Amy's Sabbatical, Adventures in the United Kingdom # 4: Views from Above

June 15, 2011

Amy and Evan in front of the Cathedral

Today is the day for views from above. Today we got above the skyline to get the more expansive view of the city of London.  Our first stop was to St. Paul's Cathedral.  Located right in the heart of downtown, this Cathedral is getting ready to celebrate it's 300th anniversary.  While the Cathedral in Chester had a very rectangular feel to it, this Cathedral was more circular. 
Inside the Cathdral, as soon as you walk in the main entrance is an enormous baptismal font.  They place it at the front of the church to show that baptism marks the beginning of the journey in the Christian faith.  Walking futher into the nave, and then into the central part of the church, chairs are set in a semi circular pattern around the eucharistic table. 

All around the church are crypts.  Most of them are in the basement, crypts of famous people like Shakespeare.  But there are many within the main body of the church too.  It seemed to me that many of them were war memorials, memorliazing one general or another, or the men who fought in a particular battle.  I found the juxtaposition of these war memorials inside a church difficult to appreciate.  For me the church should be all about living in the ways of non-violence.  How does one do that when the glory of war is all around you?

The part of the Cathedral that we all enjoyed the most was the climb up to the top.  If you climb about 300 small circular steps you get up to the Whispering Gallery, a sort of balcony found beneath the dome of the church.  There you can stand from one side of the gallery and whisper and the person on the other side can hear you.  Amazing acoustics.

Making our way through the
tight spaces of the Cathedral

If you climb another 230 steps, this time steeper and in tighter spaces, you can reach the top of the cathedral and get the wondrous 360 degree view of London.  The steps seem almost maze like and are in very tight spaces, well worn from all the years of use.  You weren't supposed to take pictures inside the cathedral, but I could not resist taking this one.

The London Eye from across the river

The second view from above came from the London Eye, a huge ferris wheel that was built in celebration of the millenium.  While we were standing in line waiting to enter one of the pods that goes around the London Eye, I noticed that there were people from all over the world around me.  In front of us was a man who was a hasidic Jew, with his long black coat and his curly locks of hair hanging down the side of his face.  In front of them was a family that seemed to be speaking French.  There were women whom I assumed were of the Muslim faith because they had their heads covered with a scarf.  There were women in saris from India or of Indian descent, and we even saw a woman covered in a burka, covered from head to foot in black with only her eyes showing.  London is clearly an international city!

London Eye

The London Eye travels around very slowly on its axis.  It never stops.  People just get on and off as each pod slowly comes around to the entry/exit area.  It is located right by the banks of the Thames river, so you get a breath taking view of the river and all the activity on it.  Plus you can see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and all of the wonderful buildings that make London so unique.

After the London Eye, we found walked the city enjoying all the views of London.  Joyce Watson  gave Evan a pedometer for his birthday before we left Missoula.  We clocked in 31,000 steps on this day.  If the pedometer's calculations are right that was almost 13 miles! 

Amy's Sabbatical, Adventures in the United Kingdom # 3

June 14, Tuesday

Evan and Huw in front of the high speed train.

On this day we took the high speed train from Chester to London's Euston station.  It was a comfortable ride and well used - every seat was taken.  Then from London's Euston station we took the underground to our hotel.  There were problems on one of the subway tracks that we were supposed to take, so we had to navigate our way around that and figure an alternative route.  I really enjoyed taking the underground and figuring out how to use it to get where we wanted to go.  It reminded me alot of my childhood growing up in Tokyo and taking the subway there.   Huw's cousin Sarah got us Oyster cards, (don't ask me why they call it that) to get on and off the underground.  You just flick the card into a scanner before getting on the subway.  Then as you get off the underground, you scan it again and it takes of the amount of money it cost to ride that far.  It was very cool.  The underground system feels like a massive maze that you have to work your way around with multiple escalators taking you deeper into the depths of the earth where the subways zipped through to take you where you needed to go. 

Evan and Amy standing by the figure
of the world's tallest man.  One thing is clear -
 Evan is getting taller than me! 

After checking in to our hotel we took the Thames Clipper into the center of London.  It is a large boat that goes up and down the Thames river with pier stations that you can get on and off.  Evan fell asleep on the boat.  So we decided that the first thing we did in London needed to be something that would keep Evan awake.  So we went to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum where you can see crazy things like portraits made out of gumballs, and manekins of the world's tallest man.  It was fun and weird and it engaged Evan.

Amy's Sabbatical, Adventures in the United Kingdom, # 2

Monday, June 13.

This was a day to just catch up on our jet lag, so we took it pretty easy.  We went into the city of Chester and walked around this wall that surrounds the entire city.  It is a walk of about 2 miles.  Sections of the wall  were built during the days of Roman rule in Chester and other parts were built in the medieval times. 


We also stopped to view the Chester Cathedral (of the Anglican Church). Built over thousands of years this cathedral is huge.  Tim, Huw, Evan and I just wandered around the cathedral.  At one point a priest came out and asked all the tourists in the church to pause for a brief period of prayer.  He offered a prayer for the people suffering in the world, for people travelling on holiday that they may be refreshed and renewed, and he asked us all to say the Lord's Prayer in what the language that we were most comfortable praying in.  It was wonderful to pray in this ancient cathedral.

