A Sunday miscellany — Thomas Williams

David Holgate’s statue of Dame Julian of Norwich at Norwich Cathedral, completed in 2000

(The Brits pronounce ‘miscellany’ with the stress on the second syllable—mi-SELL-uh-nee—which gives my title a nicer rhythm.)

In much the same way that I often dither for a few days before working up the energy to embark on a new eight-hundred-page Victorian multi-plot novel, I have been summoning my strength to get to work in earnest on my book on Scotus’s ethics. I should be ready to take the plunge on Monday.

In the meantime, I have kept up pretty well on the daily essentials: journaling, practicing the piano, and reading something delightful. Or trying to read something delightful, anyway: Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim is supposed to be hilarious, a classic academic novel, but I found it only intermittently enjoyable. I kept recalling Robertson Davies’s line in A Mixture of Frailties about “that sense of unworthiness which attacks sensitive people who have been rebuffed by a classic,” although in my case it wasn’t so much unworthiness as bewilderment. What do people see in that book? Any P. G. Wodehouse novel chosen at random would be funnier. (I have two of them on order.)

I have three trips to St Pete this week. This afternoon I head to the Cathedral for Evensong: call is at 3:00, service at 5:00. As always in Lent, the preces, canticles, and anthem are older music—17th century in this case, with Richard Ayleward and the Purcell brothers, Daniel and Henry. It’s great stuff. Be there if you can, or worship with us remotely via our Worship Live Stream page. Then on Tuesday evening I meet with the book club to talk about my Anselm: A Very Short Introduction. And on Friday at 6:30 I’ll be at St Bartholomew’s for Stations of the Cross. They’re using a version I put together drawing on Julian of Norwich. If you’re in St Pete, I’d love to see you there.

This photo comes from the end of an hour-long workout that included quite a lot of work on my biceps. My arms definitely don’t look like this 24/7. But maybe they will someday, if I keep this up. In case you’re curious, I had been listening to Frightened Rabbit for most of the workout, but when *Pedestrian Verse* was done, I turned to my old standby, Amy Grant. “Good for Me” was playing at this particular moment.

I post this picture with some trepidation, but here goes. I’ve come a long way in sixteen months, and I think it’s OK for me to take some joy in that.

I promise not to do this very often.