A Varied Diet

Today, my sabbatical is one third done.

Later this morning, it is the joy (ha ha!) of packing back into luggage both all of the stuff we brought here and all of the stuff we bought here.

I will need to find the right person at Regents Park College to settle up with and say a final thank you to the folks who have been so helpful and welcoming here.

I will begin to mentally switch gears from Tolkien to Disney.

One last walk to Market Street and Blackwell’s Bookstore.

A final pack mule impersonation to the Oxford Rail Station.

We won’t be headed back to the states until Saturday, but our time in England is very clearly drawing to an end.

Like all changes it has its joy and grief.  Part of me is is already missing the idyllic atmosphere of this place and the freedom I have had here to pursue my own interests in a way I have not before experienced in my adult life.

The other part of me is ready to return to the structure and normalcy of home.  While day trips to Stratford-Upon-Avon and jaunts to Paris are exciting and special, a steady diet of them leads to things running together and beginning to all look the same.

It is a little like dessert.  It is good to have from time to time.  It might even sound like a great proposition to eat it to the exclusion of everything else.  But if it is all you ever eat, after a while even broccoli sounds good.  And if you only eat sweets your body would fall apart and rebel with diabetes, obesity, and any number of other issues.

Everyone needs a good steady diet of home.  It is what makes us who we are.  It contains the nutrients that make us strong.  A sprinkling of the dessert of travel makes life rich, but without home, who we are would soon fall into all manner of diseases and troubles.

One last helping of London and then back to the nourishing base of my diet that I call home.

Tolkien and Race

As I have observed before, Tolkien seems to resonate with our modern views on the environment.  Whether this was because he was ahead of his own time or had his heels dug in to stay behind it is hard to say.

There is little direct evidence on Tolkien’s views on another hot bed issue of our day:  the question of race.  It has been asserted by an author or two that Tolkien may have been an anti-Semite.  On the whole, their evidence of this is very poor and it seems more a tactic to sell books and articles than any clear conclusion.  The truth of the matter is that Tolkien refused to allow The Hobbit to be published in German because of his violent opposition to Hitler and in a letter directly condemns his treatment of the Jewish people.

As to indirect evidence, Tolkien seems to have had a very progressive view of race (and the equally important but less obvious in U.S. societal distinction of class).  His is a nuanced view that recognizes differences while appreciating the common needs and interests across cultures.  All of the races are seen as fallible and flawed and almost all seem to have the potential of redemption.

Tolkien’s England would have been a predominantly white one.  During his lifetime, Britain used its geography as an island nation to discourage those from foreign countries to immigrate.  Tolkien’s role in Oxford society would have been as one of the privileged class despite his impoverished upbringing.

Yet, Middle Earth as Tolkien imagined was a place of all sorts of races:  hobbits, humans (both black and white), elves, dwarves, orcs, and magical creatures.  The only race that is consistently seen in a negative light is the orcs, who as servants (creations?) of Sauron and Saruman are warped evil incarnations of the rest of sentient creation.

But the other groups are seen as having distinctive cultures that can be appreciated on their own basis.  There also is among some long held racial distrust between some of them.  Throughout the narrative these are seen cropping up and being overcome by individual characters learning to trust and appreciate each other.  Gimli and Legolas mistrust each other because of racial conflict in the deep past, but by the end have begun to understand the values of the other.  Within the human community, the people of Gondor and people of Rohan overcome their different social values to ally themselves in the fight against Mordor.

Even in the issue of class, Tolkien shows the love and growth in the relationship between Frodo, who is of the wealthy class, and Samwise Gamgee, who is a working man.  It has even been argued that ultimately Sam is the hero of the tale.  Certainly at the end, the content of his character causes him to rise from being a simple gardener to Mayor of the Shire.

Tolkien seems to have believed that the differences between people are real and to be appreciated.  At the same time, they are not ultimately impediments to finding ways to work and live together.  It is altogether a very enlightened view for an Englishman of his time.

Church In England

Back in Oxford on Sunday, we went to visit the John Wesley Memorial Methodist Church.  It is an impressive landmark of a building, rivaling the many Anglican churches in size and majesty.

It was a quite different picture on the inside.  The stone pillars and wooden balcony were still there.  The heavy wooden pulpit and old wooden bench for the minister stood at the back of the altar.  But they were not in use.  The straight rows of old pews were gone replaced by interlocked chairs in a more modern arrangement with blue cushioning.  The altar had been extended out into the building so that it almost became in the round.  The scripture was read from a simple metal stand with a banner draped over it and a similar one pushed further forward on the other side was where the preacher stood with his notes.  A screen hung from the wall behind the altar where words and images were projected throughout the service.

The sanctuary seemed fairly full on ground level with the chairs arranged as they were.  Once again, the minister was absent, so we enjoyed a lay preacher within the congregation.  He apparently is an engineer for the British rail system (not the kind who drives the train, but the kind who derives complex predictive formulas to predict how many cars should be on the train and what times the trains should run).

In a truly odd, but fun moment, the minister taught those in the congregation a Broadway show tune.  It wasn’t enough to sing it though.  He had the entire congregation get up and learn the dance to go with the song.  Not exactly a natural experience for a staid British congregation.

The service was much like the others we have attended here, with two small but interesting differences.  I wonder if we might include them in our services at Faith.

When the children left for children’s worship, there was a mutual blessing.  The children said, as they left, “The Lord be with you.”  The congregation replied, “And also with you.”  It was a good reminder that both groups in their own way were proceeding with worship and that their prayers would be with the other.

The other touch in the service was a prepared short reading giving the context of the scripture before it was read.  If done well, and I thought one of these was and the other less so, this prepares the congregation to better hear and appreciate the particular passage rather than experiencing it in a vacuum.

Like all of the churches we visited here, there seems to be a great struggle between past and present.  The congregations are trapped in buildings that were built for a different age and different sensibilities.  They struggle to tell a story that is modern around the physical artifacts of the past.  In a way, that has always been the story of the church.  For we cannot jettison our history and still follow Christ, but we cannot become stuck in history and still meet the needs of the world.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

I’ve spent this trip trying to look at paintings in a new way.  Rather than viewing them as static images and admiring them primarily as objects, I’ve been looking at them as still frames from a movie.  What has happened, is happening, will happen in the world of the painting?  It is essentially a narrative creation based on the contextual clues in the work.  Painting as story.

Yesterday at the Louvre, we went through the works of the Dutch masters.  I came across a picture that I would have generally passed quickly by if I had been merely looking for the beautiful.  I stopped though, looked for a moment, and a compelling story emerged.

The picture was of a portrait being painted.  It is a fairly common motif, perhaps because it not only allows the painter to paint the subject but also themselves.  In this work, there were a lot of people included.  The artist looked at the canvas and held a few brushes.  The subject also looked at the painting and to help the artist had a single brush in his hand.

But there were others there as well.  A family member looked on from behind the subject.  On the left hand side of the scene, there were two servants.  One was busy playing a musical instrument for the enjoyment of everyone.  The other had in his hand a single cup of tea that appears destined for the man whose portrait is painted (why the artist doesn’t get one, I don’t know, perhaps he is just more hired help).

A very ordinary painting all told.  A rich man with the world at his feet.  Surrounded by servants and family as he is immortalized on canvas.

But the artist, perhaps he didn’t appreciate being skipped by the tea service or perhaps because his social conscious pricked him, includes one small detail that is easily missed.  In the background there is either a painting or a window.  It is impossible to tell which.  While everything else is clear and detailed through the small/frame and window things are indistinct and hazy.  All that can be seen are three or four faces that appear to be crying out for help.  It is almost a painting within a painting.

