Self-care

Well, here I am out on the porch at five in the morning. This is another of my routines. I’ve been waking two hours earlier than Karin and Samuel: it’s the only quiet time guaranteed to me.

I alternate days of exercise and days of rest; on the days of rest, I sit out on the porch, in the dark. The porch bulb doesn’t work.

I daren’t remain inside the house – I daren’t make noise or inspire the kitties to make noise – I daren’t wake the boy.

The sun rises pretty late (we’re near the time zone’s western edge). Even though it’s dark, I take plenty of reading material with me. Today I have four volumes, and a printout of a philosophy article. I won’t be able to see any of it until fifteen minutes before Karin and Samuel wake up.

I hardly ever watch TV at this hour. All I do, besides pray, is type on the computer, drink tea, and listen to insects and trains.

It’s lovely. No wonder it has become a habit.

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100 Days of Dante (hat tip: Mr. Quiring) – a schedule for those who like to read the same thing as many other people. One hundred days, one hundred cantos.

The philosopher Eleonore Stump has taught a two-semester sequence pairing Dante with Aquinas (fall and spring). That schedule, also, is an intriguing possibility. It is not all bad to be out of collegiate work; I can read whatever I choose.

Now, if only I could change that porch bulb. …

May fragments

Mary had her birthday. Stephen and I bought her an artichoke sandwich and a pie, and Martin bought her some cheese puffs. … The upstairs has been rather hot; Bianca, our dear furball, has been lingering in the cool basement. Missing her, we’ve begun conditioning the air. … This week is my week off, between school terms. I wish I could travel. “You could explore the ruins of Detroit,” say Sabby. “You could clean the basement,” says Martin (everyone’s so archaeological).

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I bought The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. I agree with this reviewer:

While reading [Alexander Pruss’s] very intricate essay [on the Eucharist], it occurred to me that many medieval scholastic philosophers, if brought into the present age and given a copy of this book, would be overjoyed — while the traditional enemies of scholasticism would see most of this book as logical nitpicking.

Pruss is the leading theorist of the Real Presence (and of other Romish oddities). His Handbook essay focuses on how Christ could, at one and the same time, be in different places, e.g. in different communion wafers across the world. This problem has some pedigree; Leibniz and Aquinas offer solutions. But what non-nerd ever gave it as the main reason for doubting transubstantiation? Pruss’s own solution refers to time travel. Here is theorizing which is both inelegant and useless.