Day 19

A Tiny Red Dot

We stopped on a walk through Hyde Park because two geese were clearly disoriented by the huge mirror beside the pond. They were honking madly and pacing back and forth.

We were actually reflected in the mirror too. I am the little red dot at the top of the world and Donna is the little black dot next to the red dot.

The mirror is an art piece by Anish Kapoor, who has four mirror installations in Hyde Park and adjoining Kensington Gardens. I have seen all four. One is exactly like the one pictured above except that it reflects sky not ground. One is a small circular mirror that reflects with a red tint. And the most well known piece is a "C" shaped installation called Turning the World Upside Down.

The day I went to see it, the exhibit was fenced off while workers tried to repair a bit of vandalism. The mirrors are intended to raise questions about perspective. Apparently it worked better for the geese than it did for the guys with spray paint. I find that I identify more with the geese here than with the vandals, who apparently just saw it as a shiny space to scribble on.

Like many other visitors I had hoped to photograph myself upside down in the C mirror, but the fence made the effort pointless. Some weeks later I found another, smaller mirror in the Tate Britain that allowed me the upsidedown experience.




I am not sure what I learned from being stood on my head, unless it is that I hope you won't see me with my world turned upside down just yet.

Interesting and compelling, the idea of a reflected world. It is a common device for novelists, poets, painters, song writers, sermon writers, and others, for talking about how we see ourselves or for finding out how the world sees us. It presents a distance, a doubleness, that is in itself an opportunity for expression, however obscured, as in the image below.






I am just not sure, yet, what being stood on my head means. It is a dizzying change of perspective for sure.

Still, I like being in the big pie picture with the geese. I know their pain. I relate. I too, at times, have paced around honking madly, knowing something in my world is badly misplaced.

For now, however,I am where I want to be, at the top of the world. Weird, I suppose, to find myself there, but the mirror gives me a realistic view. My place at the top of the world that I see is balanced by this tiny fact: the figure reflected there is clearly and visually insignificant.

We might call this "art reflecting life." Even the geese get into it.

Day 18

Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral

This new experience, Thanksgiving away from home, gives me pause. Pause on Thanksgiving Day, I should think, is good.

We traveled to St Paul’s Cathedral at the appointed door-opening time, found our way past the security barricades despite initially being told at the first entrance we tried that this was a “ticketed event.”

The St Paul’s website had said nothing about tickets, so naturally we did not have any.

At the gate further along, where the dozen flack-jacketed security guards checked bags, we were admitted without tickets. It was not a ticketed event after all. We were among the first inside, so we sat as close to the center of things as possible, row 4, under the dome. Just behind the rows marked “Reserved.”

We went for worship as well as for the experience, although clearly for many it seemed to be mostly an opportunity to be with other Americans. I am not judging motives. I am simply referring to the level of chatter that persisted, despite the organ call to worship, and that popped up again at “slow moments” during the service itself. Ah, Americans! What are you going to do?

I am not genetically inclined to be impressed by the spiritual possibilities of ritual or necessarily by the religious symbolism of art and architecture. That is, a fancy space and a good show do not in themselves suggest, to me, intimacy with God.

I have misgivings as well about the presence of military in church. The likeness of spiritual to political and military struggle that takes the form of memorials and statues and, on Thanksgiving, a Marine Corp Color Guard makes me uncomfortable.

But this was a deeply moving, intensely Christian service of worship.

With great dignity and respect the Color Guard surrendered the American flag and then the Marine Corp flag to church leaders, who lay them across the altar for the duration of the service. I found that bit of symbolism both appropriate and moving.

The music, too, was mostly familiar and deeply touching. Perhaps, that is the homeboy in me. The choir anthem was powerful, and the hymns, though pitched too high for my vocal chords, were themselves offerings to God. “Come, ye thankful people, come,” “Fairest Lord Jesus,” “For the beauty of the Earth.” And the organ, which fills that huge space indescribably, felt indeed like the presence of God.

Most astonishing was the sermon, brought by Dr. Barry Gaeddert, Senior Pastor of The International Community Church, Surrey. It was a forceful declaration of the centrality of the Gospel, both personal and universal. For that alone, I would have given thanks.

At service end we were turned out into the brooding November weather to wait for our bus, having been blessed again by worship. I thought then that we had experienced the warm deeply assuring heart of God in this grey, forbidding world.