The artist decided that the world of the rich man needed to have the poor at his window.  Perhaps it is an echo of Lazarus and the Rich Man.  Living in lavish luxury, the people in the house are totally unaware of the suffering in the world just outside.

I wonder what happened when the subject picked up the painting.  Did the inclusion of the faces in the frame/window anger him?  Or as in the rest of his life, did his eyes focus mainly on himself and he didn’t notice them at all?

Dem Bones

Today's activities included some on the regular tourist track.  We went to Notre Dame and scaled the spiraling stone stairs to its roof.  Proceeding through the small wooden door, we climbed the wooden steps up to the large bell with thoughts of Quasimodo.  The views were breathtaking on a beautiful day.  I even learned the difference between a chimera and a gargoyle (the gargoyle is the head with a spout out of its mouth and the chimera the sculptures that stand atop the building).

We rode an open topped bus around the Latin Quarter and saw many of the sites of the Left Bank.  With the presence of the Sorbonne and having been the home of many artists, it is considered the intellectuals haven (I felt out of place!)  I can I was glad to be on the bus and to not have to worry about the bikes and motorbikes and leave the driving to someone else.

But it was when we left the crowd with cameras and walked to a plain wooden building with a single black door that we saw what will probably be the longest held memory for me of Paris.

Most if not all of the stone in Paris was quarried from Limestone that lies beneath the city.  In order to produce the amount necessary, much of the mining took place in tunnels underground.  These now form what is called the catacombs beneath the city, a vast network of underground tunnels.

A small portion of these are open to the public to tour.  The line outside most of the Paris attractions is hundreds deep, but at the entrance to the catacombs, there were only three people in front of us.  We climbed the stairs underground and began our exploration.  For the first time in Paris, we were wandering about, at times, without anyone else in sight.

The long tunnels came first to a carving done by some of the workers.  A lovely carved depiction of a city where very few will ever see it.

And then we arrived at a black iron gate.  As we went through, the tone of our trip changed immediately.  Suddenly all around us were stacked and arranged human bones.  The empty sockets of skulls silently stared out at us.  Following the outbreak of a deadly disease in the town, all who died were buried in a mass grave.  The bodies later had to be removed and they were place in a giant ossuary that was created in the catacombs.  There were quotes about death and eternity on the walls and even a small chapel as we went through chamber after chamber stacked with human remains.

I wasn't quite sure what I was feeling.  Was it pity for these remains that used to be people who suffered a terrible death only to be placed in a bizarre death hall?  Was it fascination with the people who decided that the proper thing to do with all of these bones was to turn them into what is almost a work of art?  Was it an appreciation of the odd beauty?  Should I appreciate the place or be saddened by it?

As we walked up the stairs to depart and I tried to figure out what I had just seen, we came to the exit room. As we left Janet was called back.  The guard wanted to search her purse.  It took me a minute, but apparently some people try to leave with some of the bones.  I noticed a box behind the guard with three skulls on it--whether that was what had been removed today or over some period, I did not know.  But someone or ones had thought it would be nice to have a souvenir from the site.

It was then I realized what I was feeling.  I was reminded that in death we lose all control over what is left us. We become no longer a life but a physical accident and object to be collected, arranged and perhaps abused.  The bones that give me structure and make me recognizable as me today might be used as anonymous decorations in some wall of the future.  It makes me happy that there is more to me than just my bones.

Impressions of Paris

Yesterday, we spent touring some of Paris' museums.  What surprised me as much as anything was that often the buildings were as impressive as the artwork they contained.

We saw well known and little known works.  Some were grand and expansive and others simple portraits.  The art we viewed went from dramatic to drab (is it just me or is the Mona Lisa the Paris Hilton of the art world--primarily famous for being famous?).  I have had the prerequisite humanities courses in college, but I am far from an art expert.  I did leave however appreciating all of the art, just liking some of it more than others.

Although we saw more well-known pieces at the Louvre, I was more impressed by the Impressionist work that was displayed at Musee d' Orsay.  I am not the kind of person who purchases art, but I was so impressed by Van Gogh's L'Eglise d'Auvers-wur-Oise I got an inexpensive reproduction to frame.

I think the reason I like the impressionists so much is because they leave the mind's imagination room to move and construct. Hyper-realistic painting is an incredible achievement, but there is no left work for the viewer to do.  With the impressionists, the splashes of colors and identifiable yet indistinct shapes leaves the person who sees it fills in their own details.

It strikes me as being similar to a phrase that I often use when I talk about stories.  Some stories are true others offer truth.  A crime report in the paper is true.  A parable offers truth.  Myth has a power to communicate at a deeper level than facts alone.

Realistic painting is a reporting of the world.  Impressionism explores the truth underneath it.

Trains, Trains and More Trains

During our trip, we have gotten rail passes for all of our journey.  We only rented a car for the weekend in the Ribble Valley (and despite occasionally drifting to the wrong side of the road when there wasn't any traffic to follow, we survived!).

We have ridden trains in England, the subway in London, the rural electric trains and subway in Paris.  We have gone from high luxury--the chunnel train serves food like an international flight--to dirty, hot and crowded subways (we wondered when the pushers were going to come and force even more people into the car).

Not having a direct line to the tourism commission, I can only tell you  that the rail system in Paris is not very inviting (whether intentional or not, I don't know).  In addition to our own language difficulties, there were several situations that made us feel less than welcome.  When we went to the wrong platform and  were trying to decide what we needed to do, the very full station at a high traffic time of day had an empty information booth.  When we got on the trains, we were surprised that no one was announcing any of the stops.

Then there was the problem with the exiting of the station that if one didn't know better (translation me), you could walk with a crowd through the handicapped gate and not get your ticket validated.  This left me unable to get back on the train until I spent thirty minutes standing in a line.

Being a stranger in a strange land has new meaning to me now.  Every other trip I have been on internationally, I have had some people with me who knew the language and were there to guide me.  Although we are greatly enjoying Paris, there is a sense of displacement and uncertainty that comes with doing anything new even activities that are quite routine.

I couldn't help but think how the church must seem to people who are visiting and have never been to a church before.  Do we do enough to communicate with them what the stops are, help them to find there way and make them feel at home?  Or like the trains in Paris do we just expect them to know what to do and when they don't leave them feeling unwanted?

Ring of Power?

During my tutorial at one point, Dr. Caldecott, replied to something I said with, "the so-called ring of power."

For those who have never read The Lord of The Rings or seen the movies, the entire quest revolves around the destruction of a ring that the personification of evil--Sauron--crafted.  It was made at the same time as other rings held by elves, dwarves and human beings, but is the master over them and their wearers.  Sauron wants the  ring back because he then will dominate those who lead the other races.

At least that is what he thinks.  Dr. Caldecott's point was fairly simple--if the ring of power is so powerful what power does it demonstrate?  Well, it does give its wearer invisibility and it does appear to push to madness those who possess it.  So it does have some demonstrable powers, but neither of those are ultimate sorts of power that can be used to exert control over others, just deception.

If the ring of power is so powerful, why does Sauron have it cut off his hand and lose it in the first place?  If the ring of power is so powerful, why does it wearer need others to accomplish their will?  If the ring of power is so powerful, why does it not give Frodo the strength to go with power into Mordor?

The so-called ring of power in the story demonstrates only the power of making its wearer vanish literally and figuratively from others.  It removes the person literally from community by making them invisible to other people.  The wearer becomes a non-entity, a negative space.

