Old and New

Days have been full. I've made a good contact with the World Centre for Christian Meditation, been to a wide range of London churches, had lunch in CS Lewis' favourite Oxford pub and managed to see some of the sights. This morning we went to Reading, expressly to see a bit of embroidery. Clemency's great grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Wardle was the founder of the Leeke Embroidery Guild, and in 1886, along with 34 other embroiderers had constructed a faithful copy of the Bayeux tapestry. This object had been the stuff of family stories for as long as anybody can remember, well, back until 1886 at least. For reasons I won't bore you with, the tapestry was no longer in Leeke but in Reading, and seeing as we were more or less in the neighbourhood, we thought we might just as well go and take a look. We found the Reading museum, easy enough, there's not a lot else in the town, and Clemency introduced herself at the front desk. They were quite pleased to see us. Delighted, in fact. Thrilled, even. We went upstairs and there it was, wrapped around the walls of the whole wing it had all to itself: the museum's major attraction. We walked slowly around, taking in the detail which the ladies of the Leeke Embroidery Guild had copied with a great deal of exactness from life sized photographic patterns, and word spread amongst the staff that lady Elizabeth's great granddaughter was in the building, and the curator, named (what else?) Rupert was hastily summoned from some other part of the city to rush over and discuss the finer points needlework and invading England. World famous in Reading! For an hour, anyway.

Then it was back to London, and down to the docklands where a whole other city exists. Where Dickens' notorious dockland slums once festered is now a huge chrome and glass 21st century city with underground shopping malls and great post modern buildings and a high tech no need for a driver light railway system called the DLR. It was a world away from the guys in red coats and tin helmets waving swords at each other, or from the Leeke Embroidery Guild. Somehow it seemed to have nothing at all to do with that other, famous London, but there it is, filled with people in suits yakking on cell phones and getting my people to talk to your people and do lunch.

And it was all a world away from the British Maritime museum and the Royal Observatory where we went next. In a park where someone has got the proportions exactly right is a huge complex of buildings containing old boats and various bits and pieces which were once attached to them. Admiral Nelson's uniform is there, complete with bullet holes, and a 1930s aluminium speedboat with an aircraft engine which can do 118 mph, and more swords than you can shake a stick at, unless you happened to be particularly good at stick shaking. There's a straight line on the ground to show you where 0 degrees of longitude is, and a laser which shines the line straight up into the sky just in case you wanted to know and it was too dark to see the ground. Then came the best bit of the day.

Instead of taking the tube back to the city we caught a boat down the Thames to Waterloo Station. A big fast boat that looked like the only thing stopping it doing 118 mph was the fear that if it did, someone would hang it from the roof of the maritime museum. There was a coffee stall, and comfy seats and hardly anybody on board so you could wander round and ooh and ahh to your heart's content.

Tomorrow it's Norwich and some very serious discussion on life the universe and everything with my brother. We'll go by train if I can't find a boat going in that direction.

Comments

How To Walk 800 km

John is just walking the 80 metres back to his bike here, but you get the general drift. The question I get asked more than any other at the end of the Hikoi is "how are your feet?" It's nice that people care, but my feet have never been an issue on long walks. Good shoes and socks prevent blisters and cushion the effects of long distances on hard surfaces, but I have had other issues. When walking the Camino Santiago knees, Achilles tendons and shin splints have all at one time or another given me trouble. This time round, these have all been fine and I finished feeling as though I could just keep on going indefinitely; to Cape Reinga if needs be. Over the last couple of years I have learned 6 things that have made all the difference. Namely: 1. Footwear. On the Camino I wore walking shoes - Salomon in 2009 and Asics in 2012. A year ago I changed to full walking boots - Salomon Cosmic 2 - and the difference was instant and major. When walking more than 15 minutes...

Why I Hold the Views I Do

St. Hilda's Collegiate School, taken with my phone after a recent meeting. This picture has nothing whatsoever to do with what follows, but I like the interplay of shapes and particularly the shadow on the wall. My mother is a Methodist, liberal in her theological and social opinions. My father was a socialist, just slightly to the left, in his politics, of Karl Marx. My siblings -there are 5 of us- are all bright, eloquent and omnivorous in their consumption of books and other intellectual fodder. One of my most cherished childhood memories is of mealtimes in our little state house. The food was ingested with copious amounts of spirited, opinionated, clever and sometimes informed debate on whatever subject happened to catch the attention of one of the family that day. Or whatever one of us thought might get a rise out of someone else. So, sex, politics and religion it was then - oh and motorbikes, economics, international relations, demographics, cricket, company ownersh...

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

It happens sometimes. I have a question or am pondering some conundrum or other and the right book arrives at pretty much the right time. In a session with my supervisor a few months back Paul mentioned an article by Rene Girard, whom I had never heard of. I read the article and over the past month have read two of his books, The Scapegoat and this one. I have another couple sitting on my shelf and they have elbowed all others in my to be read pile out of the way and sit firmly on the top. Girard has pulled a number of threads together for me: he has enabled me to rethink the atonement in a way which is consistent with an evolving Universe: he presents a view of scripture which is again consistent with what I know of science but is also faithful to the Bible as the Word of God; he has given me, for the first time in my life a theology (if that is the right word) of Satan which makes sense to me. Most importantly for me, he is consistent with my own lived experience of God's s...

2 More Years

An autumn leaf, the evidence of the death whereby the grapevine lives and bears fruit There are 31,102 verses in the Bible, or at least in the Protestant version of it which the conservative section of our church recognises. Of these, there are 6 verses which explicitly condemn homosexual practice. The best scholars in the Christian world have pointed out the ambiguity of even these scraps of scripture, but this does not prevent their becoming the basis of an antipathy to contemporary same gender sexuality which I was repeatedly told, during General Synod, was "First Order". I'm not sure what "First Order" means exactly, but I was told that this is a "Salvation Matter". So, presumably, holding a proper view on homosexuality is right up there in importance with belief in the doctrines I would consider foundational for the Christian faith: namely the Holy Trinity, Incarnation and Resurrection. In any event, antipathy to homosexuality has already ...

Wood Pigeon

On the front lawn There is a bundle of green and white feathers. A woodpigeon. A dead one. We have a lot of trees in our neighbourhood and a very busy road, which is not a good combination for wood pigeons. They are great big ungainly birds and before they have acquired a sense of self preservation the young ones are inclined to accidental jousts with cars. The cars seldom lose. This bird has just won the silver medal in a bout with a Toyota Camry and has retired as far as our front lawn before becoming considerably short of breath. I go out with a shovel and dig a hole in the flower garden, and go a pick up the carcase. I love these birds. Their feathers have a rich metallic sheen, and the green and white of their plumage reflects back every shade of red - but just in suggestion, depending on how the sunlight catches them. They are preposterous in their clumsiness. They fly overhead with no pretense at stealth, making a sound like a pair of old fashioned manual hedge cutters with eac...

Available Light

Search This Blog