Tourist again

Now that the Congress is over I have a couple of days to be a tourist again. Before Lindsay flew out five of us (Lindsay, Owen (son) Brie (Owen’s wife) and a Welsh friend of theirs) took a sail on a large catamaran. We saw thousands of Cape Fur Seals, Southern Right Whales, dolphins, one lone penguin, and countless birds, as well as getting terrific views of Cape Town from the sea. We had hoped to go up the cable car to the top of Table Mountain today, but once again it was closed because of high winds. This was also true on the day off last Thursday and when we played tourist on the 15th as well. I am beginning to worry it will be that way until I leave!
  The upper picture taken off Green Point shows how Table Mountain dominates the city, and forms the "Bowl" of the downtown.  At the right is new stadium on Green Point built for the World Cup.

A blur ending in goosebumps... (Mon., Oct. 25)

Well, the 3rd Lausanne Congress is over... and I have not posted since the second day. But it was a fire-hydrant experience, a constant gush of activities and meetings (I actually missed a number of the main sessions and hope to watch them at the website) and I don’t know if any single person could keep up with Lindsay. He moved at a mad pace, often triple booked, until the day-off on Thursday, then slept for a good chunk of the afternoon. Friday through Sunday was still hectic, but he pared some things from his schedule. There was an amazing talk at the GBA track by an Anglican bishop from an area where there has been bloody persecution of Christians by a certain other religion’s followers. He talked about loving his neighbors even after terrible violence was visited on his church and family. But the highlight of the week for me was the closing worship service.
Now, I have to admit that after nine Urbana Conferences, two IFES World Assemblies, three PCUSA General Assemblies—and other conferences large and small beyond my ability to count—I have become a little jaded and consumer-oriented about and by big worship. But last night might have been the most electrifying worship time I have experienced. It was a perfect storm of worship: believers from all over the world, speaking many languages but praising God together, art, music, drama, Scripture, preaching, and Holy Communion... I had goosebumps. For three hours we sang, prayed, partook, and above all raised the name of Jesus high. It will be tough not to let the consumerism creep back in and compare future worship against this one. I’m hoping to instead to try and infect my worship with the joyful spirit of this one.

The Congress is on... unless you are online (Monday Oct. 16)

Cape Town 2010, The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization is off and running... The official opening ceremony last night was colorful and involved many artists, musicians, and dancers from Cape Town and other parts of South Africa. It started earlier for me because the Government, Business, and Academic track had an opening event Saturday night, and since it is one of Lindsay’s responsibilities, it is one of my responsibilities, too. It was hosted by a couple who own an old manor house in the vineyard area of Cape Town—a very beautiful area in a valley on the east side of Table Mountain. The fact that they could host over a hundred guests for dinner tells you a little about the house...

There is one major area of disappointment for the start of the Congress. There was a large delegation from China who were supposed to participate, but most of them (over 200) were turned back when they reached their airports and many had their passports taken away. Here is a link from the New York Times about it. And then as the conference started the conference website, including the simulcast that was being transferred to sites around the world, fell victim to a cyberattack which seemed to originate in China. At the time of this post it is still not back up. Please pray for our brothers and sisters in China, and for the decision makers there to see we want to be a blessing to China and not adversaries.  
Pictures are from the terrace just before dinner on Saturday (this is their back yard!) and from the video truck at opening ceremonies.  Click to enlarge it and you can see the collage.

And even more Cape of Good Hope

Above:  Looking back up the cape from the old light house.  Below, a rock hyrax, then a forced stop at where the road is carved out of Mt. Chapman as rocks are cleared.  Ostriches graze by the sea.  One historical note on the Cape of Good Hope:  When first discovered by Bartolomeu Dias, he named it the Cape of Storms "Cabo das Tormentas" (a more accurate description).  John II of Portugal wanted a more optimistic name since he was recruiting sailors to venture beyond it and reach India, so its new name was an act of propaganda.

