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.

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...

<sings> "One of these things is not like the others...one of these things is...an Anglican!" ⚓

Come study History of Christian Monasticism with me online next quarter! ⚓ 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/...

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:

Come 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! ⚓ cdsp.edu/call/online/

A very reasonable and relatable reaction to going for a walk in the fresh air, honestly, even if there HADN'T been an execution waiting at the end of it... (From Salvation at Stake by Brad Gregory, p.99)

I’ve been running late to everything this week because there are so many cute baby geese to watch, but who among us, etc… (I’m sure Saint Werburgh would excuse me slinking in late to prayer if the excuse was “BUT LOOK, BABY GEESE!”⚓️

Pope Leo XIII had pet goats (and deer and gazelle) which were allowed to freely roam the grounds of the Vatican, and I choose to believe that THAT is why the new pope has chosen the name Leo! ⚓ 🐐 (This is not a terrible idea, though. A papal menagerie would do well in the age of social media...)

I am fascinated by just how many people in Rome have a national flag to wave! Does one just buy it on site? Does someone come around and hand them out because it makes for good tv optics? Did this many people actually think to put that on their PACKING list? Socks, deodorant, toothbrush, flag....

Walked in, read the white board, and wondered if this was the to-do list for today. I could get on board with this as an agenda! ⚓️

Hi folks- CFP for the NAAE conference just before AARSBL is live. Please spread the word. A very-grad student friendly conference with fully online options. “In Necessities, Unity”. Question is: what is necessary for unity? Why? bit.ly/NAAE2025

At our last SCLM meeting, we joked about creating "Additional Plant-Based Liturgies" and as I'm typing up the minutes I'm like "...wait, but what if we DID, actually?" (Does anyone else's church bless herbs on the August 15 holiday that we don't actually call the Assumption but it totally is?) ⚓️

This year's experiment was waking up at 1:55am* to go to the airport, which arguably makes it better, because I'm too disoriented to notice the time change! *It would have been 2, but I admit to having been uncertain about what would happen if I set an alarm for 2, and I didn't want to chance it. ⚓

Just learned (or, more accurately, just noticed) that Catholics have Sundays "of" Lent rather than "in" Lent. This was surprising, because whenever an Episcopalian says "the First Sunday IN Lent..." you can't even count to 10 before they are yelled at by a liturgist... ⚓

I almost skipped morning prayer because I didn't think I could face a 16 minute walk in the freezing rain. Then I read this, and could only imagine this woman having some very pointed words about my spiritual frailty in the face of mild discomfort... ⚓ archaeologymag.com/2025/03/fema...

Hey look, it's me, except that "how much she ought to write every day" is "no writing, only reading"! ⚓

“[Melania] decided for herself how much she ought to write every day, and how much she should read in the canonical books, how much in the collections of homilies. And after she was satisfied with this activity, she would go through the Lives of the Fathers as if she were eating dessert." V.Mel.23

I've spent the last few months asking Saint Walburga to fix this whole bird flu situation. But it turns out that Saint *Werburgh* is the nun with the geese! Rookie Benedictine error... I'm sure we'll have this whole mess straightened out in no time now that the prayers are going to the bird nun...⚓

I spent morning prayer trying desperately to figure out why we were using the booklet for apostles, and not googling the answer DURING morning prayer felt like an act of true spiritual heroism! Turns out: It's the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, shockingly NOT on the Episcopal Church calendar! 😆⚓

Re: A127, the only procedurally sensible thing to do on the last day of convention is concur with bishops. But we had a careful conversation on the SCLM and determined that we could do this work with 3 people and no budget (meeting only electronically)... #gc81

You know you don’t have to use all of the readings just because they are offered, right? #gc81

Why was c032 a vote by orders? #gc81

Episcopalians! There is a Yemeni coffee place (Haraz) just a short walk from the convention center, and this is arguably the best thing that has happened to me in a year. If you have never had Yemeni coffee or pastries, I strongly endorse both (more strongly than any resolution!) #gc81

Totally misread this sign as saying that the local Catholics were having a "Guilt Auction," and I was genuinely disappointed to discover my error, because I was actually intrigued!

Syriac text I'm translating: "Now we see that after the age of 40, the soul is strengthened and reason is perfected and wisdom flourishes..." Me, age 41: "That's RIGHT they do!" Syriac: "....while the body begins to fail and weaken and slide into decrepitude..." Me: "What, what...."

