While I was attending a vespers concert at New College last week, in honor of the great Italian composer Palestrina, it struck me anew how the chapel architect had carved the Gospel into the very stones.
Apr3
Awed at New College
Category Archives: United Kingdom
Mar31
Oxford Blooms
England may deserve its reputation for dreary weather, but it makes up for dismal winters with its slow-dawning, always charming, long-lasting spring.
The first blooms emerged this year in January (January!): dainty drooping snowdrops, too shy to raise their heads. Vibrant crocus followed, in pools of purples and pinks.
Then daffodils took the city by storm.
Read the rest of this entryAug10
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.
Jul26
eastern cities, miles about: Wales, York, Edinburgh
originally published January 6, 2022
Read Part I: London and the Isle of Wight
After ten months of bouncing between the cosmopolitan worlds of Oxford and London, I was overdue for an encounter with the British parts of Britain.
The family in Wales not only adopted me for the week, but embraced tour guiding for their corner of the island. Don’t go to Cardiff, they advised, so I took the train to Bath for the day instead. You can’t visit Abergavenny without “walking” up the Sugar Loaf, I learned, so they drove me there themselves.
Best of all, they unleashed me on three children and a library of picture books – in English and Welsh!
Jul12
parrot islands anchored lie: London and the Isle of Wight
originally published November 28, 2021
The summer before traveling to Oxford, I dreamed up a short wishlist for travel in the United Kingdom: 1) Yorkshire, the site of beloved stories from my childhood, and 2) Wales, the only British country still alien to me. With my lease winding to a close on the 30th of June and my plans for the oncoming autumn undecided, the months of July and August opened like a window of opportunity before me, if only I could find the key.
I have a dear friend (and former professor) to thank for almost everything that followed. With a few emails, Sam enlisted friends across the country to host me for weeks (or months, if requested). Buoyed with confidence born of traveling towards a friendly destination, I boarded the bus to London.
Jun30
wide as England, tall as a spire: Cambridge and Oxford
originally published October 31, 2021
As coursework wound to a close, I determined to collect all my end-of-term travels into a single story.
A few weeks have stretched into a few months, and here I find myself with three months and five countries to cover! Make that six countries – I write to you from my quarantine facilities in Tokyo, Japan. (No need to pity me: my organization, JET [Japan Exchange and Teaching] has arranged for us to pay our purgatory dues in commodious and well-stocked hotel rooms near the airport. They delivered breakfast to my door at precisely 7:30am: scrambled eggs, salad, and…chicken nuggets. More anon.)
Appropriately enough, my ventures beyond Oxford began with a trip to her sister city: Cambridge.
Jun27
Che figata: Trinity Term
I didn’t know what to expect from Trinity Term – it was the first time in my life that I would be responsible for a single, mammoth assignment with no classes, no fixed schedule other than to research, read, and write write write!
In some ways, my time at Oxford began anew this term, as relaxed restrictions prompted a flurry of renewed gatherings and opened new doors.
May16
si lo que esperas llega: Easter holidays
I hadn’t realized how dark it had become until Easter brought the light. Everything came together to lift my spirits: the weather brightened; the government restrictions eased; people began to gather again for Holy Week.
Mar31
الحَمدُ للّة: Hilary Term
Springtime comes in February for Oxford. Bluebells, snow drops, crocuses, and daffodils are disrupting the sombre charcoal tones of winter, lifting my spirit from lockdown doldrums to a hopeful (and often anxious) anticipation of the future.
With most of the libraries shut down for most of the term, I played church tourist and commenced a round of endless walks, reminding myself that I’m not alone here no matter how much it feels like it.
Feb28
Ube nokhisimuzi omuhle: Holidays
Christmas cheer was thin on the ground last year. Despite my best intentions, the week leading up to my final essay submission demanded a slog of sleepless nights and soul-searching doubt. Just when I thought I was free to relax into the holidays, the UK government shocked everyone by declaring a stay-at-home order with less than 24 hours notice.
Even so, God was good to me.
Jan4
Woordeboek: Michaelmas Term
Just when I was settling in, the second lockdown hit. The first news that the UK government would impose new restrictions sent me into a tailspin: I imagined myself trapped in my room for four more weeks of self-isolation, cut off from library access just when it was most critical for me to do research for my upcoming term essay.
In the end, as is almost always the case, my fears outstripped reality.
Read the rest of this entryOct31
Plain Living and High Thinking: Exploring Oxford
“We should celebrate!”
