Holy Innocents

  • Usual weekday AM routine. Morning Prayer in the cathedral.
  • Prepared to preside and preach at the midday Mass.
  • Dashed off an email to the new(ish) United Methodist Church bishop for this area, whose installation I missed during my sabbatical, inviting him to set a lunch date sometime in January.
  • Conducted a thorough review of our diocesan mission strategy. Noted where we have had incremental success, where we are spinning our wheels, where we need to keep doing what we're doing, and where we need to do new things. This should happen every six months, but it's been about eleven--again, due to my sabbatical.
  • Scanned and otherwise processed accumulated hard copy in my physical inbox.
  • Reported to the cathedral chapel to celebrate Mass, but I was a party of one. When this happens on a ferial day, I just pack up and leave. But today is a feast day, when there is a general obligation to have a Eucharist, if at all possible. So I vested and began the liturgy solo. However, in the Anglican ethos, if the celebrant gets to the Great Thanksgiving and there's no one to respond to "The Lord be with you" and "Lift up your hearts," things come to an abrupt halt, and "Ante-Communion" is entered into the service register, with an attendance of one. It happens sometimes; thankfully, not very often.
  • Lunch at home. Leftovers.
  • With no travel in December, and with the pace generally slackening because of the holidays (life is different in that regard for a bishop than for a parish priest), I've made great progress on my once-intimidating task list (106 action items in play when I returned from sabbatical in mid-October), and gotten down to some very non-urgent items, like hanging my framed Doctor of Divinity (honorary) diploma on my wall, and addressing a technology issue in the system I've set up to be able to listen to music in my office--i.e. the kinds of things that get put off for months and months and become very annoying as they just keep showing up on the list. So, I was feeling all DIY today and brought in a drill from home and went out to the hardware store for a masonry drill bit and got the job done. Also solved the sound system issue. Somewhat proud.
  • Spoke by phone with Chancellor Kevin Babb about an ongoing annoying concern.
  • Kept up with a slow but steady stream of emails that kept arriving.
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral.

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