Writing: Yes. Yes! Yes.
I don’t know how it will be received – one never does – but the manuscript has, indeed, been sent.
Best feeling.
Moving on. Not sure what’s next. First of all, tossing notes and re-filing reference books. That should take ten minutes. Then…who knows.
Reading: Not a whole heck of a lot because of the focus on finishing this thing over the past week. But I did start Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.
Oh, and I spent some time reading a couple of articles by the author of a book I was interested in but couldn’t access anywhere. I figured the two articles I could find probably covered the bulk of what she dealt with in the book. The book: A Cloister on Trial: Religious Culture and Everyday Life in Late Medieval Hungary.
Hey guys, I saw that eyeroll from here!
But hear me out. Don’t know how I happened upon it, but as esoteric as it sounds, the incident at the heart of it is pretty juicy: In the early 16th century, A group of Augustinian friars were tossed from their convent and replaced by Strict Observance Franciscans. The Augustinians fought back, and there was a hearing at which townspeople testified, mostly to the Augustinians’ neglect of their duties, drinking and womanizing.
I will write about this later, but it provides much food for thought about issues that we’re still grappling with today, as well as historical matters:
- Given the time period – at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation – the attitudes of the laity towards the religious and their sense of their right to be involved and what they were due gives an interesting context to the dynamics of the Reformation.
- We are talking a lot today about the role of the laity in church governance. This kind of study – as well as books like Going to Church in Medieval England – gives a much broader perspective on that matter than our rather cramped post-Vatican-I and post-Vatican-II affords.
- It’s just really interesting to read how religious and laity understood and experienced spirituality and what their expectations were of each other.
As I said, I couldn’t find access to the book online, so I found a couple of articles that the author had written that I presume form the basis of the book. (Because that’s how academic writing works, usually: you have your topic, you publish articles on various aspects of the topic, and then you pull them together for a book.)
Checked this out of the library – I read a review of it in the NYRB and it sounded up my alley – women’s history, myth-busting. I’ll dig into it tonight.
Listening: Same stuff.
Actually got back on the piano myself last night. I worked on this beautiful Scarlatti. 0.42 on really gets me.
Watching: As I wrote, I watched season 3 of After Life.
Son has gotten in habit of watching these lengthy self-filmed YouTube videos by hikers. I am not sure how this works – you set up your camera, film yourself walking a few yards, then go back, get the camera, rinse and repeat? Seems that this would take a while. Anyway. They are, I admit, relaxing and interesting. So, last night I watched a chunk of this one with him. It’s quite beautiful and just might give you an itch to get out there, too:
Cooking:
Not much, but now that The Book is done, I’m back in the mood. I’ll be cooking some soup with all my leftover turkey and turkey stock this week, and then doing something Asian with the clumps of Thai Basil I bought on Saturday when we went to the Asian market to find Kewpie Mayonnaise for my son, who is taken to making his own rice/salmon bowls.
Travel:
Tickets booked for a short trip in a few weeks. It’s not exactly leisure, but college-related, and I’m going along, not because I’m required, but because I’ve never seen the place and I might as well.
Also:
Daily Mass first readings have been from 1 Samuel, and now we’re hitting the saga of David. Retold in the Loyola Kids Book of Bible Stories. Hope you consider purchasing it and/or other titles in the series for your own family or to donate to your parish or school:
Charlotte was Both 