Still the Same Season

Lectio Divina

 “Don’t stop him!”

Mark 9:39 (New Living Translation)

The cries of the harvesters
have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

James 5:4

(in honor of the United Farm Workers on their 50th anniversary)

Library

Picked up a copy of the Robert Bolt play A Man for All Seasons for only a nickel at the Catholic Charities thrift store in Santa Maria. Read it in less than a day. I didn't read it so much out of piety (sorry, Saint Thomas More) as for making myself more culturally literate. It's one of those literary works that have secured a firm place in the canon of high school English class summer reading lists, though I successfully dodged it all those years ago. Now I am a little bit more educated, though I think I read through it too quickly to appreciate it or internalize it meaningfully.

Log

Nine-thirty Mass this morning at San Roque Parish in Santa Barbara. Felt a little crabby about travelling for an hour to Mass and another hour back home before having anything to eat. Also, it's hard to remain in a prayerful and meditative state when you've got an hour to go, following morning prayer, until it's time for Mass. I'm such a creature of habit, accustomed as I now am to having silent meditation between morning prayer and Mass every day. Small deviations from the routine put me in a snit. I've got to get over that.

This afternoon, after lunch: reading and writing a few notes to friends. This evening, as for the last few evenings, rehearsing with a small group taken from the schola some special music for our celebrations of Francis later this week.

Weather

From Kansas to California, it's been hot for four months now, with no apparent change of season. At the end of September, it still seems unseasonably hot, even for California. When it cools down, and it will, will it be cool enough? Will I be comfortable with the late-year heat, in the meantime? The full moon, radiant last night, brought the relief of evening cool and mitigated my moodiness.