the kilns

On Saturday afternoon, a group of us made our way to the home of C.S. Lewis, the Kilns. We happened to time our visit during the one week the house is empty, and thus we had the great privilege of wandering inside the house. After a tour of the house by Nicole, we spread out on the lawn for a picnic dinner, and then ended our evening by walking down to the church where Lewis worshiped regularly and is now buried.

The beauty of the home and grounds surprised me -- it was an aching sort of beautiful, the kind that evokes a melancholy sort of delight. Perhaps this was partly due to a knowledge of the joy that occurred amongst those walls and gardens, but also of the pain, the struggles, the mental wrestling, the deaths that also took place in that home. It seemed to be a rather sacred place; God's presence seemed near, evidencing itself in the carefully cared for home, the heavenly pink flowers on the lawn, the notes left on the fridge speaking of the communal atmosphere that has inhabited the home for many years.

To commemorate my visit (and the fact that I have been spending significant amounts of time with his writings the past few weeks), here are some of my favorite Lewis quotes.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through the was longing. These things -- the beauty, the memory of our own past -- are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the things itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.
-- from "The Weight of Glory"

Ah, the Saved... what happens to them is best described as the opposite of a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery turns out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water.
-- from The Great Divorce

Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.
-- from A Grief Observed
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homely musings

Should I ever have a house, I would love for it to have...

1. a small pathway leading up to the front door

2. lavender bushes surrounding the pathway

3. a gate, slightly open, beckoning people to come in

4. a front door with the door knob in the center

5. windows surrounded by ivy that bounces and springs about in the breeze

6. ancient trees forming a covering over the house

7. a blue door with an arched top

8. window boxes with flowers of every color and light, vivid green leaves popping out

9. a small, spacious back lawn with benches tucked into corners, behind hedges

10. white, lacy curtains fluttering about behind open windows

(photo: a home on the Vicars Close, the oldest preserved street in England, located in Wells)
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more than simply seeing

Ah, but we want so much more -- something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words -- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.
-- C.S. Lewis, from "The Weight of Glory"

This passage puts into words the feelings I experience when I look at trees like this, or fields of bobbing grass, or magnificent scissor arches, or ivy drooping to cover open windows. Lewis puts it so perfectly and succinctly that I shall leave it at that.

(photo: a grouping of trees at Glastonbury)

a song of magic

As a little treat to myself, I ordered a copy of A Severe Mercy to be delivered to me in the Lower Reading Room of the Bodleian along with several large volumes on the philosophy of religion. After sludging through an essay on "Evil and Omnipotence," I picked up Vanauken and flipped to the chapter where they arrive in Oxford. It seemed so much more alive and meaningful to me since I now understand the Isis, the Trout, Woodstock Road. I can envision where they walked, biked, and talked. I can now see, more clearly, why this is a city they would have loved.

I also learned that some of Davey's ashes were scattered at the little church, St. Margaret's, in Binsy. Hopefully, I'll be able to find time to make a vist there and read 'Under the Mercy,' just as their friend did as he spread her ashes about.

Several passages from the chapter on Oxford seemed to capture some of what I am feeling and experiencing in this city...

On our crossing of the Atlantic... we had wondered how it would be to come to the England that we knew so well in books... would it be, essentially, a foreign country, or -- well, not foregin? But by the time the ship was coasting along the white cliffs and then proceeding up the Thames, we had begun to think what we later found to be true: that coming to England was like coming home, coming to a home half-remembered -- but home. (p. 75-76)

Coming back to oxford, we were always, it seemed, greeted by the sound of bells: bells everywhere striking the hour or bells from some tower change-ringing, filling the air with a singing magic. We explored every cranny of this city of enchanted crannies and unexpected breathtaking views of towers and spires. We were conscious all the time of the strong, intellectual life of a thousand years. (p. 79)
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today's pleasures

// Making coffee in a French press -- so exciting! I plan to purchase one when I return home.

// Our lecture this morning on Spirituality and the Metaphysical Poets. I do believe my face glowed with happiness the entire hour. John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw... it doesn't get much better.

// Picking out postcards at Blackwell's Art & Poster Shop

// Having dinner in the backyard with my lovely food group

// Studying in the Upper Reading Room at the Bodleian. Whenever I looked up from A Grief Observed, I could see statues perched on top of the building across the street set against a sparkling blue sky. And the room itself sported old portraits in gilded frames, stained glass, and many academics typing away on their laptops with piles of books at their side

// A nutella and peanut butter milkshake from Moo-Moo's (per Derek's recommendation) -- delicious!

(photo: Becky (middle), Lauren (right), and I enjoying our milkshakes outside of the Bodleian)
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gaudy or glorious?

Throughout the past three weeks I've spent in Europe, I've visited several cathedrals and churches, all of which have been beautiful, grandiose, and awe-inspiring in some way. This morning I attended St. Andrew's, a less formal and more homey Anglican church. As we walked in, we had to wade through a sea of children and young parents, which was certainly a welcome sight. The liturgy was also slightly more similar to American Anglican form. For instance, when the vicar says "The Lord be with you," the congregation responds "And also with you," as opposed to "And with thy spirit," as the church we attended last week did.

Despite the little differences, it's a reassuring and comforting feeling to know that around the world, we are all speaking the same words, praying the same prayers, greeting each other with the same words, being charged to "go in peace to love and serve the Lord." The liturgy unites people in a beautiful way.

But as I've been snapping photos of these cathedrals and marveling over the intricacy and magnificence of their architecture and design, I also find myself wondering if God is pleased with them. Is God glorified when a beautiful building is constructed and dedicated to his use, or would he be better pleased if his people assisted widows and orphans, fed the poor, comforted the brokenhearted? There is something about an ornate cathedral that lifts my mind, that reminds me that "the world is charged with the grandeur of God," that turns my thoughts toward the beauty of the Eternal One.

Yet sometimes it also feels pretentious. I remember that Christ was born in a lowly manger, that he lived among the margins of society, that while these cathedrals were built, the poor continued to suffer. How do we reconcile our desire for and delight in the beautiful with Christ's example of humble, ordinary, and service-led living? I feel there must be a balance... yet I'm not sure what form that balance takes.

(photos: left, Bath Abbey; right, Canterbury Cathedral)
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through my eyes (#3)

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photo 1. my roommates and I at Stonehenge (Becky on the far left, Alyssa in the middle) -- they are both incredibly sweet and lovely.
















photo 2. Salisbury Cathedral. We took a tour with a charming older gentleman, who wore knee socks, a plaid shirt tucked into his shorts, and said "chums," "chaps," "gents," and other amusing and adorable terminology. he took us up to the tower, basically the top of the square part of the tower... right before the spire begins. the spire, interestingly enough, is the oldest surviving spire in England, dating back around 700 years.

















photo 3. small children at the entrance to Old Sarum, a ruined Iron Age hill fort, reenacting a battle. there were many shouts of "kill the vikings!" and other war cries. this photo marks the beginning of the charge of the shielded children. adorable.








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