reading him is confusion. I really don’t understand what he is trying to say, and I feel like sometimes he is not quite sure either. It’s just all a little fuzzy.
Listening
I’m going to limit myself to one artist this month. The album I’ve listened to most by far after the time for Christmas music came and went, was Lowswimmer’s Interpretations.
I first came across Lowswimmer when he was performing by his name, Ed Tullett, and collaborating with Novo Amor (who I also enjoy). I kind of forgot about him, or maybe didn’t recognize that he changed his moniker. But then I stumbled upon Interpretations and remember how great he is.
This album is actually a set of covers of hits from bands as diverse as Avril Lavigne, Frightened Rabbit, and Radiohead. But the covers take significant liberties, and have dreamy, electronic lushness to them.
Tasting
I never tasted grits before moving to Texas. I don’t even think I knew what grits were. I tried shrimp and grits on a whim at restaurant over a year ago. Now, if they are on the menu, I always order them.
It still feels like a weird combo: Creamy corn porridge (usually with some kind of cheese, usually with some kind of chili) and a small crustacean. They feel un-alike. They don’t match in my mind. Of course, I am ignorant of the history of the dish. But I know that I’ve come to like it. There is nothing more satisfying on a cold day. I recently had the dish at a local restaurant, The Grove, for a staff lunch. Here is a picture from the restaurant though it was plated differently for me:
Smelling
People are burning their leaves all around where we live, which is outside of the city limits. That means it’s the wild west, and people also occasionally burn other things. These things are not pleasant to smell, but the leaves? There is something wonderful about that smell. It must be the species of tree (oak of some kind) that creates a wafting, savoury-sweet smell of incense, smoke, and earth. I love it.
Watching
This has been a fun month for us. We’ve watched lots of great things.
First, we caught up on Dusty Slays’ most recent special on Netflix Workin’ Man. It’s very funny, and now I only appreciate it all the more having lived in the South.
Amy and I both loved the first season of The Night Agent. This is one of the shows that is just fun to watch. To me there is nothing exceptionally noteworthy about any one element of the show. The acting is good, the plot is interesting (if derivative), the action is a little over the top. But the sum of all of these parts is a fast-paced thriller that is oh-so-easy to watch. The second season was perhaps not quite as good, but we still enjoyed it very much.
Finally, we watched A Real Pain, which chronicles a trip two Jewish cousins take to learn about the Holocaust and to honor their grandmother who was a survivor in Poland. It stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin. It’s funny, for sure, but in a sad kind of way. Watching it was cathartic.
Well folks, that’s all for this month. Please send and share as you’re willing.
In Christ,
Cole+