But it functions figuratively as well as the will of the one who wears it seems only to be able to do things in the world by the agency of others.  The ring takes away the power of the individual to do work in the world.  The domination of others ultimately causes the diminishing of the self.

The power of the ring of power is the same power as the power of all temptations.  It promises one thing while delivering quite another.  Rather than delivering ultimate power, the circle of the ring encloses and diminishes its wearer until they cease to have power at all.

Futbol

It has been very interesting to be in England and France during this year's World Cup.  It is the talk of everyone and is on the TV no matter where you turn (will my ears ever stop hurting from the droning buzz of an angry hive of vuvuzelas?).

At the church in Whalley, it was the topic of the children's sermon.  The minister asked the congregation to call out the names of the participating countries.  All but two of the sixteen were named (and if you can tell me why the U.S. and North Korea were not remembered and what might be the relation between the two, I'd be glad to know.)

We sat looking out on the sidewalk at a cafe in Paris this evening as France lost to South Africa and was sent home devastatingly early.  The crowd gathered at the bar watching the match were stoically unimpressed by their team's early exit.

Funniest to watch though has been the coverage of the World Cup on BBC.  Remember that in Britain, there are only five over the air channels and one of those has been dedicated to showing every single match with an hour before and after of unrecognizable (to me) talking heads.  The pre-game and post game analysis is quite entertaining.

I missed the memo, but England is God's special gift to soccer.  They are in the unique position in the tournament, if you believe the expectations of the commentators, of losing not only when they lose, but also when they tie.  Currently, pending tomorrow's matches, they have the same record as everyone else in their group, but this is not in any way an accomplishment it is an abject failure.  In fact, the manager who signed a contract extension before the Cup began because of his past success is expected to resign in disgrace if England doesn't show more.  He and the former captain are in an open war of words in the press.  Every newspaper leads with it in the headlines.

At the same time, the new government in London has announced a budget with draconian cuts in an attempt to balance spending with receipts.  But, you'd hardly know it with all of the drama on and off the pitch.

I laugh to myself, don't they know, the only thing to care so unreasonably about is U.K. basketball?

False and True

J.R.R. Tolkien has not strongly been claimed by the town he lived in for most of his life.  He is one of many writers to have passed through Oxford and within the local community is certainly not the most celebrated.

Paul Fiddes suggested a reason to me when we had lunch last week.  It seems that the Oxford community was a little put off by the professor being consumed with his fictional world and not investing enough time and effort in his primary areas of scholarship.  I suspect that this is one reason why Tolkien has been widely ignored in the academy.  Enough people from Oxford are among those who make judgments of literary worth that the personal disdain among his colleagues is reflected in his lack of critical appreciation.

On the other hand, there are two places in England that are aggressively seeking to claim Tolkien and his legacy.  The first is Birmingham where four of the five blue memorial  plaques for Tolkien are placed.  Birmingham’s claim is over Tolkien’s childhood and pre-collegiate education.  They argue that many of the places in the author’s world have their genesis in actual locations in the town.

The other place is Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley.  After my visit this weekend, I am convinced that this claim is tenuous at best, yet in the tradition of myth, may be true in the larger sense of the world.

J.R.R. Tolkien did visit that can be proven without a doubt from the guest register Stonyhurst College.  He visited when his older son was finishing his training for the priesthood during WW II.  This was during the period of the writing of The Lord of The Rings.  So, Tolkien may have done some writing while visiting.  Of course The Shire had already been created long before when The Hobbit was completed in 1937.

But the marketing director of Stonyhurst saw an opportunity to exploit the Tolkien connection and began to argue that many of the expanded places in Tolkien’s later creation of Middle Earth are based on the sights, sounds and names of the places he encountered walking around the Ribble Valley.

So The Shireburn hotel which is named for an old family became the Green Dragon in Hobbiton, the Hodder River became the Brandywine river, a local forest became the Old Forest, and the guest house at Stonyhurst became the home of Tom Bombadil.

A morning program in England invited a representative from Hurst Green to debate the tourist director of Birminghm to determine who could legitimately claim to be Tolkien country.  The Ribble Valley contact refused.  His reason, Birmingham had a couple of dirty towers while all anyone had to do was come to Hurst Green and look around and they would find themselves in Middle Earth.

The folks from Hurst Green understand that myths may not stand up very well in debate, but they have the power to convince when they are experienced.

Telling The Wrong Story

Since there were no protestant congregations in evidence in Hurst Green (along with a grocery, pharmacy or any store other than a hair dresser), we went four miles down the road this morning to the village of Whalley.  I found the church there by searching on the internet as the closest to our hotel.  There, we attended the Whalley Methodist Church a fairly new congregation--for England--being established in the early  1800’s and moving to its current home in the 1850’s.

Interestingly, they had the oldest style pews.  The kind  that have a center divider that is a low wall running down the middle.  There was beautiful memorial stain glass windows in the back (of the Madonna and child and of St. Francis—strange for a Methodist Church it seemed to me).  They did however prove their Methodist credentials by  having windows featuring John and Charles Wesley as well.

Worship was much like what I am accustomed to although they did not have an order of service—the second of the churches in Britain to lack this item.  The pastoral prayer followed the sermon which also gave a different feel to things.

The minister was a previous one for the congregation who was filling in while their current minister was away.  So far three weeks, three churches, and three pastor’s on vacation.  It seems to be a trend.  Why is everyone avoiding me!

The sermon was on the man called Legion and the pastor spoke of the invasive powers that  try to control our lives.  Interestingly, he is an actor now and will have a role in a History Channel special called “Crimes That Shocked The British Nation.”  As chief magistrate I believe if you want to watch for him.

The people were very friendly, and we were the talk of the small congregation.  Some of them apparently thought that Kentucky is near the Florida coast.  It was unlike the churches in Oxford that were very diverse and quite accustomed to foreign visitors.  I think they don’t have many visitors generally and international ones are particularly rare.  We were definitely embraced by the congregation.

We did notice one strange thing that the minister jokingly half-apologized for after the service.  On the left front at a caddy corner was a screen where the words to the songs were projected.  On the right a beautiful banner of the ten commandments.  Well not exactly—strangely they began with commandment number 5.  

These are basically the part of the Decalogue that deal with the ethical treatment of others.  The church did show signs from the other displays in the sanctuary of having concern for social justice, so I thought that perhaps that was the reason for the odd omission of the first four commands.

Then when the service was over, the screen was raised and there hidden behind it was the other half of the banner.  “We’re back to all ten”, the minister laughed while talking to me.

It did make me think that sometimes in the name of being modern and contemporary the church can cover up God’s presence and what we owe our author and maker.  This was certainly not the case at Whalley Methodist, but they unintentionally seemed to tell that story with their use of technology.

I came away impressed that there are times that we accidentally tell the wrong story. 

Through Saruman's Land

When J.R.R. Tolkien’s was young, his Mother moved to Sarehole, a rural area outside of Birmingham.  The small village had a mill, a river, and numerous paths for a boy to explore provided an idyllic haven in the midst of Tolkien’s turbulent childhood.

The family moved from there to the industrial city of Birmingham.  The city was dirtied by years of industry.  The factories for pottery and fine china belched their waste into the air.  Even in Tolkien’s day, the city was a vast sea of industry covered by a veil of soot.