Bar Ebroyo (13th century): "Woman is more compassionate than Man; she cries more; is more envious; complains about her fate; likes to gossip; is argumentative; is very mean, is often sad, is prone to despair... 1/2

Me, rejoicing in the modified prayer schedule for the Transitus of Saint Benedict: "Yesssssss! With all due reverence for our holy father Benedict, I would kill him off every day to sleep 90 more minutes!" Friends: "Probably exactly what his monks said before trying to assassinate him, tbh..."

The Episcopal Dioceses of East and West Michigan have just voted to become the Diocese of the Great Lakes. While I wish them all the best, the name DOES sound rather ominously like a threat to annex those of us in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc....

The Hampton Court Conference (1604) promised to put "a learned and painful minister" in every parish, and even though I realize that the word "painful" has evolved in its meaning, my reaction is still to think that we've actually done pretty well on that one...

The Syriac text I'm translating just made me laugh unexpectedly when it was going on and on at very boring length about cosmology, and abruptly concluded the section by saying that Plato sat for days by the water trying to understand the tides, but all in vain because he caught a chill and died.

The Syriac text I'm translating took an unexpected turn towards alchemy and is explaining how one can create silver and gold...and at this point, having exhausted most of the more conventional employment options, I'm almost tempted to try...

If I thought I was unemployable NOW, I'd really better hope no one reads this MBA thesis on academic shared governance and Benedictine tradition, in which I propose that seminary faculty, administrators, and trustees should all have to do manual labor together!

Some days I feel really culturally at home in Minnesota. Other days I discover that apparently people here put popcorn in their soup (???), and I'm going to need some time to process this information...

Utterly adorable article on shared governance from 2009 thinks that relationships between faculty and trustees are bound to get better now that "most trustees have an email account, and many (but probably not yet all) are comfortable receiving information in an electronic format"!

I see Abba John the Dwarf's "water the dead stick" feat of monastic obedience, and I raise him meekly changing sentences of my MBA thesis to make them grammatically incorrect because my advisor insists... 🙃

Happy feast of St. Ambrose to all my of introverted clergy friends! "You have received a duty to minister at the table of Christ, and no other duty to be socially agreeable has been placed upon you." Ambrose Milan, On the Duties of the Clergy 1.20.88

This week I encountered a new-to-me usage of using "nunc dimittis" as a synonym for "deceased"! e.g. "she caught the fox staring at her chickens, and the fox is now nunc dimittis" or "Fr. Smith, who is now nunc dimittis..." Has anyone ever heard this before?

Compline begins with 15 minutes of silent meditation. Today Sophia, who has lived here for 14 years and knows perfectly well that she is not allowed in chapel, waltzed in, curled up in front of the altar, and proceeded to SNORE loudly for the next 15 minutes while we all struggled not to giggle....

Monastic work project: helping to recycle candles by beating old candles with a hammer, removing the wicks, and then continuing to smash them into small, meltable pieces. Very therapeutic, deeply satisfying, goes great with imprecatory psalms, 10/10 would recommend.

Visiting a new monastery for the first time, and my cell comes with a CAT! This is a major selling point...

It has been a real joy to spend this week with my brothers on the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission, supporting one another in a time of great difficulty for our siblings in several of the member churches, and learning from one another's church traditions.

Two versions of my bio in the AI image generator...both older versions of myself who are clearly living the dream...

If you don't succeed in cutting someone from the sanctoral calendar, you can always just quietly give them a lectionary passage like "Tobias goes blind after birds poop in his eyes"... #tec

Deep in the weeds of Lesser Feasts & Fasts Lectionary revisions, and kind of questioning WHY 2018 Liza put Bel and the Dragon in their twice... (But if you have any requests, or passages you've always wanted to preach on that aren't currently in any of our lectionaries, this is your chance!) #tec

Spent the morning watching world events unfold as though their outcome depended upon me continually refreshing the live updates. But spent the afternoon out of cell phone range while feeding an otter and a giraffe!

Today is the feast of St. Bruno, so I'm now trying to set his biography to the tune of "We don't talk about Bruno," and am kind of disappointed that the lectionary gods did not appoint Psalm 105, "he caused their fish to die..."

Therefore, according to Holy Tradition, all monks, nuns, and ascetics MUST eat ice cream on the feast of Saint Jerome to show their repudiation of excessive asceticism and the goodness of embodied existence.

Monks: Do you think we can justify having ice cream since it's the memorial of St. Jerome? Me: Blaesilla died of starvation at age 20 under Jerome's influence because he was so obsessed with fasting... Monks: ...So...no ice cream? Me: No, I'm saying it's obligatory. Practically a penance, really...