I went to the church this evening to play the organ. After I’d played through some Eberlin, Stanley, & Prelleur, I got up to grab some music I’d left on a bookshelf… and then saw that a group of 10 or 15 students were sitting downstairs & had clearly been listening to me play. I was mortified!

We need to learn to care about one another again. Theodore Parker Ferris (1908-1972), "The Importance of Caring" from Selected Sermons (Boston: Trinity Church, 1976) 1/2

I can’t remember the last time I felt as grumpy and crabbed as I do today.

He really does have the mentality of an eleven-year-old.

The Autumnal Equinox is close at hand as the world continues to turn and turn again.... BL Add 18856; Guyart des Moulins, Bible historiale; c.1420 CE; France, Central (Paris); f.5v

Gosh, I feel depressed today. Isolated and depressed.

Turning a corner into autumn

I had no idea that the (wicked) doctrine of qualified immunity had its roots in SCOTUS’s rejection of claims against police filed in response to the arrest of fifteen Episcopal priests who desegregated a bus station in Jackson in 1966.

Because I can’t seem to record enough 18th-century English organ voluntaries; here’s one with a slight French accent. Peter Prelleur was born, probably in London, in 1705. His surname and his lifelong residency in Spitalfields suggests a Huguenot background. 1/4 youtu.be/QqFNYt_LGXY

With reference to nothing in particular, here are some excerpts from a sermon (“Civil Rights from a Christian Point of View”) given by Rev’d Theodore Parker Ferris on 8 September 1963. I first learned of Rev’d Ferris from an interview @frutledge.bsky.social gave at the Calvin Center.

Gosh, I’m depressed tonight!

Once again contemplating a November visit to southeastern Virginia.

Because people LIVE in rural areas, and those people deserve access to medical care even if they made poor political choices.

The first Duke of Wellington’s great-grandmother was a Desminières/Desmyniers of the Huguenot-Irish family, as was my 7x-great-grandmother, so I like to assume that we must be distant cousins.

Not ready for prime time, but this is the first movement of a voluntary by Peter Prelleur (ca. 1705-1741), an English composer of Huguenot extraction. In 1736, he was elected first organist of Christ Church, Spitalfields.

Charlie and the Carob Factory

Above-Average Women

1) Lemon meringue 2) Apple pie (but it has to be good and not made with pre-made apple pie filling. My friend Susan’s paper bag Apple pie made with Macintosh apples is 😋) 3) Chocolate cream/mousse pie 4) Pumpkin 5) Cherry I will usually prefer a good cake over pie, though.

This frontispiece in my book just made me laugh a lot. Is this Buddhist reincarnation, or some other form of afterlife?

From “The Anglican Ministry in Virginia 1723-1766: A Study of a Social Class” by Joan R. Gundersen (Garland, 1989)

Great-great-great-grandmother / great-great-great-grandson

Do listen to this: William Lawes’ setting of a paraphrase of the 13th Psalm. youtu.be/0YSPay-JClo

Took the scenic route home today

I can’t write fiction to save my life, but sometimes I jot down little character sketches. Proto-fictions, perhaps. This one struck me as being vaguely Trollopian.

Thank you, Nashotah House, for letting me borrow your book.

1 September 2025, 7:35 a.m.

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

I just drowned from laughing

Listening to Mendelssohn’s quintet in b-flat.

We built a calculator that doesn't work, but don't worry, it's also a plagiarism machine that will tell you to kill yourself. It runs on the world's oceans and costs 10 trillion dollars.

I’ve been there!

What to me is so shockingly sad about this is how calm this kid is in talking about it. As if it’s become a part of life to be expected.

The story of a Canadian, Anglo-Catholic priest who served Miles River Parish & St. Paul's Parish, both in the Diocese of Easton (Maryland), in the 1890s & early 1900s. Link in comments. ⚓️

Chiaroscuro

The next Democratic administration needs to strip all the gold and icons out of the White House like radical Dutch Calvinists in the 1500s

Eucharist at the aggressively mid-century St. Mark’s in Upper Arlington this morning. I just couldn’t countenance being eaten alive by insects at mass on the grass again this morning.

This is the story of Christopher Denroche, a Canadian Anglo-Catholic priest who served in the Diocese of Easton in the 1890s and early 1900s. Written a few months ago, I recently made some light edits and moved it here to keep similar posts together. substack.com/home/post/p-...

“Monday” does not have a sound appropriate to the dread it inspires. The Old English version was so much better: “Mōnandæg” sounds like “moan and die.” 💀

Earliest example of a lead funerary cross from pre-Conquest England: “On the 11th March 1063 departed out of this life Wlfmaeg, sister of Wlfric the Abbot”. St Augustine’s, Canterbury.

Prayer she inscribed in one volume: “Lord lead me through the Red Sea of this World, into the Land of Promisse. Forget my manie iniquities. Pardon my Sinnes which standeth as a cloud between thy most Gratious goodnesse and my most extreame misery, for our Lord Jesus Christ his Sake. Amen.”

I’ve been perusing the autobiographical volumes produced by Alice Thornton (1626-1707). You can read more about her extraordinary life here: thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk

Got a bit of practice in this morning, but it was too hot to work up the fugue.

Misty, late-summer morning

Williamsburg (Virginia), Annapolis (the historic part), Vancouver, Chagford (Devon), Sylt (Schleswig-Holstein)

I sometimes feel like the loneliest person on Earth. (I know I’m not, actually, but sometimes it feels that way.)

Mass of Trees at Eastham - 1962 https://botfrens.com/collections/173/contents/3104078