Moving Diagonally

Mostly a personal day. I did deal with a few emails and have a couple of phone conversations with a potential candidate for one of our clergy vacancies. 

I had three substantive telephone appointments on my calendar today (two related to deployment and one related to Anglican Communion matters), so I had fairly low expectations of general productivity, given that talking on the phone taxes my introversion at pretty much the same rate as an in-person encounter. I did make a little progress wrapping my mind around the preaching responsibilities I will have on a planned visit to our companion Diocese of Tabora, Tanzania in November. Also prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary, entered the schedule for next month's House of Bishops meeting in my calendar (one of the sessions is actually entitled "Moving Diagonally," but I have nothing to do with it!), kept on top of an unusually steady stream of incoming emails, and prayed the morning and evening offices in the cathedral. 

Customary Thursday morning workout: weights and treadmill. Morning Prayer in the cathedral. Brief attention to some administrative details relating to mission strategy and deployment. Finished drafting a sermon for my September 8 visit to St George's, Belleville. Scheduled hour-long (plus) phone visit with Bishop Gregory Kerr-Wilson of Calgary, a classmate from seminary. He and I have a covenant to intentionally stay in contact and support one another in our ministries. Lunch from McD's, eaten at home. Processed a small batch of emails. More attention to some mission strategy practicalities. Worked on some Nashotah House board business, in preparation for a major conference call next week. Filled out an online college application reference form for a former parishioner. Devotions in the cathedral; Evening Prayer in the office.

Began processing emails at home over breakfast. Morning Prayer in the cathedral. Continued email processing, which generated tasks that consumed the rest of the morning, including writing a "From the Bishop" column for the next issue of the  Current . Lunch from the Asian place next to TG, eaten at home. (Inexplicably, China 1 was closed.) Responded affirmatively to the Diocese of Western Michigan that I will attend the consecration of their next bishop on 28 September. Made concomitant travel and lodging arrangements. Reviewed an Association of Theological Schools document on board governance. This is a subject I am currently "going to school" on. Worked on the diocesan website, adding a bunch of content  here . Hand-wrote greetings to clergy and spouses with September birthdays and anniversaries. Evening Prayer in the cathedral.

Task planning at home; Morning Prayer in the cathedral. Talked with the Archdeacon and the Administrator over an emerging administrative and pastoral concern. Produced a working script of my homily for this Sunday at St Christopher's, Rantoul. Two care of two relatively small chores related to the annual diocesan synod. Lunch from TG, eaten at home. Took a scheduled phone call from an individual who is in the ordination process. Devoted the rest of my afternoon to a somewhat urgent project aimed at helping Nashotah House retain its accreditation from the Association of Theological Schools. Evening Prayer in the cathedral.  Out to dinner with Brenda in the evening to celebrate our 41st wedding anniversary.

Since I was already in Mattoon, and their Sunday liturgy is not until 10am, I got to sleep in and feel a bit self-indulgent. It was, as always, a joy to preside and preach for the good people of Trinity Church. There is certainly a critical mass among them for seriously engaging the emerging mission strategy paradigm of the diocese. After the coffee hour, I accompanied Fr Truelove in bringing Holy Communion to a homebound parishioner. I then headed up I-57 to Champaign, where I had a meeting with a priest of the diocese over some administrative and pastoral concerns. It was nearly 5pm before I got home. As I settled into my recliner with a plate of homemade tacos on my lap, I stumbled on the beginning of the film  Forrest Gump . I saw it when it first came out in 1994, but it was fun to reconnect. What a fancifully sweet and compelling story.

Trinity, Mattoon -- Luke 13:10-17 I served for 13 years in the Diocese of San Joaquin, from 1994 until 2007. During that time—and I’m not quite sure how this happened—I acquired a reputation as the font of all knowledge for anything liturgical. Some may even have thought of me as a bit of a “liturgy geek,” and I know that the term “rubrical fundamentalist” was applied to me at various times. (Rubrics are the “fine print” in the Prayer Book that give various instructions about how things are to be done.) But if I’m a liturgy geek and a rubrical fundamentalist, then I have a fairly mild case of the disease, because there are those with full-blown symptoms much more impressive than mine. I have a book on my shelf that offers detailed ceremonial prescriptions for every conceivable contingency—how to celebrate the Eucharist when the Bishop is not present, when the Bishop  is  present, when the Bishop is present in the room but not at the altar, when a bishop other than the dio...