More Cape of Good Hope

3 views of the Cape:  With Barney and Lindsay, then looking down from Cape Point, the peak where the old lighthouse stands.  Bottom is Protea blooming.

Cape Town 3--The Cape of Good Hope (Oct. 16)

Yesterday I rented a 5-passenger car and drove Lindsay, his son Owen, Owen’s wife Rhian, and Barney Ford (VP of InterVarsity) down the Cape of Good Hope. I thought it a little bit strange, considering that they drive on the left side of the road here, that with 3 Brits in the car I would be appointed driver... it got a little stranger when I went to pick up Barney and Alec Hill, president of InterVarsity, was with him and hoping to come along. He climbed into the car with a big smile... and I had to kick him out. There was just no room! He assures me my job will still be there when I return from sabbatical, however.
It was a beautiful drive, reminding me in places of Big Sur in California, but much craggier. And I don’t remember ever having the road blocked by troops of baboons in California, which happened here twice. We also saw whales, seals, penguins, rock hyrax (related to rabbits but looks like a woodchuck), ostriches and some species of large antelope like creature I have yet to identify. There were also spectacular flowers, particularly different types of Protea. It is commonly thought that the Cape of Good Hope is the southernmost tip of Africa, but that is not true—it is the southwest tip, and from it you can see the southernmost point. It has always been considered the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, though. I’m breaking it up into two posts so there can be more pictures.

Above left is the beach at Hout Bay, a "big wave" surfing area.  Then Owen and baboons (you should hopefully know which is which).

Cape Town 2 (October 13)

Not a lot has happened over the last 10 days—work at the office, either grab a quick dinner on the way home or microwave something in my room, then read a little, try and catch up on the news (very slow internet), rinse and repeat. Saturday I did my laundry, a major undertaking. There are very few coin-operated laundromats, at least in the Bowl, and at hotel prices (the per-item cost is higher than buying new on some things) it would have been about $100 for my 2 loads. I found one small laundromat about a half-mile away, but almost all the machines were reserved for their contract business (about $1 per kilo) so I had to wait for machines. I bought soap at the grocery store, but had trouble finding it for machines. Most of what they carried was for hand-washing.
Anyway, Lindsay arrived yesterday so things are getting busy. My official job for the Cape Town 2010 Congress on World Evangelization is as his assistant—he is the International Director, one of the triumvirate running the Congress along with the Congress director and the Executive Director of the Lausanne Committee. It took us several hours just to go through his schedule, and things started changing before we were done! I am however looking forward to this Friday, when we have a day to be tourists...
Pictures are a poor picture of our section of the office with the backs of Scott and Holli, and looking from the roof of my hotel across the Company Garden at Lion’s Head.

Cape Town 1 (October 3)

Everyone has always told me Cape Town is a beautiful place, and I have to admit it is an amazing blending of mountain, sea, and city—although there are still large areas of township shantytowns that have not healed from Apartheid. The Cape Town 2010 office—and both hotels I am staying in during my month here—are all in what is known as the Cape Town Bowl. This is the site of the original Dutch settlement, surrounded on three sides by Table Mountain and two of its spurs , the most famous one called the Lion’s Head. The fourth side was Table Bay and the South Atlantic ocean, but over time the water has been pushed back by land fill and the Bowl is now 2/3 of a mile from the bay. The convention center where the congress will be held is in this filled area, as is the primary tourist area which is built on Victorian era docks along the water. Most of this is very new built during the preparation for the World Cup.
My first hotel is on the old main street. Entirely by accident I chose one that sits right by the National Legislature, the cathedral (where Desmond Tutu was archbishop), the mother church of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (where Andrew Murray pastored), and the Company Garden, which was originally where fruit and vegetables for the ships was grown but which is now a beautiful park. On a darker note, the Slave Lodge which is now the museum of the history of Apartheid is also next to the hotel. It’s about an eight-block walk to the office, where more and more of us are working as the Congress nears. I generally take off between 7 pm to 8:30 pm, and I know some folks are staying several hours beyond that. Although walking around any part of the town except the tourist area on the water is not recommended after dark, I stay on the lighted streets and there are lots of security guards—pretty much on every corner.
Today Scott and Holli Rebney (Scott is the Director of Administration and the person giving me most of my tasks until Lindsay Brown arrives) borrowed a car and after church we drove down to Simon’s Town to see the penguin colony. These are African penguins, the one species that does not live in the Antarctic. They are nick-named “jackass penguins” because they sound just like a donkey when irritated—loud, too. You can get within a couple of feet of them, and they pretty much ignore you. Humans have not been their predators, so they have gotten used to us.
The pictures are of Table Mountain and the “Tablecloth”— a cloud that pours over the mountain almost every afternoon—as seen from the office windows, and also from the Company Garden. And of course penguins. The black spot behind those in the foreground is a mob of several thousand others in the background!

Fantasy Football Draft in Caracas?

   Made it in safely and mostly uneventfully—if you don't count almost missing my connection in Miami because the Jetway on my arriving flight broke...
Caracas' airport is located right on the ocean, while the city is inland on the other side of a mountain range.  As we headed up and over we came to a massive traffic jam, which turned out to be caused by a tropical downpour on the Caracas side of the mountain.   We came out of the tunnel on that side to apparently not unusual minor flash flooding, at one point driving through one with water splashing up the window of the car on my side!  Unfortunately my camera was in the trunk--it would have been a wild picture.  It took about 2 hours to make it to Rick and Kathrin's apartment—and we get to make the trip back at 5 AM tomorrow to fly to the jungle.  Right now I am sitting in the apartment of another embassy staffer with a total of 10 folks including Marines who are drafting for the Embassy fantasy football league.  I am discovering my knowledge of current NFL players is woefully inadequate for this pastime.  
   I can't take my computer—or much else—on the trip this weekend—so I wanted to post my safe arrival.  Weather will still determine what we see over the next couple of days, but what seemed like a longshot opportunity a few weeks ago has come a lot closer, so I am still hoping.
   The embassy here is on a hill overlooking the city, and most of the Americans who work here are also high up.  Below is a picture from the apartment where we are right now.  I'm sure there will be daylight views in a few days.  One of the adjustments to the tropics is that there is day and night and very little twilight in-between.  Dawn and dusk are a function of higher latitudes.

I'm stoked, but...

Well, it looks like I’ll get a shot at the falls—if the weather permits. I may only see clouds. I had that happen with Mt. McKinley, which I never saw in 6 weeks in Alaska as a boy, and thought when I went back 2 years ago I would miss it again, only to have it pop through the clouds on my last day. I hope it will happen again. I started my malaria meds yesterday (a couple days late, as I originally thought I would be going to the falls next Tuesday, now it is Friday and Saturday) and one of the side effects, insomnia, seemed very present. Since I have problems with that anyway, maybe it is just excitement.
Today I have to go get some supplies for my hosts—cheddar cheese and shampoo. I’m also charging my 5 lb. CPAP back-up battery. It may finally get some use.
In a spirit of optimism and of an Ebenezer, here is a pic of Mt. McKinley as it comes out of the clouds. I hope in a few days to have another one of Angel Falls like in the post below!

Preparations

The last few days have been all about preparing... preparing to preach today (combining the things I have been doing on this sabbatical with Matt. 7:1-12). In trying to cover too much I found myself having to leave some things out, then second-guessing the things I didn’t say. It will probably get posted sometime this week here. I’ve also been preparing for my next trip... Thursday I fly to Venezuela. I’m visiting Rick Yoneoka, a student-leader in the Tufts fellowship from 20 years ago who now is a US diplomat. This will be the 4th country I’ve visited him in... I’m a little nervous, because it closer to the equator than my sweat-glands like. The sun is strong enough that long sleeves and hats are encouraged, and Venezuelans generally don’t wear shorts either. I’ve had to top up my immunizations, and on the possibility I might be out in the jungle I have to start taking anti-malaria meds as well.
Why might I be in the jungle? Well, I would really like to see Angel Falls. It is something on my life-list (put there before seeing all the Vermeers in the world) and watching the movie Up which features it (though it is called “Paradise Falls”) reinforced that desire. The problem is that to see it from the ground requires flying in a small plane, than traveling in a canoe-like boat, than hiking. And August is the rainiest and cloudiest month of the year there, so you have no guarantees it can be seen. There is also nowhere to plug in my cpap machine in a hammock in the jungle. So there are some significant hurdles—but when will I be in Venezuela again?
   Here is a link to the preview of Up—the beginning shows their waterfall which is based on Angel Falls...When the video starts you will need to click on it to see the whole picture.  Then there is an actual video.  Without scale it is not as impressive--it is over 3,000 feet high!  (Niagara is only 167 feet). The clouds in the middle of the picture are real clouds, over a thousand feet in the air.

The Greatly Awakened TUESDAY, JULY 27

   So, I am on my way back to Boston... I'll get back about 8:30 pm, not bad since my flight leaves at 6 pm.  I spent a good part of yesterday (Monday July 26) at the British Library.  In addition to the normal incredible displays (the Magna Carta, a page in Shakespeare's handwriting, the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus, lots of other great stuff) they were having a special exhibit of old maps, especially maps as artwork.  As you can figure, I just eat that stuff up...
    In the afternoon I set out for Clapham on another mini-pilgrimage in pursuit of one of my heroes of the faith.  During the Great Awakening one of the things that happened was the awakening of a desire in the evangelized members of the British upper classes to see an increase of justice and righteousness in their culture.  A group of them gathered around Holy Trinity Church  Clapham Common in the village of Clapham (now a part of urban London).  Their most famous member was William Wilberforce (subject of the movie Amazing Grace) and though they are best known for working to end slavery in the British Empire, they also played a role in ending some of the worst abuses in child labor and prisons and other areas.
   When I found the church the stone plaque on the outside was damaged, and I wondered if the neighborhood was now so bad that people were shooting at it.  Later I had a tour from the church sexton and he explained that a bomb exploded next to the church during the London Blitz of 1940 and the damage had been left as a reminder of that terrible time.  One of the windows that was blown out was replaced with one honoring Wilberforce as well.

   This morning I took my suitcase and backpack and before heading to the airport went looking for John Wesley's (founder of Methodism and one of the 3 main leaders of the Great Awakening) house and chapel, which was about a mile from my dorm lodgings.  While walking down a main street I noticed a street market down one of the side streets, and detoured to check it out.  After having walked off my intended route I then turned to see if I could just cut directly toward my destination walking parallel to my original route.  The street I was on ended at a stone-and-wrought-iron fence, and passing through a gateway I found myself in an old graveyard.  As I started looking around I discovered I was in the old Bunhill Fields, a cemetery that had its origins in the hauling of bones from the then full St. Paul's charnel house in 1549 that created a high point on what were then open fields outside the city (a Bone-hill).  And I also spotted some very well-known names on some of the tombs:  Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe; poet William Blake; John Bunyon, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress; and Isaac Watts, prolific hymnwriter whose works include Joy to the World, Oh God Our Help in Ages Past, and When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.  This was definitely one of the surprises I had hoped God would give me on my travels!

   Continuing on out of the graveyard I came to John Wesley's home and chapel—and also grave.  Once again I got a personal tour; I think the number of folks who come into these historic  but unspectacular churches is low enough that the staff are delighted to share them.  There was also a sense of symmetry—my friend Rob John is pastor of Old South Church in Newburyport, MA where Wesley's counterpart in the Great Awakening, George Whitfield, preached and is buried.  Rob gave me and MIT GCF student leaders a similar tour last August.
  Below:  Bunyan's tomb, Wesley's pulpit and house.

Canterbury Tales SUNDAY, JULY 25

    I was a little hamstrung this morning by both lack of internet access and the fact that all the local Underground lines were shut down for construction.  So I wanted to go to church at All Souls Langham Place (the church that John Stott was rector of for many years, sort of the Park Street Church of London—or First Pres. Berkeley or University Pres. Seattle for you West Coasters) but getting directions around the subway shutdown without internet took too long.  Ironically, when I finally figured it out it was fairly simple, as I was not too far away—but I didn't know it until too late.  So instead I put on my Chaucer imitation and headed to Canterbury for Evensong.  I arrived a little late (with the Underground out it took an hour-and-a-half to get to the train station, and then more than an hour on the train) so I could not sit in the choir, but even in the nave the music was incredible.
   I realize I need to explain a bit about Medieval church architecture here.  Cathedrals and other large churches were always based on the shape of a cross, with long piece running east-west, and the high altar at the east end (toward Jerusalem, the sunrise, etc).  The two side arms, called 'transcepts' were often separate chapels, and there were also other chapels opening off the long axis dedicated to either saints or donors or local ruling families.  At some point on the long axis there would be a barrier or screen, usually a highly ornamented and sculptured wall about 10 feet high.  This blocked access and sight to the altar and under the Medieval form of Catholicism only priests, deacons, acolytes, and choir were allowed past.  The part of the cathedral corresponding to the top part of a cross was usually divided into the 'choir' and the 'sanctuary', the choir was originally the stall or seats for clergy, but since that included singers, the name became associated with them as well.  The part of the building where ordinary people could come, usually part or all of the lower piece of the cross, was called the 'nave'.

   In many Protestant traditions the screens have been torn down, so there is no barrier between the congregation and altar.  Some remove the altar, using only a Communion table, but will put up a railing symbolizing the fact that Communion is not open to everyone, but just to baptized believers.  In Anglican cathedrals like Canterbury the screen is still there, but ordinary worshippers are permitted past it—and in these days of low attendance often the whole congregation can fit on the east side of the screen.  In the case of this service, though, you could not pass if you were late because you would have to go down the middle of the service.
   The thing about cathedrals, though, is they generally have amazing acoustics, and the screen does not block the sound—so although I could not see what was happening, I could listen to the glorious music, from organ, choir, and congregation.  After the service I took some video of the cathedral, walking up and through the screen, then set it to a few seconds of the choir and the organ at the beginning of a hymn:

   After the service I wondered around the cathedral and grounds.  Especially eye-opening are all the decorated graves and shrines to kings and former archbishops.  Regretfully, the most famous of these is long gone, destroyed by Henry VIII when he pulled the Church of England out of the Roman Catholic Church.  It was the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, which the pilgrims of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were making their pilgrimage to.

   This is a story I've been fascinated with since reading (it was an assignment) Jean Anouilh's play Becket as a high school student and young Christian.  Becket is the man who will do anything for his king (Henry II), whether it is partying with him, chasing women, or helping him defy the demands of the church.  In the play Becket tells a sleeping Henry that he can do this because he has no honor, or at least has not found it.  The first act concludes with him asking the question "Where is Becket's honor?"
   Then Henry gets a chance to nominate the Archbishop of Canterbury.  He thinks it a stroke of genius to choose his friend (even though he is not even a priest), since that should end all his problems with the church.  Becket tries to talk him out of it, but Henry persists,  only to be confounded when Becket leads the church into even stronger opposition.  He asks his old friend why and how this could be:

Becket:  It's simply that I felt myself entrusted with something for the first time, in that empty cathedral somewhere in France, where you ordered me to take up this burden.  I was a man without honor.  And suddenly I had one:  the one that I would never have imagined could become mine—the honor of God.  An incomprehensible and fragile honor, like a persecuted child king...
Henry:  Have you begun to love God?
Becket: (Pauses, then gently)  I've begun to love the honor of God.


   It is a fascinating story, and the play was made into a pretty good movie (rent it!) as well.  (TS Elliot wrote another play from this called Murder in the Cathedral that looks at the faith issues more closely)  But Anoulh raises a big question—whose honor do I care about?  Is honor a concept we no longer worry about at all?
   Anyway, Henry II utters his famous line in front of some of his knights:  "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and four of them travel to Canterbury and kill Thomas as he is praying on the steps of the altar.  As a consequence of this martyrdom the pope makes Becket a saint and Henry II is forced to undergo penance (he is whipped!) at the shrine, which became one of the main destinations for pilgrims all over Europe.  Upon pulling the English Church away from Rome Henry VIII took revenge for his ancestor's humiliation and destroyed the shrine and even the bones.

   Here is one of the existing tombs in the cathedral—this one of an archbishop.  Click on the second picture so you can read the sign...

Parting Shots... SATURDAY, JULY 24

   *Sigh* All good things must come to an end, at least in this world—although as my favorite C.S. Lewis book, The Great Divorce postulates, things are going to be different...  After a last big English breakfast this morning we packed and started our good-byes.  I made some new friends this week, and hope to keep those friendships up.  One of the pastors participating for the second time is actually the husband of an old friend who was on staff at my home church in California, so it is likely I will be able to connect with him on visits to my family back there.  The others will take more deliberate effort.
   Chris and Cynthia (the couple whose marriage I performed at the beginning of my sabbatical) came down from Cambridge this afternoon and were able to tour the Kilns, then we spent the afternoon walking around Oxford and rode the train into London together.  They headed back up to Cambridge, where Chris is in a summer program, and I headed to my spartan lodging in the dorms of the City University of London.  The rooms are basic and the shared bathrooms really basic, but they are clean and extremely inexpensive.  No internet, so my postings will be delayed even longer...
  Here are some last photos from the Kilns and Oxford that did not make it in...
  Above is one of the Narnia windows in Lewis' local parish church.  The first below is one of out pub meals; standing at the back in the white shirt is Chesterton scholar Aidan Mackey.  Clockwise from him is Kim Gilnett (CS Lewis Foundation's expert on Lewis and Oxford), one of the neighbors from Lewis Close,  Janice Thompson (puppeteer), Nancy Baker (retired schoolteacher), Rev. Eleanor Kraner, Dr. Den Conneen (emergency room doctor), Rev. Len Tang, and John Allums (lawyer working for ICE).
Next is of the building at Magdalen where Lewis' rooms were—on the 2nd floor in the middle of the picture, just above the ivy.  Below that is a doorway at Magdalen, with the shield of the college on the left and the red rose of the House of Lancaster on the right (the college was founded during the Wars of the Roses, when Lancaster was in power).  Next is more deer at Magdalen; then the statue of Aslan in the living room of the Kilns.  The plaque in my room at the Kilns, then Chris taking a picture of Cynthia in Oxford (note the street name).  Last is me writing at the roll-top desk in my room.  Lewis kept a roll-top at the same spot, although this is not the original...

  

Banquet at the Kilns FRIDAY, JULY 23

   The Wade Center at Wheaton College is an institute founded to study seven authors, four of them members of the Inklings—C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield (Lewis's close friend and solicitor, the Narnia books were originally written for his daughter Lucy), and Charles Williams.  Two of the others were from the previous generation and heavily influenced Lewis and his friends—George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton.  The last is Dorothy Sayers, who was at Oxford contemporary with the Inklings and a friend of Lewis and others, but, she was a woman... and it was a different time.  It was unthinkable that a lone woman would meet with a group of men in the back room of a pub even for a reading group.
   Now what does this have to do with a banquet at the Kilns?  Well, the Wade Center's highest honor is the Clyde S. Kilby Lifetime Achievement Award.  It is given to those who have had enormous impact on the study of one of the seven authors listed above, and in the 45 years of the Wade Center's history it has only been given to three people—and two of them joined us for the banquet tonight—Walter Hooper and Aidan Mackey.  Aidan, who is the scholar of all things Chesterton, actually joined us for several days this week, so Walter Hooper was the guest of honor at our end-of-the-week celebration.  Much of the night was spent listening to him tell Lewis stories (one of which I videoed if anyone is interested).  Hooper became Lewis' secretary at the very end of his life, when ill health made it difficult to keep up his letter writing and other work.  After Lewis died Hooper stayed on as the literary executor of his estate and much of the credit for Lewis' ongoing popularity is because of his work keeping the titles in print.  The C.S. Lewis Foundation staff did a terrific job of catering the meal (again, I loved the two courses after dessert) and it was a great way to finish the week.  Hooper's insight into Lewis' last, controversial book—A Grief Observed—was particularly fascinating and 180 degrees different from conventional wisdom.  And as we ate and talked and munched and talked and sipped and talked, hanging over the table was the original Eagle and Child sign which Hooper had rescued from the trash pile.

Churchill and Blenheim Palace FRIDAY JULY 23

   Blenheim Palace reminds me a lot of Hearst Castle, on the California coast.  Both are monuments to conspicuous consumption, which dwarf the efforts of most of today's plutocrats.  In today's dollars Hearst Castle cost over 500 million dollars to build and furnish;  Blenheim over 500 million pounds, or 1.5 times as much!  Even more remarkable, more than half the cost of Blenheim was a gift from Queen Anne to the first Duke of Marlborough in gratitude for his victory over the army of Louis XIV at Blenheim in southern Germany in 1704.  In a sense Blenheim Palace and its gardens were the British reprisal to the Versailles of Louis XIV.
   Most of the dukes since the first have struggled to maintain the palace and its associated lifestyle.  One sold over a hundred paintings which would have a current value averaging 1.5 million dollars apiece.  Another, the uncle of the palace's most famous resident, married a Vanderbuilt... he needed her family money and the families of the Guilded Age all longed to marry their daughters to dukes and earls and princes (he was all 3).
   That most famous resident was born in the bed below in 1874, and I was ticked when he lost Time magazines competition for most influential person of the 20th century, finishing second to Albert Einstein.  I'm talking about Winston Churchill, of course.  He was born in the palace and spent much of his childhood there with his grandmother, the duchess of that time.  He continued to love it and upon his death chose to be buried in the local churchyard rather than in Westminster Abbey.  Despite his flaws, I have always been fascinated by his towering impact on modern history (not just WW2) and that is why I was eager to see this place.
   I have to admit I was especially impressed by the library, the second longest non-commercial room in England.  Unrecovering bibliophile that I am I have long harbored the blatantly materialistic desire to have a house with a traditional wood-paneled library.  Even a small one, unlike this one which could have contained the Wright Brothers' first flight...
   Today's Duke doesn't have the money problems of his ancestors—the palace more than pays for itself.  As a World Heritage site it attracts tourists by the busload, and adult admission is almost $30.  Today they had a special deal where admission included a card good for a year.  I'd love to get back since an hour-and-a-half barely started us on the interior, let alone the gardens.  Since I probably won't be back, though, the card makes an attractive souvenir :)  The other picture below is the private chapel by the way... I'd love to show the library but most of the interior is off-limits to photography.

The Inklings FRIDAY, JULY 23

   As I was trying to explain to Mr. Beaver, the Inklings were a group of friends who met regularly for literary purposes.  For many years they met at the Eagle and Child (affectionately called the Bird&Baby because of its sign, the original of which Walter Hooper preserved and which now hangs in the library at the Kilns) but when a remodel did away with their private room near the end of his life Lewis led the group across the street to the Lamb and Flag (where incidentally Thomas Hardy did much of his writing, including Jude the Obscure).  Some of the works that had their first reading at the Bird&Baby were Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet.

   The pub is now the place that most C.S. Lewis lovers visit when in Oxford, and luckily it has decent food, especially pies (not dessert pies).  I sampled several at lunch.  A colleague who works at the international hq of IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, of which InterVarsity is the US member organization) actually was proposed to here...