Main entry way into Chester Cathedral

The church was established by Benedictine monks in 1092. And thrived until 1540 when the monastary disolved and  the building of the church ceased. In 1541 Henry VIII signed the Letters of Patent creating the Cathedral and construction resumed.   There is massive amounts of stone work that took thousands of years to build.  It boggles my mind to think of the history of a church that is so long.  Nor can I imagine what kind of work it must take to keep such a building going.  It is a thriving church with a worshipping community.  In the brochure it says it takes a million pounds to maintain every year.  Imagine that stewardship campaign!!!
  

Inside the Chester Cathedral

After touring the cathedral we stopped for some tea and cakes in the Refectory.  There is a full service cafe inside the church in the exact same spot where the 13th century monks used to eat their daily meals. 

Beeston Castle

Later in the day, we went back to Tim's house for lunch, picked up his dogs, a big black lab puppy named Lester and a mutt called Nancy, and took them for a walk up Beeston Castle.  There are old castles in almost every town in England in various states of ruin.  My son Evan says that this was one of the high lights of his trip.  I think he really enjoyed the company of the dogs.

Then dinner at Tim's house with his wife Ashlea - a chicken curry dish that she had cooking in the crockpot all day.  She put out some different chutneys and pickles, some hot and spicy, some sweet.  It was a diversity of flavors.  Wonderful!  Then we all watched the original version of the movie "The Italian Job," starring Michael Caine.  I must admit that I slept through much of the movie because I was tired.  Still suffering from a bit of jet lag. 

Amy's Sabbatical, Adventures in the United Kingdom

We arrived on Manchester, United Kingdom on June 12th at 10:20 am.  After flying all night from Newark, New Jersey, we were pretty bleary eyed.  Huw's cousin, Tim, was there to meet us at the airport.  Huw's father, Vernon Griffiths, and Tim's mother Joan Gordon,  are siblings.  Vernon came to the United States when he was about 20 to study at MIT in Boston.  There he met Huw's mother, they married, and after they both finished their degrees moved to Butte where Vernon taught at Montana Tech for a very long time.  He taught metallurgy.  So it is his relatives that we were visiting on this trip.

Huw's cousin Tim working the grill

After travelling from the airport we got settled at Tim's house, ate some lunch and spent time hanging out.  That evening all the family gathered at Joan and Gordon's house.  Joan is Huw's aunt.  We gathered for a barbeque, even thought it was raining pretty hard.  Joan and Gordon live in Waverton, which is outside the city of Chester.  We received a warm welcome.  Many of the relatives had taken this opportunity to travel into Chester to get together. Some travelled from Portsmouth, in southern England and others from southern Wales. We ate lots and lots of meat of all kinds - burgers, lamb chops and sausages. 

After dinner Huw's uncle Gordon, brought out his ukelele and a pair of spoons.  He taught me in the art of "spoon bashing," as he called it.  And we played a few songs together.  Before we left, he gave me a pair of spoons that he had used many times "bashing" because they are quite dented in the middle.  He made me promise that I would practice so that the next time we got together, we could play some more music.  He also advised me that it was probably not a good idea to "bash spoons" from the pulpit in church.  Gordon is quite the comic and seems to enjoy all the attention from his antics, but I got the distinct impression that his children and grandchildren had all been listening to his spoon bashing for many years and while they didn't seem to enjoy it, they did tolerate it.  The evening came to a close around 8:30 pm and we promptly went to bed - quite tired from all our travels.

Spoon bashing with Uncle Gordon

Amy's Sabbatical, week 2

Day one on the big journey.  We started this morning with a shuttle to the airport at 9 am.  We flew from Missoula to Denver, Denver to  Newark and then from Newark to Manchester, United Kingdom.  Huw, my husband has family here.  Huw's cousin Tim was here at the airport to greet us.  It is a cold and wet June day in Manchester.  Later today we will have time for a gathering with all the relatives.
We didn't sleep much on the plane, but we are not too tired.  Looking forward to the big adventure.

Amy's Sabbatical Week 1

Here we are in week one of the sabbatical. It has been both wonderful and strange. On the first day of my sabbatical I felt a bit unmoored. While it was wonderful to not have any specific schedule or time constraints, it was also very strange. I found myself asking, "Who am I when I am not a pastor? Who am I when I am not working?" That is all a part of the discovery....

Bear taking a break from our walk up Crazy Canyon

So during this first week I have been going on long walks with my dog, Bear, up Crazy Canyon. Walks where I can just meander around and lose track of the time. In between the rain drops I have also been weeding the garden. The weeds come out quite nicely in this soft wet ground. And when the rains have been falling hard, I have been reading. My first book is one loaned to me by John Garrity ( a member of UCC) titled "With or Without God; Why the way we live is more important than what we believe," by Gretta Vosper. Gretta is a pastor ordained in the United Church of Canada and is the founder and director of the Canadian Center for Progressive Christianity.

Here's a Quote:

"The world is seriously in need of clarity around what values will help us create a sustainalbe future and what values will compromise aour ability to get there. In the early church, the values of love, forgiveness, and compassion drove the work and lives of those known as Christians. This is a legacy of the church, and it must once again become the agenda by which it chooses to live. Not what we belive. Not our isntitutional survival. Our focus must be waht we can do to challenge, edify and support individuals as they seek to live virtuous and responsible lives. It is vitally important that we stop fumbling the ball; that is, if it's not too late."

There's some food for thought... Gretta is advocating moving away from all the institutional stuff that tends to divide us as churches and focus on the values that unit us.

More to come....

Take care and remember the sabbath and keep it holy!