My first day out of self-isolation, the gracious Audrey paraded me around Oxford for a tour and congratulatory tea (in classic British style, with scones and clotted cream). We last encountered each other while doing undergraduate studies in Michigan – small world!
She inaugurated my first ventures afield into the puzzle of walls, roofs, and doors that unwinds from my newly built accommodations, overlapping medieval, modern, and everything in-between.
Sep15
Mi Mosse: Quarantine in Oxford
Never would I have guessed that my past six months would be spent on my family’s farm in the USA! When I concluded my Peace Corps service, I was making plans to return to South Africa as an independent volunteer in a couple of weeks… or a month or two… and then maybe for the summer… or even just for a quick visit?
Instead, South Africa’s borders have yet to reopen for international travel, and I grudgingly submitted to a time of restoration and fellowship, reconnecting with my loved ones while future opportunities unfolded.
Given the international travel climate today, I can only be thankful that I landed without incident last Wednesday in the United Kingdom: newly “enroled” for graduate studies at the University of Oxford.
Feb28
In All Godly Quietness: USA Visit Via London
If there’s anything Peace Corps service has taught me, it’s the necessity of waiting.
My nature rebels against the humility and simple surrender of acknowledging that further action will avail nothing; the outcome is beyond my power to influence; there’s nothing to do but place my trust in the Lord…and wait.
In some small areas, my expectations have made the adjustment: the taxis to my shopping town, the line at the grocery store, the printers at school. Although service providers here rarely hurry and sometimes acknowledge requests reluctantly, that doesn’t mean they aren’t responding. A patient smile does wonders for my health and theirs.
It’s the big questions – about career, family, and the future – that send me into the wrestling ring with God. As a Christian blogger pointed out, there’s a difference between waiting for something you know will happen (eventually) and waiting when you’re not sure whether it ever will. The Biblical images of sowing and reaping acquire new resonance for me as I wonder when the time invested in these critical areas will begin to bear fruit.
Jun13
Photo Tour: Stonehaven
Saturday, June 7
Our waitress from the night before advised us to catch a train to Stonehaven, a coastal village with, that’s right, a castle! We received this suggestion with relief, since our only alternatives at that point involved either paying a taxi or daring to maneuver on the opposite side of the road.
The same train station that welcomed us to Aberdeen. The tracks run alongside a breathtaking coast of rocks, waves, and sheeps!
The little town of Stonehaven boasts a beach along with its castle. “Mostly people come for the castle,” the information center attendant shrugged.
Providentially and with no planning on our part, we arrived on the day when the town also offered its local fair. The girls’ performance reminded me of our Highland Dancers, of course.
After munching on shortbread and admiring the dancers at the fair, we embarked on the 2 mi trek to Castle Dunnottar.
I could have stopped for a photo at every curve in the road.
In case you were wondering, I did indeed purchase those pants in Turkey.
Castle Dunnottar: famed for visitors including Mary, Queen of Scots, and (according to legend) William Wallace. We reached it by way of a concrete staircase, which left us pondering how people had scaled the cliffs in the Middle Ages. An information center inside suggested the answer with this factoid: Ponies would carry supplies up the hillside to stock the cellars and furnish the dinner table of the owner (Earl Marischal)’s powerful family.
Stephanie and I poked our heads into almost every nook and cranny. Deep shadows cloaked surprisingly small rooms; one regarded the lonely fireplaces and imagined sleeping there in winter.
The chapel. In a dungeon nearby, the castle imprisoned almost 200 religious dissenters, who refused to acknowledge the king as head of the church, for weeks in the damp and dirt (1685).
My iconic Scottish picture. Perhaps someone who has attempted the bagpipes could explain how this gentleman managed to play ceaselessly while thanking me out of the side of his mouth?
On the way back down the mountain, we stopped to pay our respects at the War Memorial. Which war? “All of them.”
According to the inscription, the soldiers of Stonehaven laughed in the face of Death’s challenge.
Nothing I’ve seen could compare with the view on the way to the castle, but we needed a breather after that hike!
Facing the memorial, the town behind me
Facing the memorial, the sea behind me
Our stomachs demanded we sample the local cuisine: cullen skink! Although the name suggests an odorous vampire, the dish actually consisted of cream soup with smoked haddock. With the sea air in our noses and Scottish brogue in our ears, we had never tasted finer.
Away across the Atlantic, I find myself thinking of friends at unexpected moments
