Katharine Jefferts Shori

November 15, 2008

Last night we sang at Kanuga for a service led by Katharine Jefferts Shori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. She was an impressive presence. “Presence” is in fact the operative word. She seemed denser, more substantial than the people around, as if she were made of steel. Gravitas and rectitude. I think that our church is sometimes frivolous in its cautions and hesitations, in its slowness to justice and swiftness on the trail of breaches of procedure. But Katharine rode that chaos as a skillful rider guides a wayward stead. If all our vagueness condenses at last into her sharpness and precision, then it may in part be forgiven. She is in the top ten of impressive people I have seen in my life. It would have been nice to have spoken to her, but eight hundred were thinking the same thing.

In addition to being the night of Katharine Jefferts Shori, it was the night of the beautiful fields. We were told to park in a little lot across from the gym, where the service was. To get to the gym you had to cross a grassy field lit by great outdoor lights. Under the black sky the lit field was wondrous beautiful, emerald, elfin, as though lit, by some power more magical than electricity. When we got home, after the service and after drinks at the Usual, the headlights revealed the back alley completely covered by the fallen leaves of the red oak that overhangs it. Red, ruffled, wild, as though it were a space in the forest.

Rehearsal of the Mozart Requiem this AM at First Baptist. I do enjoy doing it, and being in that eager company. It is going to be terrible, but that does not mitigate all the rest.

Drove to the Arboretum to look at some wooden bowls. The bowls were not interesting, but the mountainous landscape round about was almost inconceivably beautiful. Wind blew leaves up from the forest floor into twisting figures in the air. The blue sky was roofed at west and east by gray clouds covered with a foam of blinding white. The mountains stood almost nude, so the remaining clumps of gold sung out like struck strings. The near oaks were blood red, and darker even under the coming storm. I bought a book on the natural history of ferns. I bought a book with pictures of the flowers of the mountain.