It is likely no coincidence that the seats of evil in The Lord of The Rings are based in towers that would resemble the destructive smoke stacks of the industrial age.  It is easy to see a critique of the destruction that can be caused by industry in the words of Treebeard, the Ent.  Speaking of Saruman, he says, “He is plotting to become a Power.  He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.”

Birmingham continued on the path of industrial development during Tolkien’s lifetime, becoming the center of England’s automobile industry.  But over the years, as manufacturing jobs left England for cheaper labor overseas, the factories slowly became shadowing empty hulks.

On our way to the Ribble Valley, we rode the train through Birmingham.  It is a city that I am sure has beautiful spots—the train certainly doesn’t go through any of them.  In a way, Birmingham is England’s Detroit.  Flight from the city has left behind the grime and waste of over a century of manufacturing and empty buildings.

I couldn’t help but think about how prescient Tolkien was.  Birmingham looks like a city that is all used up.  Everything of value has been taken and all that is left behind is the waste that was left in the pillaging.

It doesn’t take much imagination to ride the train into Birmingham and see the road through the gate of Isengard towards Orthanc or another road in the story straight into the heart of Mordor.

Be back soon

We are enjoying the rural Ribble Valley this weekend--so rural no internet available! I will be back posting on Monday.

Eucatastrophe--A Turn For The Good

When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his lecture On Fairy Stories, he invented a new word.  He used it to describe the moment prior to a story’s positive conclusion when everything seems to have gone against the hero and left them without hope.  In a fairy story, it is at this moment that the tables are turned by some unthinkable good fortune.  Disaster is avoided and the road to success is revealed.

He called this moment by the neologism “eucatastrophe.”  The prefix “eu” means good (as in eulogy—to speak well of someone).  It is a positive event that turns everything upon its head.

The pinnacle example of this for Tolkien was the example of Christ’s resurrection.  He often described his view that the Christian story was the greatest of all mythical stories not only because it was a tremendous story but because it was true.  It was with this witness that he led C.S. Lewis to a renewed faith.  Tolkien knew that when everything was darkest on the cross, God was preparing the eucatastrophe that would introduce hope to the world.

When Tolkien wrote, this was a technique that was often in play.  When Bilbo angers Smaug and the dragon flies to destroy the city of Dale but at the very last moment, an archer’s arrow enters his only unarmored spot and brings him to the ground.  Or outside of the mountain when Thorin and the elves of Mirkwood and the men of Dale appear to be about to lose the battle to the goblins, Beorn and the Eagles arrive just in time to turn the tide.  Or the Rohirim answering the call of Gondor just as the King of the Nazgul is about to enter the city.  Or Frodo being fully possessed by the ring, and then Gollum biting his finger off and falling into the fire of the volcano.

The best stories have that moment of turning.  Tolkien told these so well, because he had experiended the ultimate eucatstrophe in his heart.

Unexpected Encounters

Even though he moved to North Carolina, I just can’t seem to keep from running into Norma Wirzba.  No, not the man that many of you like me know and love.  Not the father of four wonderful children whose most redeeming personal characteristic is his wife Gretchen.  Not the still wanna-be competitive basketball player with the suspect ankles.

It is rather the looming specter of his academic work on Christian creation care that seems to follow me wherever I go.  And not just where you would expect, as in Georgetown where he is still well known or at Duke where he is rapidly making a name for himself.

Here I am in Oxford, England and the name that keeps coming up is Norman Wirzba.  Not bad for a poor country boy from Canada, eh!

When I met with Stratfod Caldecott, he told me that he was doing a great deal of work on Christians and an environmental ethic.  Most recently, he had gone to Houston to make a presentation on the topic.  Dr. Caldecott is Catholic and moves in those academic circles, but I took a gambit when I heard about his interest and asked him if he knew the name Norman Wirzba.  He went to his crowded shelf and immediately pulled out Norm’s book on Sabbath.  He proceeded to tell me how influential he was in his thought.

But that was even less surprising than the other place his name surfaced.  I bought the book Ents, Elves and Eriador which purports to be an environmental analysis of Tolkien’s vision of Middle Earth.  It is an incisive look at Tolkien’s created world and shows within the created world both the importance and realistic understanding of sustainable agriculture as well as offering an appreciation of Tolkien’s Christian contribution to environmentalism.

I hadn’t gotten far into the introduction when the authors thank Norm for reading the book prior to publication.  And then, to drive it home, they seem to quote and reference him in almost every chapter.

During my foray into Tolkien studies, I hadn’t expected to come across anyone I had heard of or much less knew.  What a shock to know that sitting in a pew about a third of the way back on my right side nearly every Sunday for my first six years at Faith was my very own Tom Bombadill!

*On a more personal side, Janet and the Boys have safely arrived in Oxford.  As the song says, “Reunited and it feels so good!”

Tolkien and Trees

Many people dismiss J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings as merely a tale of war and bloodshed.  They suggest that its primary appeal is to adolescent boys feeding into their sense of aggrandized self.

It is quite interesting, though, that the vast majority of the art that Tolkien drew for publication in his book were scenes of nature, not of warfare.  If you take the time to read Tolkien's magnum opus, it becomes quickly cleaar that more passages describe the natural world than are devoted to battle.

Tolkien had a great love of nature and an equally strong distrust of machines.  He was shaped as a boy when his favorite tree was cut down and then left to lay where it fell.  He could not imagine anyone heartless enough to cut down a tree for no good reason.

When Tolkien invented the Ent (from the same root as our word giant), a large walking tree that herded the forest, he gave voice to the trees.  One rescues Merry and Pippen, hears their tale, and then goes to the Entmoot (imagine a church business meeting but with recalcitrant tree giants) to rouse them finally to act.  That they played a major role in the defeat of Saruman, a wizard of machines and craft, should come as no surprise.  In a way it is as if he imagined that tree from his childhood finally being avenged for the wrong that was done to it.

Tolkien saw the rural England he loved being scarred by people in the name of progress.  His response--to imagine the trees fighting back.  His book is on some level a cautionary tale for those who would take the world's resources and use them in the pursuit of riches and power.

One of the last and most famous pictures of Tolkien was taken in the Oxford Botanical Garden.  He sits in quiet reflection on the ground.  One knee is up the other stretched out.  He is quite the Oxford professor in his tweed jacket, felt vest and tie.  His bushy eyebrows seem to half cover his eyes as he gazes wistfully into the distance.  His back is leaning against a tree.  A very particular tree. The one in the picture above. His favorite tree.  A Pinus nigra for the botanically inclined.

If you look at it closely, you can see its arms lifted in hope and almost see its Entish face.

And Now For Something Completely Different

After my experience in the morning at Woodstock Road Baptist, I went Sunday evening to Christ Church Cathedral and participated in Evensong (a very high church Anglican service—for the first time in my life, I prayed for the queen).  If I were a car, my transmission would have been dropped in the road behind me as the gears changed between the two services.

Gone was the casual and welcoming atmosphere.  In was the rigid and formal stone.  Gone was the spontaneity.  In was the formal liturgy.  If I had not been reared in the church, I think it might have been difficult to see them as worship in the same religion.

That being said, each service seemed a pertinent reminder of one of the characteristics of God.  Woodstock reminded me that we are called to an intimate relationship with a God who reached out to us in the person of Jesus Christ.  Christ Church, on the other hand, emphasizes the mystery, majesty and transcendence of God.

There is only a small sign on the massive wall to tell you that Evensong is held.  The solemn porter in the bowler with the watch chain stands at the door of the college as if he is guarding the royal jewels or the ark of the covenant.  I told him I was there for Evensong, and he pointed me across the lush grass of the quad to what he called the “double doors”—which were not what we would call doors at all, but side by side stone archways.

