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?