Day 17

Post Cards from Oxford




My Dear Dr W, Took the train from Victoria Station, London, out to Oxford today to meet a friend from home. She's in England working on her doctorate. An "English degree" in Spanish. Funny. Realized on the tube to Victoria -- forgot me camera! -- thus, just post cards. Or pictures of post cards of Oxford. Funny, yeah? I know how you love this place. Sincerely, Doc Z





Dear Stephen, The side of a round library at one of the colleges. I be the dark figure on the cobbles. Ha! Sought entry, but denied!, not being a student 'n' all. Did not see the soft romantic glow either. Maybe the great minds were giving off energy else-wheres. Maybe "romance" is just a fantasy! As you know, it's actually interesting in person, without the glow, when you can SEE the crumbling old stones. Best wishes, Jim (the Realist)





Stevie! Ooo! A student! How old do you suppose this goober is? Back of the card just says "Carved stone head." Right. Real helpful. Searched everywhere for the hardheaded kiss-up but couldn't find 'im. Lots of ordinary looking undergrads tho. Too bad they don't still wear the black robes to class. Fashion deficit here. Felt right at 'ome. Later! J--





BRO, ME BULLETIN BOARD WITH A FEW PLACES WE'VE BEEN AND MORE WE WANT TO GET TO. CONCERTS, PLAYS, MUSICALS, CASTLES, GALLERIES, CORONATIONS. THE USUAL HI-BROW STUFF. STOMP IS UP THERE TOO. THE MOUSETRAP. NO PUBLIC EXECUTIONS! EAT YER 'EART OUT. ZOLLERINO





Yo! Could not even FIND a postcard of this place, but as it is holy grail for CSLewis fans I framed the receipt. Tiny, depressing little spot. Did not have beer but did eat an outstanding shepherd's pie. Highly recommend it. What's with the name -- Eagle and Child -- anyway? Sooo-looong, dude!





Sorry, stevie, I seem to have lost the thread of the Oxford trip story. I got obsessed with the Eagle & Child thing instead. Still can't locate explanation. But I keep thinking of the Eagle & Rat over the tenement museum in Edinburgh. Is there a connection here? Sorry you can't fly in to explain.
Later, j-





Hey Stephen, Nothing much to say here that hasn't already been said. Unlike the apple face, this guy is everywhere. Student in pain. We've all been there and wept our own bitter tears, yeah? Oxford was OK for a cold, wet, windy day. Next time I will remember my camera. I think we're done here. Jim

Day 16

World's End

If my impressions are correct, everyone wants to go to Scotland. Maybe, in some mystical way, it is everyone’s ancestral home. Maybe, for one day in the year everyone feels Scottish the way everyone feels Irish on St Patrick’s Day.

I don’t know. But we got our Scotland opportunity this last week midway through our stay in London.

We left Victoria Station Thursday on the 12:00 East Coast train bound for Edinburgh and arrived at 4:45 in the dark and gloom.

I asked a station worker how to get to Cowgate Street for our hotel. He pointed to an exit and said take the stairs to the street on the top of the hill then down the other side to the next street.



Easy enough, OK. So we headed out. What he didn’t say was that the steps went on forever, through one of those dark alleys found everywhere in Edinburgh called a “close.” There were maybe a hundred stairs in all, wet from recent rain and uneven.

At the top we found a wide street, called the Royal Mile because the Edinburgh Castle sits at one end atop the highest point in the city and HolyRood Palace sits at the other, the lower, end. As the way down to Cowgate was not obvious, we asked directions of a young woman who was handing out fliers for ghost tours.

Welcome to Edinburg.

Friday morning we got on a bus for a trip into the southern Highlands and a boat ride on Loch Ness, the Loch of Monster fame. We had walked the Royal mile in the dark after finding our hotel and after eating at the Wiski Bar and Restaurant, where I would recommend the leek soup. Edinburgh is an old city in around this Royal Mile, although it is a modern city too in areas we did not see. We were enormously impressed with the old buildings, nearly all of which were stone.

The bus tour was great for the first three and a half hours. The driver kept up a running commentary of historical information and ironic invention. Heading out of Edinburg he noted that we were passing the housing project that inspired the novel Trainspotting. It was one of two government housing projects in Edinburg, he noted, the other being home to some of his wife’s family for a time. It was kept up nicely and three meals a day, complements of the Queen. Then we passed a prison.

Three and a half hours into the bus tour, as we had just entered the Highlands themselves, our bus developed problems and had to stop. We were transferred to another bus on another bus line to join a different tour also in progress. The remaining nine hours of the tour was OK, but we missed the things we had signed up to see and we missed Peter (Petah), our driver.



Saturday we started early, found the sun shining, and walked along the Royal Mile hoping the things we wanted to see would be open. A few things like the Tenement Museum had already closed for the season, a possibility we had not considered. We saw St. Giles Cathedral. We toured the Castle. We stopped into many shops looking for Scottish things. We bought a few things at Scottish Heritage and Authentic Scotland, both run by Sikhs, which I thought was pretty funny. We were waited on in both places by Chinese women, possibly students, in kilts.



After our lunch at Deacon Brodie’s Café, we discovered the sun had turned to rain, what they call Scottish mist, so our wide-eyed street wandering was curtailed.

A handful of very drunk, very loud, very rambunctious college boys on the train home turned our “Quiet Car” into bedlam for a few hours, until they de-trained at Newcastle. I have written elsewhere about the joys of public drunkenness, so I won’t add more here except to say that relief on the train was profound when they departed.

When we got back to our flat at 11:30 Saturday night, after our interesting and rewarding few days in Scotland, we were glad for our small familiar rooms. We have only been here two months and we are only staying till mid-December, but when we opened the door and turned on the lights we felt we were home again.