Terribly Belated 7 Quick Takes (XLIV)

1. New hires at work equal lots of work. In case you didn't know. Supervising, notwithstanding the jokes, can be time-consuming and difficult, even when your supervisees are good staff.

2. I finished The Name of the Rose. In typing out the title, I realize that I have no idea why it is titled that.

It did not end as I anticipated, but then I should have anticipated that, what with the postmodernist billing and all. I'm not sure how I feel about it, now that it's ended. At any rate, I might yet see the movie, as it has Sean Connery in it.

3. And I have picked up The Mansions of the Spirit: The Gospel in a Multi-Faith World by Michael Ingham. It's about the interfaith movement, and reconciling this with Christianity. Or at least that's what it claims to be about, though I'm not sure I agree with all of its premises. In its exclusivist-inclusivist-pluralist spectrum, the book seems to favour something between inclusivism and pluralism, whereas I would favour something far more squarely in the inclusivist camp.

At any rate, it's led me to think more seriously about my underlying assumptions about interfaith relations and movements. I would like to work in the interfaith feild at some point in my life, but not if it only operates in the way Ingham describes. It seems to me that any interfaith initiative which hopes for success must be able to incorporate exclusivist positions, and Ingham's model may have difficulty with that.

(I realize this may all be jargon to some of you. I apologize for this, but if I were to explain myself without jargon, that would require more time and space than I can fairly allot.)

4. Yesterday I worked some overtime as we had our Celtic Day event at the Park. We had lots of preparations, and I worked at the barbeque, and I also had to give a speech about the temporary Burns Club exhibit. The Burns Club celebrates Robert Burns and Scottish culture, so I had to Wikipedia Robert Burns to get some basic facts for the speech, which I also had to give. It was only a few seconds long, but still...

And why, if I had put the exhibit together, did I have to research Burns immediately before giving the speech? Because I literally just placed the artifacts in the display in an aesthetically pleasing way, no knowledge required. My only understanding of Robert Burns was one of cultural sgnificance, not of historical details. For instance, I did not know when he lived and wrote (latter half of the 1700s) nor whether he composed or simply transcribed "Auld Lang Syne" (composed). So I had to research.

5. On the topic of overtime, I also worked on Victoria Day last Monday. And I've been putting in extra hours throughout the week. This will make up for future days off.

6. This afternoon I order Epicon by Globus with an Amazon.ca gift certificate. I am excited.

7. At church, during the Prayers of the People, the deacon called forward a member of the congregation who was going to the General Synod (and who happened to be his daughter) and asked a few folks to come forward to lay their hands on her while he prayed. Now I normally do not go for the whole laying on of hands thing, but this church likes it a lot and so I've been getting used to it. Not that I'd do it of my own volition or anything, and not like I'd go along with it in the sense of faith healing, but as far as praying over someone goes I guess there's no harm done in putting your hand on them while you pray. As I was serving today, and as I figure the alb means I ought to be leading in this sort of thing, I came forward to participate.

And then the deacon asks us to pray ourselves over her, as the Spirit moves us, when he's finished praying.

!!!

I'm supposed to pray spontaneously in public!? What have I gotten myself into? Of course I realize that this alb I like wearing so much signs me up for all sorts of things, but that doesn't make these moments less surprising. I managed to pray intelligibly I'm pretty sure, but let's just say that it's been a while since I've prayed ad lib before and I'll have to get over the performance anxiety again. (This may be worth a post in itself. I'll think about it.)