Scattered reflections upon the Octave of Sewanee
This is Tess, who is in charge of my household.
A week ago today I was singing at All Saints’ Chapel, Sewanee. We had the same propers as the one and only time I served as a deacon at the closing Sunday Eucharist. I remember well that I didn’t sing the Gospel because the Parable of the Sower + interpretation is extremely long, and we agreed that it would be a bit much.
This morning I’m the guest preacher at Saint Bartholomew’s in St Petersburg. I have set my alarm for 7:00—the service is at 9:30, and it’s a 40-minute drive—but I wake up at 6:00 and so get to have a leisurely breakfast. Right around 7:30 Tess insists on getting out for a walk. I do a quick calculation and determine that I can get her out and still be ready in time to leave in order to get to church at 9:00.
I’m in enough of a faff that I very nearly leave without my vestments. So make that 9:02.
I got back home last Sunday evening in the semi-sanctified daze that so often follows the Sewanee Church Music Conference. But I got down to work on Monday and had a pretty good week. Looking over my to-do list, I see that I have a promotion letter, three contributions to edited volumes, an edited volume of my own, and a special issue of a journal to get done before I write the book that I have to write before the other book I have to write.
I love my job, but I wouldn’t mind singing some more Leighton.
The sermon goes fine, I think. I sing the hymns with my accustomed gusto, plus extra shadow vowels, because Jeremy Filsell drilled the shadow vowels into us at Sewanee and mine are now officially out of control.
I sit down at coffee hour and a parishioner says to me, “10 1/2 minutes, Father”—meaning, that was how long my sermon went. This worries me, because by the word count it should have been more like 12 1/2, and I wonder just how fast I was talking. I dread seeing the recording.
Various exchanges from my Sewanee week keep coming to mind. Here’s my favorite:
Conferee: “Father, a liturgical question for you. At the Wednesday Eucharist, why did you elevate the host but not the chalice?”
Me: “Because I’m a dumbass.”
Barbara Crafton’s sermon last week was firmly anti-Pelagian without ever mentioning Pelagius. My sermon this morning was firmly anti-Donatist without ever mentioning Donatism.
I did mention Augustine, of course. But at least I refrained from asking them to open their Prayer Books to the Articles of Religion so that I could walk them through “Of the unworthiness of ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacraments.” I count that as a win.
Lunch with the rector and his partner after church. Fr Rector has wisely taken off his collar; I have not. A fellow comes up to me with his name and phone number written on a napkin. “Father,” he says, “I have something urgent to discuss with you. Will you call me, please?” I of course say I will.
On my way home I stop at Publix to pick up a prescription. Standing at the counter, I notice a guy in a black shirt walking out. He has the tell-tale stud in the back center of his band collar. No actual collar, though. Very sensible.
Out of professional courtesy I refrain from calling out, “Hey, Father, I’m on to you!”
I make the call I’ve promised to make. My friend from lunch explains to me—in, I must say, a remarkably calm and articulate way—that he is possessed by demons. He wants an exorcism. Reading between the lines of his story, I gather that the Roman Catholic diocese thinks he’s a paranoid schizophrenic, in need of medication rather than exorcism. I rather think that myself. But I’ll be in touch with my bishop tomorrow. because that’s what one does.