The mood was broken, for just a moment, as the path through the arches led to familiar modern glass doors.  But walking through them, the hush of the immense and cavernous sanctuary quickly returned the feeling of being a pilgrim in a strange and unknown land. Past the entrance, yet another Keeper of the Mystery offered a program and silently waved me in with his hand.  Still another of the wardens then gestured me up into what I would consider the choir beyond the pulpit towards the magnificent altar.

The ancient wooden two tiered rows of seats face another just like them.  Above, one can see the vaulting stone domes and arches.  There are heads and busts everywhere.  Many obvious historical figures, others oddly strange and misshapen, with one even featuring a skull with a crown upon its head.

When worship began, the ministers processed in followed by the youth choir that has seats near the glass doors.  Each of the singers has a lit candle on a stand before them--whether to help them see the music or to remind them of the presence of God, I do not know.

There was no message only songs, prayers and readings.  Several times we were invited to kneel, which seemed especially meaningful to me since I am rarely in a service where this is asked.

It was beautiful and powerful and worshipful and entirely different than what I had participated in at Woodstock Road.

It seemed to me that God was right at home in both places.

Oxymoron of the day: Independent Baptist Church Fellowship

On my way to visit some of the Tolkien sites earlier in the week, I came upon a Baptist church.  What intrigued me was the sign.  It was Woodstock Road Baptist Church which featured just under the name of the church, the descriptor evangelical.  And beneath this the somewhat brain twisting phrase, "A member of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches."  I am not sure how one can be independent and a member of something at the same time.  Doesn't one preclude the other?

But I was caught by the sign and had to visit them at worship.  Their sign told me quite a story.  They were Baptist.  But not that ordinary British kind of Baptist.  They were evangelical.  And not just evangelical mind you, they were independent.  I had in mind when I went a sort of fractious congregation of overly theologically argumentative folks who would spend most of their service bashing all the other churches that were the other kind of Baptist (whatever that means) and excoriating them for not being evangelical (whatever that means) and ready to proclaim their independence from all the evils of the denomination (whatever those are) and still committed to doing it in a group (whatever that is).

I mentioned I was going there to some of the faculty Friday at High Table.  They politely acted as if they didn't know much about the place or have an opinion.  Although one instructor, who came from the pastorate to Regents, did give me some interesting nuggets.  They had once been in the Baptist Union, years ago but had separated over theology:  precisely over their commitment to a Calvinist position (which seems in a way another oxymoron Calvinist evangelicals).  The church's pastor did not have formal theological training and they used the New International Version in worship (which apparently makes you a conservative church here in England).  He did go on to relate that as a pastor, the minister at Woodstock Road would call him from time to time to tell him he was going to send some visitors on to visit his church as they might fit in better there.  It seemed a bit like a backhanded compliment to the now instructor at Regents Park.  His church wasn't theologically sound enough to fellowship with, but among the heretics was sound enough to recommend people to join.

This information in hand, I went in expecting the worst.  My fears seemed ready to be confirmed when the first people to come through the gate were this dour faced older couple with Bibles under their arms that looked like they could substitute for dumbbells.

Yet as the time went on, I found something altogether different.  Yes the church was more conservative theologically than I am.  Its Calvinist leaning peeked out from under the covers of worship on a couple of occasions.

My first encounter was with the 23 year old young man who was preaching today in the pastor's absence.  Jon was bright and friendly, a recent graduate of Oxford with a history degree.  We had a delightful conversation about the church.  It was a toddler by the standards here having been founded by New Road Baptist (where I went last week) in 1890.  The sanctuary had once been longwise in the rectangular building, but the pews had been replaced by chairs and everything now pointed not to the front of the building but the side.  They had a projector and practiced paperless worship.  But, they sang traditional hymns and had overall a very traditional feel.  To be honest the architecture of the service was closer to what we have at Faith than what I found at New Road.

The room slowly filled and by the time worship began, a large group (by British standards) had gathered and most of the seats were filled.  There were several families with children that burgeoned the congregation.  There was a tenor of friendly expectation and hope in the worshipers.

The sermon was very linear and included some interesting reflection on Acts 4:21-30.  The illustrations were much the same as you might hear in most churches in the U.S.  It was not a scholarly approach to the scripture, but a pastoral and doctrinal one.  There wasn't any screaming or yelling or histrionics.  Jon really didn't seem that mad about much of anything really as he called the congregation to recognize the sovereignty of God and to respond with prayer.

When the service concluded a gentleman introduced himself to me as a biology professor at Oxford's less famous but equally large university.  He and his wife were very gracious and spoke with me for almost twenty minutes as hosts circled the room offering tea or coffee to anyone who was staying for conversation.

I had gone in hoping to see a fight, but I left having seen something much better.  I wouldn't attend Woodstock Road Baptist if I lived here, but I can certainly see why so many people do.

A Different Sort of Education

I was wired right to be a fairly successful student in the U.S.  Sit in class, take notes, read, cram the night before, take a test, and write the occasional paper.  Teachers give you a rubric of the breakdown of how each facet feeds in to a final grade.

I am not sure that I could've done Oxford.  It is as different a way of learning as the sun is from the moon.  They have lectures, but they are voluntary to attend and there is no grading penalty if you miss them.  For your first years as a student, you don't have tests at all.  I know, it sound like a dream, doesn't it.

But things are never as good as they seem.  The system is based on tutorials, which is essentially you sitting down with a professor on a one to one (no more than three to one) basis.  And what do you do?  There's the rub, each week you have to write an 8-10 page paper on an assignment and at the beginning of the tutorial read it aloud to your instructor.  Then your mentor picks it apart and assigns you another one for next week.  If your ego can stand that, the good news is that the grade is not recorded.

The bad news?  At the end of your idyllic stay at Oxford, perhaps being blown to distraction by the esrtwhile winds of youth, there are finally after years of unrecorded grades two weeks or so of exams at the end.  These last three hours each and are essay in format.  You receive a list of questions from which you choose three to show that you have mastered whatever area that test is designed to measure.  They are all or nothing--pass or fail.  You finish those exams and then they celebrate with the Valedictory.

Oh, but wait, you haven't graduated yet.  In fact, the student when they leave Oxford does not even know if they will graduate.  All of those pesky exams are read by multiple readers and a month or so later, you are informed of your degree status (you either have one or you don't).

Talk about pressure!  Talk about easy to screw up by not paying attention in the first couple of years!  Ouch!

I have had my own little taste of this with Dr. Stratford Caldecott who has authored several works on J.R.R. Tolkien.  While a student experiencing the rigors of Oxford may get used to the experience, the reading aloud of the paper is an anguishing exercise.  I prefer writing and then getting comments in writing--the distance makes it much less personal.  Throw in not having written an academic paper in 15 years and you have the recipe for disaster!  Oh, and did I mention that my library card didn't arrive until the day before the paper was due!!  Oh my! (Does my excessive use of exclamation marks demonstrate how uptight I was?!)

But the resulting effect:  I probably worked a lot harder on my paper than I would have otherwise.  Dr. Caldecott was kind in his criticism and even suggested a journal that he felt would be interested in publishing my work.

If the system is designed to produce quality work, it just might scare a student into it.

Tolkien and Religion

Today, I took a wander.  And to quote J.R.R. Tolkien, "not all who wander are lost."

