For my dear Methodist brothers and sisters in the Faith...

Our class was walking from the Museam of London down to the Bank of England on Aldersgate Street and something kept nagging at me internally. I just knew my professors had said something about Aldersgate Street. To myself I kept saying, "okay, there is something important that happened on this street....maybe not Charleston...you've seen a ton of 'important' things over the last few weeks...." Then the London fog cleared and I saw it: the site of John Wesley's conversion to evangelicalism at the Moravian Meetinghouse. Later, Wesley's worlds would become often quoted:

In the evening I went unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine and saved me from the law of sin and death..

Enjoy!

On the Lighter (quickly turning heavier) Side...

As most of you know, food is in my blood - literally, historically with my father's side of the family, and figuratively when you ponder my early adult life. Though I sold Jinsei, I still manage to stay in the industry through consulting and purveying fine wine. So being in London, where restaurants have made such great strides in the last decade, is a great blessing.

Tonight that blessing may have reached its apex. A friend in Birmingham, Frank Stitt, sent me to the U.K. with a list of places he'd recently searched out and enjoyed. I've basically been following his list, and tonight I chose the Ledbury up round Kennsington Palace.

So what was my dinner? Okay, hold on to your treadmills -

Raviolo of Potato and Egg Yolk with Black Truffle, Onions Cooked in White Beer and Grated Vacherin

Snails in Mousseline of Herbs with White Carrots, Cepe Marmalade, and Roasted Oxtail Jus

Shoulder of Pyrenean Milk Fed Lamb with Baked Jerusalem Artichokes and Winter Savory Milk

Passionfruit Souffle

Not only was the cuisine superb, but the hospitality was first rate. I glanced at one other dessert, and the manager brought it to me free of charge just to compare with the souffle!

Now I know my meal was world class - far beyond what I deserve or need - so just imagine with me for a moment that heavenly feast, the one where the lions and lambs will join one another, set aside their pasts, and join all the Saints in eternally praising our Heavenly Father?

Cheers!

So this has to be a famous church....right?

Guess again, and think deeply why the British government would choose this style for the Royal Courts of Justice headquarters in London? Specifically, why would a nation want to use an architecture most commonly associated with the Church? Couldn't they just pick some random post-modern brutalist form of architecture instead, or is there something more here? What sort of ultimate encounter were the designers envisioning in this sacred space?

Our class heard two appellate arguments: one surrounding the release of an African national accused of supporting Mugabe and the other case was an appeal from a mentally challenged woman who was convicted of murdering her infant by strangulation.

Not exactly a really uplifting morning, but no matter how empty the glass may seem we must remember our Lord's words, "Come unto me all ye who travail and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." May He comfort all those who face trials, whether they're guilty or not, for He came into the world to save sinners - all of them!

Pax to all of you,

Search Your Own Backyard!

When visiting foreign cities - as a rule of thumb - I always vow to explore my own backyard, so to speak. Nine out of ten times I know my surroundings quite well; however, this evening on my way to dinner I was completely taken aback. Guess whose parish is less than fifty yards from my own window? If I said the church of the famed American poet extraordinaire and expat-turned-British-Anglo-Catholic, T.S. Eliot, was just down the way - would you believe me? Please do, for Eliot was a devoted attendee at St. Stephens Gloucester Road in Southwest London. He even served as a faithful vestryman of St. Stephens for twenty-five years.

Knowing his way with words, the vestry asked Eliot once to deliver a panegyric that would later appear in their parish newsletter in the fifties. Here's what he said (he's offering every priest's dream description isn't he!?):

...As a preacher, too, he was very effective: his sermons had a beginning, a middle and an end. They always gave the impression of having been thought out for that particular congregation and for that particular occasion; and one always had the feeling of being the man in the pew—the man or woman——to whom he was talking. With devotion to Catholic doctrine and Catholic observance, he combined true evangelical zeal.

Though Eliot is certainly best known for other works, anytime I feel like I can't explain my feelings I quickly recall The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock, which always makes the Wilson household smile!

_______________________________________

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats
5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …
10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.


In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.


The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.


And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
25
There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;
30
Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.


In the room the women come and go
35
Talking of Michelangelo.


And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]

Do I dare
45
Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.


For I have known them all already, known them all:—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?


And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
60
And how should I presume?


And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

It is perfume from a dress
65
That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin? . . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…


I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
75
Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
85
And in short, I was afraid.


And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,
90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.”


And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,
100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
105
Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

“That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . .
110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,
115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.


I grow old … I grow old …
120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.


Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.


I do not think that they will sing to me.
125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.


We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Britain's Best Bookstore: Blackwell's Oxford

Don't let the facade fool you; downstairs has literally miles of shelving. The theology section is first rate! Malacy told me not to come home with more books, so I've got some explaining to do.

Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford

Perhaps the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, is the most interesting parish in all of the Anglican Communion? You ask how is it more important than St. Paul's and the Abbey down in London? Ponder these facts and reconsider its place in the annals of Christian history.

1. Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer were all tried here before Mary Tudor had them burned at the stake.

2. John Wesley, in his early days as a priest, preached some of his most stirring sermons here. 'Almost Christian' was so stirring that he was never invited back!

3. John Henry Newman was vicar here in 1828.

4. From its present pulpit, John Keble preached his famous 'Assize Sermon,' which is now regarded as the official beginning of the Oxford Movement. Thank God for Keble and his witness to the Church. It is the zeal of the likes of Keble and Newman that Anglo-Catholicism must reclaim and propagate in an increasingly skeptical post-modern world.

'Sign of the Cross' by J.H. Newman

Whilst in Oxford today, I came across this gem of a poem by John Henry Newman. Is surely makes one ponder what can happen when making the Sign of the Cross!

WHENE’ER across this sinful flesh of mine I draw the Holy Sign, All good thoughts stir within me, and renew Their slumbering strength divine;

Till there springs up a courage high and true

To suffer and to do. And who shall say, but hateful spirits around, For their brief hour

unbound, Shudder to see, and wail their overthrow?

While on far heathen ground

Some lonely Saint hails the fresh odor, though Its source he cannot know.