Discerning a Christian Vegan Eremitic Vocation with a Psychiatric Disability

It's 5:22 PM Eastern on Tuesday as I begin to write. I've been working all day on reorganization of the sleeping and prayer areas in my loft. I will divide the rest of my hermitage into additional zones as I proceed with my decluttering and inventory. I also helped me my mom out downstairs, did a couple loads of laundry, vacuumed, and started organizing in my closet. On a more forward-looking level, I took a walk around midday and listened to the first 30-minutes of an important talk titled  Creating a Practical Housing Plan for Your Loved One with a Disability :  There is a lot for me to think about here. I am sure I will be revisiting the rest of this webinar on subsequent Tuesdays, my new Hermit Economics productivity theme day. I didn't do any work on my "go bag" this week, but I did start a home inventory in Excel (using one of the included templates) as a way to support my decluttering process. Thanks to The Minimal Mom for the cognitive load insights. Nex...

It's 7:12 PM Eastern on Monday and I am eager to get back into the music production side of the psalmody with Paul Rose on Psalm 6 , but it looks like I need to deal with last Friday morning's Psalm 137:9 crisis of faith , instead, and it might take me the rest of this evening to do so. To be clear, I don't necessarily subscribe to the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture . Instead, I have articulated in my correspondence with Matthew King a belief in the controversiality of Scripture, which I define as follows: "The controversiality of the Bible means that the original authorship, date of composition, strict historical veracity, best contemporary translation, and most valid exegesis, if not absolute divinity, of each and every Old and New Testament passage, are subject to good argument by well-informed and well-meaning Church scholars, naturally leading to organic divisions within the body of Christ over the course of Church history, according to God's provi...

It's 4:29 PM, I am running off schedule because of a dental appointment that I didn't handle very well mentally or emotionally, though I did remember to pray a few times, and this is a quick note to keep the beat on my Monday morning Christian Zionism and my Monday afternoon UN Charter Navigation projects. My plan for this morning was to decide whether or not to start reading and commenting upon A Short History of Christian Zionism by Donald Lewis. I haven't been able to make a decision. On the one hand, it seems like the best and fairest place to really begin with Christian Zionism in earnest. On the other hand, it might be better for me to keep my focus on the interpretation of current events. I parted ways with Prime Minister Netanyahu on the strategic level back on 2 March 2025, but I've parted ways with him on other decisions since 7 October 2023, and for a while he was proving me wrong, which I frankly admired and took as a testament to the strength of Jewish nat...

It's 6:57 PM Eastern on Sunday as I begin to write. I've been thinking all day (well, between a couple of naps) about whether or not God is calling me to a Sunday morning Mass obligation. It's a very complicated question and Sister Laurel has given me much to chew on in Notes from Stillsong Hermitage: Questions on Sunday Obligation and the Hermit Life . I've also taken into account Bishop Barron's most recent Sunday sermon, the daily Bible reading in the Catholic lectionary, and  Code of Canon Law - Book II - The People of God - Part II. (Cann. 573-606) . While I must confess there is a part of my personality that is profoundly resistant to Catholic conversion, the lion's share of my conscience now seems to have tilted in the direction of serious Catholic inquiry - thanks, I trust, to the continued leading of the Holy Spirit.

It's 7:17 PM Eastern on Saturday evening and I may or may not make it into Chapter 1 of Origins  tonight. The Holy Spirit seems to be guiding my attention in two alternative directions. On one hand, I want to drill down into the field of Christian Astronomy by exploring a series of YouTube videos featuring the Vatican's astronomer. On the other hand, I also and maybe more pressingly want to take a step back from even the very broad field of Christian Earth Science to position myself in proper relationship to the history of both science and Catholicism. If I am to become a Catholic - whereas now I am only an intrigued but hesitant Inquirer - I will need to overcome some concerns about excessive supernaturalism, superstition and traditionalism at the periphery of the faith. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to blend or accompany a reading of  Origins with reading of  In Pursuit of Wisdom: Catholicism and Science Through the Ages . The Kindle version is priced at a bargain...

It's 3:06 PM Eastern on Saturday as I begin to write my way through this Week 34 Plan.  I have recently written about trying and failing to successfully implement a time management practice since the 1990s. Maybe this time around I can master some disability accommodations that make an effective system stick. I am not convinced that a high-fidelity Christian vegan eremitic time management system is beyond my capabilities. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was a student of Stephen Covey's First Things First (FTF) methodology. The FTF system is centered around a weekly organizing session. I have customized the session to include the following elements: Step 1: Evaluate the Past Seven Days (Scan Your Blog Posts) Step 2: Review Your Mission (Blog Title) and Vision (Blog Description) Step 3: Review Your Areas of Responsibility (Blog Pages) Step 4: Review and Add or Retire Active Projects (Blog Labels) for Each of Your Areas of Responsibility  Step 5: Schedule Your Soft Appointme...

It's 11:43 AM Eastern on Saturday. I've had a good office management session this morning. My office space is starting to feel a lot more Zen, but I still have some distance to travel. The checklist I came up with last week is a help. I am not a GTD master like David Allen, but I seem to be closing in on a minimally paper-based office system (cf.  Get Your Paper Based Filing System in Order | GTD® ). Unless something else on my Saturday morning checklist needs more attention next week, I will continue to prioritize refinement of the paper-based component of my office until it is right where I want it. Then I will take some photos and upload them to this blog. Also helpful for this week's session:  GTD® Beginner’s Guide to Organizing Your Paper-Based Inbox .

8:39 AM Eastern Saturday morning. Just back from an informative and encouraging walk with Sir James MacMillan. Excellent interview that I don't want to forget:  Sir James MacMillan on How Christianity Shaped Western Music | The Early Church & Gregorian Chant .

6:35 PM Eastern Friday. This link to  The Gregorio Project   is for future reference, if and when it is time for me to learn to compose and publish chant in Gregorian notation. In the meantime, I feel deeply blessed to open this session with the above video,  SALVE REGINA (Solemn Tone) | Chants of Deliverance . It's a healing Christian musical response to my recent difficult encounter with Psalm 137:9. Now I will jump right in to warming up my voice and finding my natural vocal range. 8:10 PM. Well, that didn't go quite as planned. Here's what I did. I started by watching a YouTube short by Janelle Scott of TrueSong Voice Studio called " How to Find Your Real Singing Voice, or True Vocal Tone ."  Then I turned off my noisy air conditioner, fired up FL Studio 2025, loaded a new project, armed and tested my USB microphone, and recorded a short warm-up speech track. Next, I recorded a second track in which I spoke and chanted "hey" several times, reaching ...