I wandered around to some of the spots that were important in Tolkien's life outside of academia.  I went first to the Oxford Oratory or as it was known in Tolkien's day St. Aloyisus Church.  It is a beautiful ornate sanctuary not far from the city center.  There is a holy hush about the place.  About a mile and a half farther up the road is the much less grand St. Gregory's Catholic Church where Tolkien would also attend mass.  Then it was another fair distance to Northmoor Road numbers 20 and 22, two of the houses that he and his wife Edith shared during their days in Oxford.

Tolkien's childhood was challenging.  When he was very young, his Father died in South Africa.  In the following years, his mother and brother moved quite often.  His mother then died before he became a teenager.  In a real sense the one thread that held steady in his life during all this turbulence was the Catholic Church.

During his adult life, he seems also to have moved quite a bit as well.  He had eight addresses in Oxford during his adult life (with a sojourn in Leeds early during that period).  There always seemed to be some reason to move--whether it be adding a child, change of fortune, or children leaving.  He lived in so many houses, I can't imagine that any of them felt much like home.

Tolkien in his letters confided to friends that The Lord Of The Rings is a very Christian work.  He intentionally omitted references in it to the Christian faith for two reasons.  The first was practical.  Middle Earth existed in his imagination long before the time of Christ.  The second was his disapproval of fairy tale stories that brought in too directly the cultural point the writer was trying to make.

When Tolkien wrote about humility, loyalty, honor, sacrifice and hope he never mentions their Christian basis, but he expects that his readers will be able to see his faith in the ideals of his writings.

I suspect psychologists would have a field day with Tolkien's lacking a very permanent home.  They likely would suggest he invented his magical world to substitute for the stability of place that he lacked in his life.

But, to me, Tolkien had a home that was safe and secure.  It was from this place that he was able to begin to imagine what some other home might look like.  Yes he lived in a lot of houses--but the church was his home. Not all who wander are lost!

Tolkien Art

The original artwork for The Hobbit was done by J.R.R. Tolkien himself.  In addition to being a gifted storyteller, Tolkien was a talented artist.

Today, I saw a line drawing of the house on Tolkien's Aunt's farm that he drew.  It is the only non-university owned artwork of Tolkien that is known to exist, and this is the first time it has been in public exhibition.  It is on display currently in the Banbury Museum which is located a twenty minute train ride north of Oxford.

One small pen drawing (no more than 5"x5") is certainly not enough reason to go there, even though the surrounding countryside from the window of the train is lovely.  The reason for my visit was the summer gallery offering there, Tolkien's Middle Earth.

It is an exhibit of Tolkien art not merely Tolkien's art.  On display are a variety of paintings by three artists who have tried to capture scenes from Tolkien's literary work.  They show significant differences in style and interpretation reflecting each individual artist.  Each interpretation is in its own way marvelous.

From the very beginning, Tolkien's work has inspired artists to try to take the view of their imagination and express it in a concrete form.  This is a curious dynamic that I am still thinking my way through.  There have been any number of wildly popular works of literature over the years.  How many of them have created a whole category of drawing and paintings dedicated to them?  We don't have exhibitions of Shakespeare Art, Conan Doyle Art, Grisham Art--in fact I can't think of any writer whose work has so stirred the artistic imagination (if you can think of one, please suggest their name in the comment section below).

What is it about Tolkien's writing that spurs creativity?  I have a hunch that it is found on the walls of that gallery. No two artists imagined in the same way.  None of the paintings looked like Tolkien's illustrations or Peter Jackson's films.  Tolkien's longevity and genius is that while creating with his words a detailed setting, it is not so detailed that there is not room for each individual to make their very own picture in their head.

I was fortunate to see works by a few of the very talented who got it out of their head and onto the canvas.

The Most Romantic Spot in Oxford

Today I went to the most romantic spot in Oxford (sadly by myself).

It was not a shaded bench in Christ Church Meadow overlooking the slow-currented Thames.  Nor was it standing atop the rainbow bridge at University Parks.  It wasn't lazing in the sun in one of the lovely Quads of one of Oxford's ancient colleges.

It was a cemetery.  And it wasn't even Oxford's big cemetery but the smaller less impressive Catholic one in Wolvercote.

I stood at the grave of J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife Edith.

When his wife was buried, he requested that beneath her name should be carved the name Luthien.  When he was buried several years later beneath his name was engraved Beren.  It gets my overly sentimental self almost weepy just to think about it.

You may not know that at age 12, Tolkien became an orphan and ward of Father Francis Morgan, the priest of his local parish.  When he was 16, Tolkien met Edith Bratt and fell in love.  When Father Morgan found out young Tolkien was seeing a protestant girl, he decreed that his charge was not to have any further contact with Bratt until he reached the age of  21.  Tolkien strictly followed this decree, but on the day of his 21st birthday, he wrote to Edith to resume their relationship.  Much to his surprise, he learned that she had become engaged to someone else.  He went immediately to her and asked her to end that promise and instead to marry him.  She agreed.  Early in their marriage, before Tolkien went to serve in the war, they would take picnics out into the rural countryside where Edith would dance in the freedom of the sun, and Tolkien would watch entranced.

But why the names underneath Edith and J.R.R.?

After being separated from his wife and going to war, Tolkien began to first imagine the contours of the land of Middle Earth.  One of his first writings told the story of a man who in his wandering comes across an elf maiden dancing in a meadow.  He instantly falls in love with this fairy form, but she flees from him at first. He is persistent and finally is able to talk with her.  After some time, she leads him to the home of her Father, the king of the woodland elves Thingol.  The man asks the elven King for his daughter's hand.  Thingol is offended and sets an impossible task for the man to accomplish before the marriage can take place.  Overcoming insurmountable obstacles, the man, with the help of the elven maid accomplishes the task despite losing a hand in the effort.  When he returns to the woodland King, Thingol  sees the depth of the man's love for his daughter and grants the mortal man's request marking the first time a man and an elf are wed.  With the marriage the elven maid gives up her gift of immortality and chooses to face death because of her love.

The man's name Beren.  The elven princess Luthien.

I told you it was romantic.

Blue Plate Special

As you drive down the road in the United States, you will with some regularity come upon roadside historical markers.  They have a somewhat standard rectangular shape with  scrolling at the top and the seal of the state where they are located above the text.

These historical markers can memorialize places that run from the significant to the mundane.  I do not know what qualifies a place for such markers.  I understand the "George Washington Slept Here" and "Ward Hall" ones, but there are others that confound me--like the one in Andrews Texas that reads, "ON MAY 25, 1965, FROM ONE OF 7,400 PRODUCING OIL WELLS IN THE COUNTY'S 196 FIELDS, CAME THE BILLIONTH BARREL OF ANDREWS COUNTY CRUDE OIL. . ."  Uh, o.k.  Congratulations, I suppose.

Oxford is a town with a history that dates back to the eighth century being first mentioned in writing in 915 A.D. Over the ensuing 1200 or so years, it has been witness to any number of historical events and personages.  From the "dreaming spires" of the massive architecture of the buildings of the colleges, to the martyrdom of the bishop of London Hugh Latimer, to Roger Bannister's sub four minute mile, to the Inklings and W.H. Auden, Oxford is pregnant with significance.

The British have a similar tradition to our roadside markers.  They are round blue circle signs with white lettering referred to as blue plates.  You would expect there to be one on every structure in Oxford.  But I had to go winding down an alley before I finally found one.  It referred to an event that seemed to me a bit trivial all things considered.

