Author Archives: Derek A. Olsen

Collects Are Up

The Collects are up at the Liturgies of the Order of Julian of Norwich page. This completes the text I received entitled “The Divine Office according to the Use of the Order of Julian of Norwich.” I plan to add the Office Hymnal next in a format that will mesh with the Offices so that the whole set can be conveniently printed out (front-to-back ideally) and used with a minimum of book-juggling.

Wikification

Wikipedia is cool. And important. But I’m thinking of something else today… I’m thinking of local wikis, personal wikis.

When I was studying for my doctoral exams I plowed through dozens of books in a wide variety of topics. On my best days, I headed a new file with full bibliographical info, either scanned or typed in the table of contents, briefly summarized each chapter and made bullet-pointed lists of quotes I thought I might use at a later date. On my worst, I’d make some random comments about whatever part of the book I’d read, maybe dismissing it as: “basically coming from Y perspective, not much new, just louder and in English…” or some such. These now exists as Word files scattered across several directories.

I was looking over an Internet Archive scan of Frere’s Use of Sarum the other day thinking, “Gee, wouldn’t it be handy to have a table of contents or a list of chapter headings somewhere accessible for this…”

I’ve become convinced that the best way to handle this, to group my files where I can access them quickly and easily is to migrate them to a wiki.

Hard drive organization between research and sources has long been an issue for me but the more I think about it, the more logical a local wiki is to managing it all.  Especially for maintaining text and image files, the ability to create logical but non-linear structures of organization is key. There are some free wiki sites out there (like free blogging sites) but I opted to go with a more more geeky approach: I’ve downloaded mediawiki–the same wiki that Wikipedia uses–to run on my test server. (Mediawiki requires a MySQL installation and I’ve got one there.) I haven’t had time to fool with it yet and certainly plan not to until the dissertation is done, but I think these are the way of the future.

Dissertation Related Thought

The early medieval preachers did not consider personal human suffering redemptive; rather, they considered it to be mimetic of the Redeemer. Suffering was not redemptive, but it did create the conditions for the cultivation of virtue as exemplified in Romans 5:3-5: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

Anniversary

Yesterday was our 8th anniversary. I’m generally not known for being a romantic. Not necessarily because I’m *not* romantic but because I don’t normally plan ahead and set up things that are going to be romantic… I actually did ok yesterday, though, even with the constraints of two kids and a quite limited budget.

I woke M with breakfast in bed which was crepes simply dressed with lemon and sugar (n.b.: I found myself wishing I’d made lemon-sugar—I’ll have to try that next time.). On my return home from work, I brought an inexpensive but good bottle of wine and a bag with spinach dip and gnocchis from our favorite upscale Italian place (one order of the gnocchis feeds both of us with left-overs to spare…). I had set up a screened-in pavilion on our notoriously mosquito-infested deck and festooned it with little white Christmas lights. M fed the girls a quick supper and we put them to bed shortly thereafter, then we enjoyed our dinner in the pavilion, under the lights, accompanied by Glenn Miller’s greatest hits (snuck into M’s iPod when she wasn’t looking). After a leisurely dinner, we pushed the table out of the way for some dancing before we retired.

All in all, a wonderful evening with a wonderful wife.

More Office Matters

Following Josh’s excellent advice I’ve added more clutter to my side-bar… Down below the “Pages” box is now a “Pray the Office Online” box that has links to a few of the best online Office sites I know. If there are others that should be up but aren’t, let me know.

Once again over at the Liturgies of the OJN page, Fr. John-Julian’s plainchant customary is up. It’s a brief guide on how to sing chant and I added a short bit about the pause (caesura) at the asterisk in the psalms.

Tech Is Here To Stay: Learn To Deal With It…

There is a post at one of the great academic web projects, the New Testament Gateway Blog, on the WikiScanner. Dr. Mark Goodacre, now at Duke, has been thinking for a bit about the future and direction of his own project which has grown into an incredible endeavor. Several things here are of interest to me:

  • The world is in the midst of perhaps one of the first truly global paradigm shifts with the rise of the Internet. It involves data, who can access it and how it is communicated. We’re all still trying to figure out what it means but one thing is clear: it’s not going to go away. Particularly in this context–students will be relying much more on the Internet.
  • As far as tenure goes, one of the fundamental metrics is books and articles published. If we take the first point seriously, then university-type folks need to have more serious conversations about how research and topic databases like data portals, wikis, etc. should be added into the tenure discussion to promote the creation and proliferation of reliable, verifiable data.
  • Broadening the scope a bit: congregants and congregations and those seeking knowledge about both will be—no, are—relying more on the Internet as well. What are we religious-types doing about this?
  • And is the answer to this question (either in the academic or the religious realms) rooted in organization-wide top-down directives or more of an individual and small-group collective nature? It seems to me it’s the second—but that produces the inevitable problem of content control; how do you distinguish the trustworthy from the flawed and fallacious?
  • Because of the kind of material out there and its means of production, one way to move the conversation forward is the growth of “certification groups” who would certify the content of a site according to their standards. Both the blessing and curse of this kind of approach is that the group would essentially have no direct power over the content and the value of the certification would be only as good as the public trust held by the certifying group.

There’s more to think and say about this—but I lack the time and brain-cycles to do it justice at the moment…

Quotable Quotes

Over dinner last night, M mentioned a large Baptist church in the area that serves us as a landmark. Upon hearing it mentioned Lil’ G responded:

“We don’t go to church there; they don’t even like Mary!”

New Post at the Cafe

I have a new post up at the Episcopal Cafe and (brace yourself) it has nothing to do with Communion without Baptism!

There is actually one more in the series that I intend to post but it currently sits half-finished on my hard drive. I thought it’d be better to post something else than to cast up half-baked thoughts to conclude a discussion that so far I’ve found very informative, respectful, and thought-provoking.

Update: The comment issues overnight seem to have gone away…

Seminaries in Jeopardy

A story came across the email this morning about the state of the Episcopal Church’s seminaries. Unfortunately, this confirms everything that I’ve been thinking and gleaning from anecdotal evidence.

  1. Standalone seminaries are become less and less viable from a financial standpoint
  2. The reduction of funds means a reduction of full-time faculty which means:
    1. Our best people are forced elsewhere because our seminaries can’t afford them
    2. Adjunct faculty become a major fallback–and they are often less qualified than the people they are replacing (Of course, I say this as one adjuncting myself…)
  3. Technology is never an answer–but it may open opportunities for creative thinking along the lines of the Disseminary
  4. Distance learning can never and will never replace the formational importance of thrice daily corporate worship

I hope to graduate in May with the intent of (eventually) teaching in an Episcopal seminary. I’m starting to wonder about the long-term viability of that plan.