What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it?
Time for honesty: TikTok. (Go and follow me: afoolandhisprayerbook.)
Do I feel bad? Maybe!? There is lots of rubbish on the app. But I have curated my feed over time and now have lots of interesting people and topics. I try to be encouraging with comments. And even post occasionally.
And my time is my time – something that interests me is never bad.
I have never intentionally travelled – I have moved from one place to another but that was utilitarian. I have no desire nor do I have the “nerve” to travel. But I have travelled through books – that is, the book itself has taken me on a journey of discovery.
So which book? Just one: The Romanovs: The Story of Russia and its Empire 1613-1918. It made me fall in love with Russia and Russian Orthodox culture. (As an aside, I also read Rasputin: The Untold Story and The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs, both of which made me want to read more.) The context and culture is so different to what I have experienced. (Yet, so similar!)
Anyway …
If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be?
I would erase the non-use of Early Modern English in liturgy! Very niche, I know. But some modern English is just banal.
So maybe the move from Early Modern English to Modern English?!
Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?
I am partial to music CDs! I like streaming services but the experience of handling the physical CD is very nostalgic. Also the lyrics sheet was mint!
And I like collecting.
Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?
I am shaped by my choices. My choices are influenced by nature and nurture but I can choice to make a chose outside of context.
I cannot experience necessity (I am not locked into a certain choice) – I am free in the moment.
I would be an Australian drop bear. Not sure why. It is the first thing that come to mind.
Maybe it is about not existing and being a joke that describes me?
What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years?
Just to reveal my age, and movies I watch, I think flying cars. And glasses that act as rear view mirrors.
Tbh: I am a little afraid of what technology will exist. Yes, I am old. But rather than making my life easier, technology stresses me and makes me want to run away (to a forest somewhere). My hope is that humanity discovers itself, becomes less dependent on technology, and more free to be human.
tbh, the Deposited Book. I have used it for my daily prayer since before I was ordained. This current edition is new since my last one fell apart (literally!). I have tried other books but I always come back to this one. It has everything I need in one book!
But also Fear and Trembling. And The Metamorphosis. And The Confessions. Also, I Am Dynamite!. And maybe Beyond Good and Evil.
And also the book I am currently obsessed with Monasticism: The All-embracing Gift of the Holy Spirit by Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou. I only have an ebook copy. It is an impressive book! (Also, by the same author, Hesychasm: The Bedewing Furnace of the Heart.)
I could go on. Anyway …
Are you a lifelong learner?
Are we not all lifelong learners? If I act differently today because of something that happened yesterday, I learned something!?
So I like books. I sometimes read. And maybe sometimes learn. But I rarely act any different from yesterday.
What’s a book you think deserves a sequel?
I really had to think about this one. But I have an answer.
The Book of Common Prayer (1662) deserves a sequel. I do not mean an update – like the Uk 1928 or any of the Australian versions. Nor a version when there is a new monarch. A continuing story with new material within the same family.
It would contain some of the offices that are missing from the original. (Maybe an office for the setting aside for monastic life – a BCP version of the tonsure.) And some of the “red letter days” (like the Transfiguration) that are missing from the 1662 version.
a fool and his prayer book 