London Calling

The "pilgrimage" portion of my sabbatical took me to Paris, Geneva, and Edinburgh. I am capping that with a week in London with my wife Liz, who joined me in Edinburgh. Technically, this is vacation, not pilgrimage, and London was principally my wife's interest, not mine. Nevertheless, it is enlightening to follow eleven days in Scotland with a trip to "jolly" old England.

First, it is apparent that the Scots are far more concerned with the English than the English are with the Scots. Perhaps it is that London is such an international city that its sense of "Englishness" has been lost, or at least muted. It could also be that it is like many rivalries I have known, in that it is lopsided in intensity (the WSU - UW rivalry is one such I have known).

Nevetheless, we have enjoyed some amazing days, some just "thrown together" serendipitously. Worship on Sunday in St. Paul's Cathedral was amazing. It is one of the most elegant pieces of architecture I have ever seen, and undoubtedly the finest architectural work in London, if not all of Europe. The worship was a sung Eucharist using the work of Michael Haydn, younger brother to Franz Joseph, with orchestra and guest choir. The music was wonderful, although the finest voice was that of the presiding priest who sang the liturgy. An excellent sermon was offered contrasting the feeding of the 5000 with Herod's banquet, although amid all the splendor and majesty of the cathedral, it was a little hard to hear the priest remind us that Jesus refused the people's attempt to make him king because he was humble. Seems there was a disconnect between gospel and setting.

The highlight so far for me has been the British museum -- in particular the Assyrian bas-reliefs of Sargon II, and the cuneiform tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh and other ancient Near Eastern texts I had to study in OT 01. I had a bit of guilt over cultural imperialism and the British arrogance of removing cultural artifacts of such significance from their places of origin. But they probably would never have survived in Baghdad or Tehran, so I can get over it.

Today we visited Bath (former residence of Jane Austen, my wife's idol), and got a taste of VERY old England. The abbey has been a site of worship since 614, and the Romans settled there at least five centuries before that, and a Celtic shrine before THAT. The visit reminded me of another pilgrimage:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

I never thought I would find Chaucer relevant!

Thanks for reading... I may have one or two more posts before retuning August 1.