Thursday (Wm. Porcher DuBose)


  • Task planning at home, Morning Prayer in the cathedral.
  • Took care of some administrative minutia.
  • Sent a fairly detailed email to the rector of a parish out of the diocese where I have been invited to give a preaching mission this fall, trying to solidify some of the particulars.
  • Met with a retired priest of the diocese in my office.
  • Tweaked and refined my sermon for this Sunday (St Mark's, West Frankfort).
  • Made a pastoral check-in phone call to a priest of the diocese who has recently been hospitalized.
  • Responded to an email request from a national advocacy group to add my name to a petition to Congress regarding some proposed legislation. Here is what I said: "Since I was first ordained in 1989, I have had a policy against using my position as a religious leader to advocate specific positions on public policy. I don't even allow myself to have political bumper stickers on my car or signs in my yard, even though I like to think of myself as an informed citizen and a conscientious voter. As a leader, I understand my job to be to help those committed to my charge to let their consciences be formed by the values of the gospel, as enunciated in scripture and the church's teaching tradition. But, on most tangible questions of public policy, Christians of good will and an informed conscience can legitimately disagree, and it is my experience that more harm than good is usually done when church leaders stray into political advocacy. For this reason, I will, with respect, decline to have my name added to your list."
  • Lunch at home--leftover chicken fajita tacos. Yum!
  • Took care of the last of the handwritten correspondence it seems meet and right to acknowledge from (believe it or not) the time following my election eleven months ago! All of that that's going to get done is now done.
  • One of Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is something he calls "sharpening the saw"--that is, maintaining the tools that organize and support one's life. I spent that last couple of hours of my day in the office in that endeavor, performing "scheduled maintenance" on the software that sorts and tags notes, files, and documents of various sorts. (It's called Evernote, and I highly recommend it.)
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral. 

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