I understand that there has been an effort by the city to resist the placing of these plates.  Whether because they think they take away from the beauty of the locales they locate or that they fear that if every historical spot were designated the town would become a blue plate special, I do not know.

It does seem odd to me, though, that while a town in Texas marks it's billionth barrel of oil in 1965, the spot in Oxford where Latimer was burned is marked in the middle of Broad Street with brown cobbles in the shape of a cross surrounded by a white circle of stones and no sign.  It is almost as if Oxford understands that the whole city is history and to point any of it out is to cheapen it all.

Language Tells The Story

Tolkien told people that the stories he wrote came from the languages he invented.  First he imagined the words and development of his imaginary tongue and only later did he imagine the stories that led to its form.  He did not haphazardly invent the place names in his work, but developed them from a complicated system that considered their origin and change over time.  This level of philological detail provides depth and realism in his created universe.

In a small way, I have been experiencing how language can identify a person as being from a different place--even when the language is a shared one.  I ordered a lemonade and got a carbonated lemon flavored drink with a slice of lemon in it.  I later learned I should have ordered a lemon squash.

I have found that one does not have dessert at the end of a meal but pudding (which isn't necessarily the kind that makes Bill Cosby smile--it can be almost anything sweet).  Pudding can also be yorkshire pudding which is not pudding either--but resembles a circular puff pastry with the center removed and is used to sop up the gravy that remains on the plate after eating.

But I have stumbled across one language difference on more than one occasion that reminds me of how important word choice is in telling a story.  Two people can have exactly the same experience, but tell two very different stories from their perspective.

I was discussing an historical event with someone, and we were trying to figure out its proper date.  They told me that it was during the Civil War.  To which I responded that I thought it was much earlier than the 1860's.  I was fairly certain that it was at least as old as the Revolutionary War.

It was then that we realized we were talking about the same war from two different sides.  The British refer to the events of 1775-1783 as the Civil War.  It was a conflict within the British Empire.  The word choice is almost as if they think that one day we can kiss and make up and be one country again.  They don't see themselves as the bad guys.

We refer to it as the Revolutionary War because we threw off the bonds of British oppression and tyranny and claimed our rightful freedom.  Or at least that's the way our histories tell it.

One war--two names--the power of language to tell a story.

New Road Baptist Church

Today I gathered with the congregation of New Road Baptist Church for worship.  New Road Church has been  in existence since 1653 and moved to its location on "New Road" in 1721.  Not exactly what I consider all that "new" but in Oxford, that classifies as Johnny come lately.

The church architecture was not that dissimilar to many churches in the U.S.  There were rows of chairs with green pads and a center aisle.  A balcony was held up by posts around the sanctuary and two rows of chairs ran lengthwise along the outer walls.  The baptistry was off in the left hand corner and had raised sides and looked a bit like a jacuzzi with a dove in tile work on the floor.  The sanctuary was by no means large, but a comfortable space with a churchy feel.

The crowd that gathered was small but quite diverse.  Following the service, two of the older ladies took me on a tour.  It ended in their coffee house which is in the oldest part of the building where many  who came to worship sat and shared tea and a biscuit (cookie).

I noticed a few distinctive things in worship (aside from the real wine in communion).

1.  Like Faith, they had an offering (what Baptist Church doesn't?).  When the ushers had finished the collection, everyone stood.  I expected to see them return and place the money at the front.  Instead, they carried to the altar the elements of communion.  It made me remember that we give because God gave.  It reminded everyone present that our sacrifice was small, but that Jesus sacrifice was great.

2.  They passed the peace late in the service before communion.  In other churches that have this tradition where I have attended, this is almost always an early or final activity.  In Baptist Churches it tends not to be a holy or formal time, but a time to welcome visitors and friends.  But within the confines of the service, this was different.  It was almost as if in the midst of worship, we were pulled back into the realization that we were not alone but fellow journeyers.  An elderly woman, who later told me that she had been a member for over 40 years, made a point of coming over to me and grabbed my hand in both of her wrinkled and splotched hands.  She looked me in the eye and with a beatific smile said, "Peace be with you."  And I sensed that she really meant it.  Though she had no idea who I was, I was a part of her community on that day and she offered the blessing of peace.  It was not a perfunctory duty but a holy moment.

3.  At the conclusion of worship, they have a very different procedure than we do.  In America, on the final verse of the closing hymn, the hymnal is shut, the belongings are gathered and everyone tenses as if waiting for the starter's gun to go off so that they can hit the door at full speed.  When worship is over in Britain, and I was told this is tradition, everyone sits down.  They just sit there for a moment and then will slowly gather their belongings, share a word or two with those around them and then leave.  It is almost as if they need the time to decompress or prepare themselves for leaving the heights of worship for the rigors of life.  They are in no hurry to leave because what they have just been a part of matters.

I guess if I had to choose a word to describe today's worship, it would be the word "linger".  Nothing was in a hurry, and there seemed no press to leave.  There was space in the silence for God to speak.  It was a good day.

It's All About The Storytelling

Last night, I went to the college chapel service.  Held every Friday at Regents Park, it precedes the weekly formal meal.

I knew I was in the right place when the guest preacher began his sermon.  "It's all about the storytelling," he said in his British accent.  I hadn't met or talked to him prior to that service.  And there it was--It's all about the storytelling.  He used this to introduce the topic of Paul's letter to the Galatians in which the apostle describes his coming to faith.  And in the process, the minister told some good stories of his own.

I've been thinking a lot about the stories that lurk behind the surface of things.  The backstories behind why places are as they are.  So as I go to worship at a variety of places during my sabbatical, I am going to be looking for the stories revealed by architecture and setting.

Regents Park is a Baptist college, so it is certainly not surprising that they have a chapel.  What was odd to me was that it was not the sort of grand ornate structure one sees at colleges in the United States.  Space of course is at a premium here, but even the location of the chapel tells a story.

As you come through the front entrance of the college compound, there is a small stairway to the right.  On a small barely noticeable sign on the wall is the word chapel with an arrow pointing up.  At the top of the stairs behind two doors is the rather austere room.  There are iconic paintings along the walls, but the room is certainly not ornate.

To enter the room is almost to be a part of a secret fraternity.  You wend up the stairs and have to mean to be there.  It is not the sort of place you wander accidentally into.  In many ways it is an upper room--hidden from the world.  The sense that some mystery may unfold seems palpable.

It is a very intimate space.  This is emphasized by the chairs not being in rows, but in two sets of parentheses facing a center aisle.  You can not help but look at the other people who are gathered with you.  I did notice with a silent chuckle that, like good Baptists everywhere, the worshippers filled the back of the two curves of chairs on either side first.

I was surprised that there were only 40 or so chairs prepared and that a fair number of them remained empty.  Obviously, chapel is not popular with the students and seems to hold only a mild attraction for the faculty.

The service used Celtic music, which was probably much closer to authentic than we would hear in the states.  The worship leader told us to sing it with a slow lilt, but that we ought not to sing it too slow for then it would be a dirge.

And that's the moment I was captured in, were these few of us gathered the pleasing lilt of the faithful or the dirge of the dying?  Were we at the work of living worship or the hangers on who kept coming until the song mercifully petered out?

I suppose we all stand in that moment whether we recognize it or not.  Even in big and overflowing sanctuaries the question is the same.  Will the faithful triumph singing with a lilt in the darkness or will they descend with a dirge?

At least for last night, we sang fast enough to make it lilt.

