Monday (still typing from the train, still somewhere west of Paris)…
We ate a breakfast of leftovers (stretching our fifteen-pound purchase into three days!) before taking the Tube to the Tower Bridge. As is our habit, we spent more time than expected, loving every minute of every view, and every information plaque posted up and down the 198 stairs, and all along the East and West foot-bridges connecting the two towers and spanning the River Thames. Tearing ourselves away we enjoyed one, token, “Fish and Chips” on the plaza outside the Tower of London. Once inside its walls, the Tower became our home for the next three hours, as we completed three of the five audio tours available. The high-point for most folks was the source of curiosity for the Dean boys… all those Crown Jewels. And for what!? Just to be worn (only) when there’s a new king or queen? (If Bennett were king, he would hold a wooden baseball bat signed by Hank Aaron, instead. Just in case you were wondering.) And all that history. Amazing… “800 years ago, guys… Someone stood right here and laid these stones, mortaring them in place… right here… 800 years ago…” (Maybe he was, like, your Great-plus 19-more-greats-Grandfather!)
Too late (read above!) for a tour at St. Paul’s (amazing) Cathedral, we did make it in time for Even Song (a “said” service, since the choir is off in the summer). This brief Anglican service of scripture and prayer was a meaningful experience for the religious pilgrims in the crowd, even if we did pray for God to “save the Queen.” (Yes, and all the paupers, too.)
Since we prayed for her, we thought we should pay a visit to “Buckerhand Palace” (you can thank “B” for this fun naming!). The flag told us that she was home, but, unaware we were standing out front, we didn’t get an invite for dinner, so we moved back to the Thames and had an amazing meal on the R.S. Hispaniola, a floating restaurant “with a Mediterranean flare” just across from “Big Ben” and the London Eye.
No trip is complete, if you’ve read all the Harry Potter books at least once, without a stop by the 9 ¾ Platform at King’s Cross station, so we located the gate to Hogwarts and took a few pics before another later-than-we-had-planned arrival at 300 City Road, and a bed that could hardly have felt any better, anywhere.
Today’s lesson was from the faces and the sounds of the world’s people who call London, England their home. Speaking of amazing… from everywhere... Every shade... Every shape (except over-weight!)... And every sound. Amazing. All these people. Doing their thing. Living. Learning. Loving. Just like me… and not at all like me. World views hardly recognizable to the boy who grew up a Baptist preacher’s son from Clinton, SC, “their” world, is a different world. Their God, a different God.
And yet, as I now believe, it’s the same world -- regardless your “view.” And the same God.
May our World, and our God, be enough – for all of us!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
so glad to get caught up on your trip. sounds wonderful.
ReplyDelete