Going to the Office, Part 2

Ever since I re-read Things Seen and Unseen, I had been thinking, "I wish there were something around here like the Episcopal monastery that Nora goes to all the time in Santa Barbara". (Actually, I'd heard of that place long before, as an excellent place to make a retreat or just unwind for a couple of days.) I was certainly planning to have some Santa Barbara downtime on my entirely theoretical western pilgrimage, inspired both by my recent roadtrip and Mike's current one.

Well, once again one of my online contacts has alerted me to the presence of something that was right under my nose. This time it was a thread about something related, but different, on the Ship of Fools forums. A list of Anglican monastic orders mentioned the Order of the Holy Cross with houses in New York, Santa Barbara, and ... Berkeley!

Now as it happens I had known about this house, having noticed its sign when I was driving past All Souls, and I'd occasionally seen a brother at my church, but the penny didn't drop till I looked up the website thanks to the Ship thread.

And, guess what, their Daily Office services, four times daily, are open to the public. I think I might try to make EP when I need to rearrange my work schedule in August to cover for a co-worker's vacation. Otherwise the only service I could probably regularly make on work days is Compline, and 7:30 pm is a bit early for me ... 'cause I have this notion that Compline should be the last thing I do before pulling up the covers over my recumbent head.

I hate it when someone from far away points this kind of thing out to me, but I'm getting over that pretty rapidly in light of what I plan to get out of it.