Monthly Archives: August 2021

with bell and voice and drum: Conference in Rome

with bell and voice and drum: Conference in Rome
with bell and voice and drum: Conference in Rome

originally published May 25, 2022

Read Part III: Winchester and Theale

A solid six weeks without traveling (what a relief after the past two months!) has afforded me the leisure to revisit my international summer of 2021. I left off at the end of my time in Oxford, dashing home to the USA for fourteen days to clear my travel history so that I could disembark freely in Rome, the eternal city.

For my first visit to continental Europe since childhood (excepting the European areas of Turkey), I must thank a Christian conference for inviting me to a week of talks, fellowship, and scavenger hunts.

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among sandy gardens set: Winchester and Theale

among sandy gardens set: Winchester and Theale

originally published January 19, 2022

Read Part II: Wales, York, Edinburgh

A slick black engine shot me from York to London in two, maybe three hours, followed by a more sedate connection to Oxford. I alighted on the first morning of the Awakening conference, the Canterbury Institute’s pilot program for high school students on the verge of university studies.

Canterbury boarded me at St Edmund’s, a college I had yet to explore, and engaged me for two days in such fabulous sessions as, “What is the purpose of a university education?” and “What is the meaning of life?” One-on-one tutorials in law and classics (the participants’ chosen areas of interest) gave the program its backbone. With only two students attended by about a dozen graduate students, I suspect the conference staff relished the event even more than our guests did.

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