Week 3--London (and sidetrips)

This past week we've visited a variety of sites all related to England's spiritual heritage.

Perhaps the oldest of all, we visited the ancient site of Stonehenge.  It felt like there was a spiritual presence about the place, and it was sobering to wonder about the folks who had assembled the stones and who or what exactly they were worshipping.  Paul, in Romans, speaks of each of us having a sense of God ingrained in us, and we couldn't help thinking about this. There were also sheep near by, and Brianna was very taken with them, toddling around saying, 'baa, baa . . .' 

We also spent some time in Bath, visiting the ruins of the old Roman baths built around one of England's only hot springs.  Connected with the baths were ruins of the Roman temple to Minerva, the goddess to whom they attributed the hot waters.  A striking reminder of our tendency to make gods out of things we don't understand.

We also visited the small village of Lacock where they had a tithe barn from the 12th-century where farmers would bring in their tithe from their crops to give to the Abbey that was once there.  It made the history of the many monasteries, convents, and abbeys that once covered the countryside seem much more real.

And just today, we took a "pilgrimage" to Oxford, and it was a real joy to see the places where several of our favorite authors regularly spent their time.  C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and Dorothy Sayers all had direct ties to the University.  Interestingly, Lewis was by far the most prominently remembered.
This past Sunday, we worshiped at Southwark Cathedral again.  We had an unscheduled Sunday, and we enjoyed it so much last week that we went back for Pentecost.  They celebrated the baptisms of three children, and we were moved by several aspects of the service.  In the Anglican church, they often have the font in the back of church as part of the entrance into the worship space.  So when they came to the baptism, everyone moved to the back of the sanctuary.  When they were done, they wrapped each child in a beautiful blanket and spoke the words, "You have been clothed with Christ."

In the afternoon, we went to evensong at St Paul's Cathedral, another impressive worship space.  The girls were restless this time, however, and we needed to sneak out the side halfway through the service.

We have been blessed with wonderful weather this past week--very little rain and temperatures reaching the mid and upper 70's.

Jay's been reading The Reason for God by Tim Keller--a modern day apology for the Christian faith.  Though a bit of an intellectual approach to faith, it does an excellent job of addressing many modern-day dismissals of the Christian faith (like "It's not just arrogant but downright dangerous to think your religion is right and try to convert others to it" or "I can't believe in a God who allows such suffering...")

Peace to you all,
Jay and Elizabeth

Misadventures of the week:  (1) Jay was torn between leaving our two bags of luggage on the Tube or following the rest of the family as Elizabeth (and the girls) confidently started exiting the train a station early.  Thankfully, they heard the desperate cries of, "Elizabeth!  Elizabeth!" just in time and pushed their way back on the train. (2) We lost one of Brianna's shoes.  She's been entertaining herself by taking them off as she's in the stroller.  So far, we'd always been able to corral them just in time.  This time, however, after placing it under the stroller for safe keeping after she had taken it off, we came back home to our apartment only to discover it missing.  So now we're in search of shoes with a buckle.