@tinyroofnail one of my favorite novels! But certainly not an easy one to write about nor to read even

@mjkaul thanks! I hope my students agree, ha. It's my first time teaching it, & so this semester is very much something of an experiment

@tinyroofnail nice connection! Pseudo-Dionysius is all about the superluminous darkness: so bright it blinds

Teaching prep for “Theology through Film”: Pseudo-Dionysius’s Mystical Theology & La passion de Jeanne d’Arc:

Darkness & light, error & truth—the Cause is none of these. It is beyond assertion & denial. We make assertions & denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect & unique cause of all things, &, by virtue of its preeminently simple & absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial.

As I’m rereading parts of Paul Griffiths’s Regret: A Theology, I’m reminded of just how much I love this little book. I’m not sure I totally agree with him in all cases—I’m not quite convinced by his account of penance—but it makes for a fun read.

I read Pride & Prejudice a few weeks ago (I know, what took me so long?) & now I want to sign all my communications with “Yours, etc.”

@mineinmono thanks—this was one of my favorites of the trip

@elliotlovegrove coming from a trained painter, that means a lot!

One of the few color shots I took in the UK. It’s a little overexposed, but I think it works here. I used a film recipe for the Fuji X100T that’s supposed to simulate Portra 400. I’m not totally satisfied with the colors, but I think it looks well enough here.

@fabioteixeira thanks! Of course, it's hard to capture a bad shot there

Tall grasses on the hills overlooking Whitby

@mbkriegh thanks! Yes, I had a lot of fun shooting at Whitby

A couple frames of the piers at Whitby. I especially like the lines on the second one.

Waves in Whitby

The beach at Whitby

@jonah oh, that's right. That software/hardware mismatch is frustrating. I don't mind the Remarkable's hardware, though I don't have the Scribe to compare to

@jonah I never found a good way to use Zotero on Android, though I do have a remarkable tablet which I use fairly often. I don't think I've heard of Scribe

@jonah oh interesting—thanks for sharing. I've been using Zotero for annotating PDFs, but this has some attractive options too

@odd I'd love something open source, though there doesn't seem to be a ton out there for PDF readers. I do use LibreOffice when I have to work with Word documents

@JohnBrady oh good idea. I occasionally open recently downloaded PDFs in my browser, but hadn't considered using it by default. I guess one feature I do want is a sidebar displaying the table of contents (if applicable)—I sometimes end up reading some long PDFs & they can be tough to navigate if just scrolling. I'm not sure whether a browser has such a sidebar

Adobe Acrobat is practically unusable. The constant pop-ups for Acrobat Pro only seem to be getting worse, & now Adobe is trying to bully me into using “AI Assistant.” Any recommendations for a simple, feature-poor Windows PDF reader? I don’t need any bells or whistles—just show me my documents!

@jabel as it happens, I just read that same chapter the other day! Thanks for connecting it to my lament

@jonah yeah, that is an interesting take. One thing's certain: these technologies are no solution to loneliness

Well, between “friend” & Google’s Olympics ad, it’s been a bad couple days for humans.

@amerpie yes, Leeds. We were fortunate to have some unusually good weather for our trip (not much rain at all), but I can imagine the ruins being particularly affecting in the rain

One more from Kirkstall Abbey

Another view of Kirkstall Abbey

Kirkstall Abbey, a remarkably well-preserved ruined monastery just outside Leeds.

@DaveyCraney @ChrisJWilson I didn't get to see much of Leeds (most of my time there I spent at the university for the conference) but I did make it out to Kirkstall Abbey & to Sela Bar for an excellent local jazz band

St. Mary’s Abbey ruins in the rain

This is one of my favorite shots of the entire trip.

Finished reading: The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism by Mark D. Jordan 📚

A little dated in certain respects, but perhaps not as much as one might think.

Hell’s harrowing, in the crypt at York Minster

@ChrisJWilson I use the Bellroy Venture Sling, though to be honest I don't typically carry a lot of camera equipment with me. The two cameras I most often shoot with (a Canonet rangefinder for film; and a Fuji X100T for digital) have fixed lens, so at most I'm really only carrying a camera & maybe a couple filters.

@ChrisJWilson I almost didn't make it to York (I had to play hooky from the conference in Leeds for the day trip to York, & I felt guilty about doing so) but I'm glad I did! It turned out to be a highlight of the trip

York Minster again

I know this is an odd position for a Catholic, but practices of eucharistic adoration like at the recent National Eucharistic Congress make little theological sense to me.1 Christ’s real presence in the celebration of the sacrament follows from the performance of the sacrament (ex opere operato)—that is to... micro.andrewbelfield.com

Another photograph from the Chapter House at York Minster

Chapter House Ceiling
York Minster
York, UK

After Craigmillar Castle, we went to Hollyrood Park & hiked up Arthur’s Seat, passing by the St. Anthony’s Chapel ruins on the way.

A few pictures from our visit to Craigmillar Castle outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. I went all-in on black & white for most of this trip.

I wrote a (long-ish) post about the Jerusalem Bible family of translations & comparing some passages in the New Jerusalem Bible & the Revised New Jerusalem Bible.

Jacqueline & I got home late last night from about a week & a half in the UK. We were in Edinburgh, York, Leeds (for the International Medieval Congress), & Whitby. Here we are on the West Pier in Whitby.

There are many intriguing suggestions in Justin Shaun Coyle’s discussion of liturgical time & theology, but I especially appreciate his reluctance to reduce theology to ministry, or vice versa: "I am sometimes asked how serving as a deacon in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church shapes the way I read & write & teach theology. The truth is that I cosset a general allergy to the question. Answers to it often decline into styles, & each of these styles court reduction. One style reduces theology to ministry, which of course makes nonsense of the vast majority of theological discourse. Consoling a bereav... micro.andrewbelfield.com

@jordanellishall I don't, but it sounds great! I'll add it to my list

@JimRain for what it's worth, what you've laid out here sounds a lot like Anselm of Canterbury's soteriology (which, pace @ReaderJohn, I do not take to be an instance of PSA)

@joshuapsteele @JohnBrady @nathanrhale

@mbkriegh it's a good one! I want to read more of her work

@robertbreen I did! I'm fascinated by Dillard's religious journey—when I started the book I didn't realize she'd modeled it on a Neoplatonic exitus / reditus pattern, nor that she became (for a time) Catholic. I'll have to read more of her work

@JimRain that's lovely—thanks for sharing

@tinyroofnail yes! they always have good themes, but this one is particularly tempting

@ronkjeffries thanks! I've been trying to shoot more black and white