Ghost Tours

As I was walking around Oxford today, I came across a sign advertising Ghost Tours of Oxford.  While personally, I don't believe in ghosts, I do have a sense that Oxford is haunted.  Let me explain.  Ghosts, as in phantasms of dead people, are merely projections of the imaginations of the living.  To be haunted, however, is to say that now dead people made a mark upon the place that we can still see today.

I can walk out of the flat and around a corner and have fish and chips in the pub where Lewis and Tolkien gathered with friends to share an ale and discuss their writings.  They will not magically appear there and speak words of "Inkling" wisdom, but I can sit where they sat and have a bit of inspiration knowing that this was the place where true geniuses sharpened each other.

And in that sense Oxford is a very haunted place.  Centuries of people both known to history and unknown have called this place home and left their mark upon it.  Whether in the historic buildings, the runs of the roads, the unevenness of  the sidewalk--all of it reminds me that someone was here before me and that they have left behind something of their dreams, joys, hopes and frustrations.  Their choices and lives some made in the distant past continue to effect the people who live here today.  What makes Oxford Oxford is not today's population, but the parade of people who founded, built, worked, lived and died here.

There is on the internet a photo tour of all the places that Tolkien lived and frequented.  It is a journey I am going to make while I am here.  They are mostly unassuming and of little note--none are on the list of the must see places here.  But I am going to see them because as I do I may catch a glimpse if only fleeting of what made Tolkien Tolkien.

Ghosts no.  But this place is definitely haunted.

Walk And Walk Some More

This morning I went for a run on the Oxford Canal walk.  This footpath follows the channel of water from the Hythe Bridge in one direction at least three miles (I got that far before I turned to run back.).  The map shows that it also goes the other direction, which I will probably venture out on Saturday.

It is a picturesque route that goes through all sorts of terrain.  Even though Oxford is very much the city, it does not take long to leave it behind and experience rural England.  The path, so well maintained, is a reminder that the English have a thing for walking.  In fact, there are special provisions that keep walking routes open through private lands.

Without a car, I  have been seeing a lot of Oxford by foot both urban and rural, and it is a totally different way to experience a place.  A car encourages point to point speed based transportation.  You get in at your starting point and don't set foot on the ground until you arrive at your destination.  On foot, there is plenty of time to stop, look around, or be enticed by some unexpected corner.

I always wondered at all the hiking that is described in Tolkien's works.  Maybe I am beginning to understand why these journeys are so important to the stories.  For long periods of time, the characters are merely walking with no real action at all.  And that is the beauty of the stories as Tolkien takes the time to describe the world around:  its trees and flowers, weather, phases of the moon, winds--none of which seem to matter to the story--but all of which matter to the characters in the story and to us.

Tolkien himself did not have much use for a car and in his later years refused to own one.  He saw them as a part of the mechanizing industrial evil that was blighting his beloved countryside.

Aside from the all too present ecological damage that cars can do (smog, noise, and oil spills anyone), they also steal a bit of the wonder of the world.  Journey's become secondary to destinations. Community is diminished as time out of one's house is spent in an encapsulated space where the only conversation that can be had is with others in the car.  We sit in traffic jams, together alone.

I know there are practical reasons why most of America is not amenable to walking.  But I wonder if we walked a little more if the magic of the world might be renewed, and we might catch glimpses of elves and hobbits or at the very least each other.

Tol-kin or Tol-keen

I had my first tutorial today with Dr. Stratford Caldecott. I hope that I didn't seem to much of a fool!

I did ask him, as we began, one of the question that has burned in my mind since starting this project--is it pronounced "Tol-kin" or "Tol-keen". I found out that the later is the correct way. If I pick up nothing else this summer--at least I'll get the name right now!

It reminded me of one of my favorite passages from Frederick Buechner:

‘Buechner is my name. It is pronounced Beekner. If somebody mispronounces my name in some foolish way, I have the feeling that what’s foolish is me. If somebody forgets it, I feel that it’s I who am forgotten. I can’t imagine myself with any other name – Held, say, or Merrill, or Hlavacek. If my name were different, I would be different. When I tell you my name, I have given you a hold over me that you didn’t have before. If you call it out, I stop, look, and listen whether I want to or not. In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses that his name is Yahweh and God hasn’t had a peaceful moment since‘.

It was a delightful hour and a half of conversation and insight with my tutor. I left with an assignment--my first paper in, I don't know, at least 15 years. I think I can still double space and enlarge the font to disguise my ignorance! The topic will be "Overcoming The Temptation Of The Ring". Five characters in The Lord Of The Ring refuse the ring. I want to focus on Samwise Gamgee who is able to give up the ring because he is profoundly located in a particular place. The kicker is that in the Oxford system not only do I have to write said paper, I have to read it out loud to Dr. Caldecott in our next meeting and receive immediate feedback. Think of me next Wednesday!

Exotic Travel

Exotic travel. Doesn't that sound fun!

Many people have told me they are excited about my Sabbatical travel. There have even been a few who have offered to go hidden in one of my suitcases!

As I sit in the flat at Oxford typing on the computer, the reality of exotic travel has hit me with full force. There were a few delays yesterday leaving the Lexington airport, but nothing major. Apparently somewhere in the Amazon a butterfly fluttered its wing and caused a thunderstorm that stopped not only our President's speech, but also the plane coming from Chicago that would start my journey.

Finally at about 4 o'clock we boarded the plane that had been scheduled to depart at 2:30. I was still fine, my flight from O'hare to London didn't leave until 6:15 our time and the flight there would take just an hour once it got in the air.

The pilot was in a hurry. Everyone was seated quickly, and we pushed back from the gate and . . . stopped. We sat puzzled as his voice came over the speakers--"There is a hold on flights into Chicage due to the weather." Twice more he came on before we had waited on the Lexington tarmac for an hour. This was American Airlines who has an unfortunate reputation with these things, so I was cheered to see they had learned something as our flight attendant brought big bags of trail mix and water to everyone when we hit the hour mark.

I still could make it. The pilot announced it was time to go. Relief swept over me. But then he came on again. Our approval was for a new route that would take us to Memphis. Just as that sank in, the intercom dinged and we were told that because we had been sitting for an hour and a half running the air conditioner, we didn't have enough gas to take the longer route. So the slow truck loaded with aviation fuel lumbered over and belched its contents into our thirsty tank.

We all breathed easier as the tanker trunk pulled away from our plane. We were ready to finally be off. And then instead of the throttle, the pilot hit the intercom and announced that the fueling had taken so long that we had lost our window. Can you say the natives were getting restless! Even the granola bars served at the two hour mark were ineffective in calming the mood. There were a few very vocal gripers, but it didn't make much sense to me as the people who were making the announcements weren't the ones making the decisions. Some of my fellow passengers would have been happy to shoot the messengers. But, thank goodness, before wholesale violence broke out, the plane took off. It was after we had spent two hours and forty minutes sitting in its narrow sheet metal.

The 6:30 flight to London seemed not to have any problems however, as it flew off without me, without even an apology or a glance over its shoulder. I was able to get the last remaining seat on the next flight to Heathrow and ended up running from gate to gate at O'hare to make it.

An exotic trip to London? More like twelve of thirteen hours spent like a prisoner bound to an electric chair.

When my book bag group read the Tolkien novels, they made an interesting observation. The movies rushed from battle to battle while the original books were much more winding journeys and conversations with fights added almost for punctuation. The consensus was that Peter Jackson wanted an action movie so he left out a lot of the character development through conversation and journey and went straight to the violence. The same story told two different ways.

So is it an exotic trip or a stressful nightmare? Depends on how you tell it.