Endless August
Its predecessor I dubbed The Varmint: the rectangular gizmo which, strapped to my left wrist, recorded heartbeats, walks, runs, and much more. I wrote about losing it back in 2017, and “The Varmint” is one of the few old blogs that successfully made their trek over to Substack. So on the app or website you can find it, if you’re crazy that way.
Years of a Varmint-free wrist followed, but last year I finally got its replacement. A Fitbit Inspire 3, it is again a rectangle strapped to my wrist; I haven’t managed to lose it yet. It tells me how good my sleep was and how many steps I took and all that stuff; it even tells lies. Last week I went to see The Odyssey in 70mm, figuring it would be the last time in my life for that experience. The film started about 5pm; afterwards I went straight home and, shortly, to bed. I got up as usual about 5am. Fitbit says I was in bed from 5:15pm to 4:47am. Fortunately, Christopher Nolan has a predilection for loud soundtracks; I doubt anyone noticed my snores.
—
Sunday I looked at the thing shortly before the procession at St. Matthew’s. If you’ve never seen one of these in action (and if so, what a blessed person you are!), let me describe. When you touch the thing to wake it up (they say; but methinks, like New York City, the Fitbit never sleeps)—when it wakes up, I say, what you see are four numerals. On a black background you see two numerals in white and, directly below them, two numerals in green. This square array is the clock. There are always two white numerals so, most of the time, the first numeral is a zero. When I looked at it, it read “08” with “56” underneath. Now, just as there are twelve hours in the U.S. system, so are there twelve months in a year. For a moment, being still unreconciled to non-analog timepieces, I read this as “August 56th.”
And I thought, Is August never going to end?
—
What if this August runs on for 60, 75, even 90 days? Will almanacs of the future need to have an asterisk on 2026 indicating that, in that long-ago year, they went straight from August to November, with no September or October in between? There exist already notes of similar, albeit smaller, divergences from pattern: February 29 only every fourth year, but not in 1900 and not in 2100.
The Odyssey reminds us of the way the gods demand sacrifices. Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to obtain a change in the wind pattern. Perhaps the gods of heat would respond favorably if we offered up September and October? (At least it would be a bloodless sacrifice!) We could have the feast of St. Michael and All Angels on August 60th (September 29th, old style). Halloween would be August 92nd (October 31st, old style).
—
Back to the Fitbit. It records walks and runs but, as the baseball fan might say, not errors. In this, the Fitbit is amoral. So is the computer on which I am writing this. So is the Substack thing. Increasingly we interact with amoral devices and not people, things that take in data from us. The mythic attraction of The Odyssey is, in part, that these people lived without our “things.” They were in boats on seas and on foot on lands, without even a compass. Penelope does not know that Odysseus is still alive. Odysseus does not know where he is. In August, we find we are not that different. Despite all our amoral devices, the heat of August continues to stretch before us, it seems, unendingly. True, unlike the characters in The Odyssey, we can pray to the real God, the creator of us and this earth and everything, and prayer is no small thing. While the heat continues, prayer can bring many consolations.
And when we see God, I’m pretty sure our resurrection body will not sport a Fitbit.
—
Out & About. I am to preach at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas on Aug. 23 (at 9 and 11:15am) and at St. Augustine’s Oak Cliff (Dallas) on Aug. 30.
Good Books & Good Talk: The first of four sessions on Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov will be at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, Sun. Aug. 30, from 5 to 6:30pm. I will begin with a very short talk, then discussion will follow. We will discuss (only) Part One, which is Books I–III, which is most versions is about 150–200 pages. Directions: From the parking garage at St. Matthew’s (which is in the Cathedral Arts apartment building just south of the cathedral), walk outside. The cathedral will be on your left; straight ahead will be the cathedral green; and Garrett Hall will be to your right. Go to the glass entrance in the middle of Garrett Hall; someone will be there from about 4:45 to let you in. We meet on the second floor.
On the Web. Many people find forgiveness hard, particularly in cases where they have been the victim of a serious offense and the offender is not repentant. Matthew Lee Anderson has a meditation on this problem that is wise and detailed and pastorally sensitive. I commend it: https://matthewleeanderson.substack.com/p/784-praying-for-offenders-to-repent