We had a wonderful night with Bill Mallonee this past Saturday evening.  In addition to great music, our pre-show conversation included a brief discussion about work and vocation (stay tuned for that conversation at the conclusion of the remaining installments of the 2009 Mallonee interview).  We’ve been reflecting on this topic a great deal lately and Bill Mallonee, along with Warren Farha (proprietor of Eighth Day Books), are beacons of inspirational light for us around here at Eighth Day Institute.  For more than twenty years now, they have both been committed to excellence, tenaciously following their vocations regardless of the cost.  And the cost has been great.  We’re reminded of one of our favorite quotes by T. S. Eliot - we like it so much it made its way into our first issue of Synaxis (“The Book”) as an epigram.  Here’s Eliot:

Get yourself saved

from the need to serve

Just as you seek to receive grace

to break your other addictions.

As long as you need to make a difference,

that is all you will do.

You may change the way a person

or a system thinks or does some things.

That can be important.

You may see yourself as others see you:

quite bright and gifted

and one of those we must keep tied to the church.

We’ve got bad news and good news.  The bad news isn’t really so bad, so we’ll start there.  We have made a slight change of plans for our journal Synaxis.  Due to size - over 200 pp. - substance, and cost, we have decided to change it from a bi-annual publication to an annual endeavor, to be released each year at the Eighth Day Symposium (Issue II will be available at the end of January, 2013). 

If you have already paid for the inaugural issue you will be receiving it in the next couple of weeks (we’re in Louisville for the Circe Conference on classical education and won’t be able to mail them out until next week).  If you paid for the annual subscription, you too will receive the inaugural issue, plus the second issue on poetics at the end of January, 2013 (it is progressing very smoothly and we’ll be releasing the table of contents within the next month).

Now for the exciting news.  As both a supplement to and teaser for the next issue of Synaxis, each summer we will 

Since our third annual Eighth Day Symposium will be on Dostoevsky (“The Divine and the Demonic”), we will offer periodic reflections on Russian writers throughout the rest of this year.  Last Thursday evening (Aug 9) Dr. Malcolm Harris, Professor of Finance at Friends University, presented the life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the Hall of Men.  So we figure Solzhenitsyn is as good of a place to start as any. 

For now, as promised to the Men at the Hall, we would simply like to direct your attention to three key works referenced in Dr. Harris’s lecture, the first two by Solzhenitsyn and the third one by Pope Benedict: 1) The Nobel Lecture in Literature of 1970; 2) The 1978 Harvard Commencement Address; and 3) A presentation to bishops in Dallas, TX on Conscience and Truth. 

We are in the final stages of editing our newest publication: a one-of-a-kind newsletter called Micro-Synaxis.  Hard copies should ship out within the next 2-4 weeks.  Our inaugural issue focuses on “The Work of Renewing Culture” and we thought you might be interested in seeing the table of contents (we’ll also give you some sample excerpts over the next couple of weeks).  We hope to whet your appetite and move you to either subscribe or to auto-subscribe by becoming an Eighth Day Member to support our work of renewing culture through faith and learning.

Gene Herr

Eighth Day Institute Director

1934-2012

We have finalized the plans for our 2013 Symposium Festal Banquet and oh how excited we are!  Chef Chris Farha is preparing a menu that is guaranteed to be absolutely delicious.  A woman of many hats in our community, Chris will also be directing the St. George Cathedral Choir as we celebrate the nativity, the theophany, the death, and the resurrection of Christ through ancient Christian hymnography.  We’ll learn about St. Gregory through a few short readings and brief reflections from all of our symposium speakers: Ralph Wood will present Gregory the Pastoral Theologian with a short reflection on the relevance of theology for the Christian life; John Estes will present Gregory the Poet with a short reflection on poetry in Christian theology and hymnody; Scott Cairns will

We are currently finalizing details for our third annual Eighth Day Symposium on “Dostoevsky: The Divine and the Demonic.”  Registration is now open for the Symposium, the Banquet, and the Iconography Workshop and a Schedule has been posted; lecture / breakout titles and abstracts and speaker bios will follow shortly, along with more details about our banquet for the Feast Day of St. Gregory the Theologian.  Secure your spot now by taking advantage of early discounted registration by registering before January 11 - registration is limited to 300.

Here is a description for this year’s symposium: