Caveat Lector!

Welcome to my very first blog.

What:
I'm off to the United Kingdom for three weeks for an Epiphanytide study term offered through Samford University. Malacy, being six months with child (hooray, it's a girl), is unfortunately (but understandably) staying behind with Gus. I do, however, have her blessing and wishes for a safe and joyous journey. I will miss both of them.

My course:
The Rise of the Modern British State. Of course as some of you might suspect, I'm most interested in the interplay between the Established Church, the Church of England, and the Modern British State in general. Specifically, I want to examine the relationship over the last four hundred years, beginning with the so called "Glorious Revolution." I will do this primarily by visiting actual spaces that serve (and served) as visual reinforcements to the prevailing culture. I'm utterly convinced that no matter how hard we resist, spaces, especially the sacred variety that aim to provide a conduit for interacting with the numinous, shape our world and give us clues that enable us to make-meaning of the world in which we dwell: they are living symbols that carry with them resonances that deeply affect us. Naturally, then, our ancestors created and manipulated spaces too, so I want to understand the way in which British "Church and State" spaces fostered this dynamic encounter.

Just so you know, I have not decided if I can, as of a matter of Christian conscience, support the separation of church and state (many Anglican provinces are state-sponsored), so this course will surely provide me with at least enough data to make an informed decision. I recognize that separation of church and state is, and will most likely always be, a hot button issue, especially for some American Protestants. To be sure, I am fearful of the increased secularization in the EU and its impact in our own Christian legacy in North America. I was signally pleased to see the recent comments from His All Holiness, Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodoxy, Christianity's second largest communion. He said, "We wish to recall here [in Europe] that the identity of Europe is primarily Christian and cannot be considered without this legacy." Good for him! So too, I want to re-discover, if you will, Britain's Christian heritage and its subsequent decline since the late seventeenth century. In short, what happened? Check back, and maybe I'll have an answer in a fortnight.

A Pilgrimage Too:
On the weekend of the 15th, I'll be off to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, the official Anglican shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The story begins in 1061 in Walsingham, a tiny village in Norfolk, where Lady Richeldis, a wealthy Marian devotee with a profound faith in God who prayed fervently and was widely known for her acts of piety and Christian charity, was visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary three times. Lady Richeldis was taken up in a vision to see the Holy House, the site of the Annunciation from Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin, and then miraculously given the materials to construct a replica in Walsingham. The site became an immensely important place of pilgrimage; even at the time of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Shrine at Walsingham was the most frequented religious shrine outside of the Holy Land! Eventually, the property was turned over to Augustinian canons and a priory was constructed around the Holy House, which attracted thousands of annual pilgrims including every English monarch from Henry III to Henry the VIII, who in a grave mistake, dismantled the priory for its assets. Thanks be to God, the twentieth century witnessed the resurgence of Catholic Anglicanism and thus the re-opening of the Shrine. Today, thousands of pilgrims once again flock to Walsingham seeking the intercessions of Our Lady and to simply be still and sit at the feet of our Lord as He might have lived in Nazareth as a young boy. The Shrine does not technically accommodate pilgrims in January, but thanks to Bishop Iker's (my Bishop) relationship with Bishop Urwin, the custodian of the Shrine, they are inviting me to spend one night in the College! From their website, here's a good explanation of why someone would make a pilgrimage to Walsingham:
The particular emphasis of pilgrimage to Walsingham is concerned with the Incarnation of Jesus - this is the belief central to the Christian faith that at a definite date in history, in a certain place, God himself was born of a woman into a human family.
The Holy House is a reminder of Nazareth, of the house in which Jesus lived as a child and young man. By visiting it and praying within it, pilgrims believe that they are identifying with those influences which were formative as Jesus grew through childhood to adolescence and adulthood.
I could certainly benefit from "identifying with those influences." Do keep me in your prayers, as I will pray for you too. If there's something special by way of intercessions you'd like for me to offer at the Shrine, just e-mail it to me at charlestonwilson@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to confidentially say a prayer for you or someone you love.

On the Lighter Side:
I'll be in London, so, heck yes, I'll find time for fun. Come on, fun is a big part of any journey, right? I'll post about my sightseeing and, oh yes...my meals! Thanks to the ubiquity of Claret (the British term for Bordeaux wine) in London, I think I'll be just fine! So check back, and see what I'm doing, who I'm meeting, and what I'm eating!

Pax vobiscum,

CDW