Tinturn Abbey

Walking along the Wye River Valley:

We spent some time at Tinturn Abbey–again, the only group there. The abbey and nearby cathedral were ruined during the dissolution, when Henry VIII took over the Catholic Church's property and gave the abbeys and convents to his favored nobles. (I decided that I also wanted a ruined abbey in my garden, but in moonlight or a thunderstorm, not on a bird-chirping spring afternoon). The Abbey is maybe most famous for the Wordsworth poem about the Wye valley, and nature, and God--the manifesto of the Romantics. John read the group the poem in the abbey kitchen, which is kind of funny, as the poem is about mountains, wind, and clouds, not Gothic ruins, but oh well. [1997]

Glastonbury

The Abbey walls stand broken, abandoned, and forlorn, their monkish inhabitants long gone. Henry’s little snit with the church was perhaps good, ultimately, breaking the grip of the Church on the country and allowing more freedom, but it is sad to think of all those places of devotion and refuge ruined, their inhabitants scattered, their lovely and laboriously crafted stone buildings reduced to garden decorations for royally favored lords. The strongest feeling I get in or about the Anglican churches we visit today, along with the sense of long, formalized tradition and pretty but irrelevant ritual, is a sense of embarrassment about the past. At least the Roman Catholics, through the burning, wars, and persecutions, have maintained their passion and authority. Here it seems that Henry overturned it all. People have to make their separate peace with the tradition and live spiritually passionate lives despite the history. [2003]

Milton Abbey

Over (or through) the Blackthorn Vale,
and out onto the groomed expanse of turf (by Capability Brown),

to the lovely church

to sing in the choir stalls:

Salisbury Cathedral

We had an interesting tour guide for this cathedral. He is obviously a believer, although we didn’t talk directly about religion. He likes the modern window beyond the high alter, dedicated to prisoners of conscience. He showed us the figure of Christ in the window.

I think religion is about 80% help and 20% hindrance to developing a God-centered, spiritual, and good life. Depending on the church and the point in its history, the proportions may change. Some people can be charitable, good, and spiritual without religion, but for me it’s necessary (if only to give a structure to rebel or react against). Prayer is the way to God—the direct call, cry, or search—and without an idea of God or of prayer, how can the act be performed at all? Maybe it can, but less likely. Also in my experience there is a difference between the type of prayer that comes from the heart as a desperate call, and the type of prayer that is a small and comfortable gratitude for blessings and request for protection. Both are excellent for different reasons, but the second increases mindfulness and awareness, while the first seems to me to be the only way to directly communicate.

And then Jesus makes his extravagant promise of everlasting life, and you just have to decide whether or how much to believe of that. I sometimes believe in the very wavery and watered-down “well I’ll act like I believe because whatever is, is, and whatever I believe doesn’t change that, I might as well get along with my believing family and culture.” Sometimes, I believe like this: “I choose to believe because it’s good, Jesus is the best there is, I need a leader, and true or not, I want to believe.” [2003]

Even with the modern city surrounding it, the first sight of that tower is surreal, unearthly. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like in medieval times to see it as you come over the brow of the land. The Chapter House is bright, airy, communal, irrepressible, with its medieval faces and Bible stories around the ring. [2005]

Church at Newport, IOW

For each of the wards or branches we visit, we present a fireside of music and talks.

Winchester Cathedral

We stopped at Winchester to visit the cathedral. It was the day before Easter, and the parish ladies were busy arranging the flowers. John talked with two deaf and gravel-voiced old English gentlewomen who bring a new arrangement to the tomb of Jane Austen every fortnight. They decried the current batch of Austen movies. "They kissed like this--'mmmmumph!'" said one. "Nobody kissed like that in Jane Austen's time! 'Mmmmmumph! Mmmmmumph!' Ridiculous! Why my mother didn't know until her wedding night that babies didn't spring from the navel!" "It's a wonder you were born at all!" cried the other. (1997)

The Austen monument: On the roof:The Gormley statue in the crypt:

The most dramatic moment in the cathedral tour was the turn into the north transept from the gothic style to the Romanesque. Heavy round pillars and arches mount higher and higher, up as far as the perpendicular walls (but of course they didn’t hold up, but tumbled down and were redone in the Gothic mode). God is there, in those arches. God was intended to be there, if he is not now. (2003)

11th C St. Nicholas baptismal font:

Cathedral nave:

There was a fair and Morris dancing competition after our tour of the cathedral (2007):

Church at Warwick

The first time we went to church in Warwick, the ward met above a chemist's shop, just half a block or so from our hotel, the Warwick Arms.

Now they have a beautiful little chapel, not that much farther from the hotel, and we meet for church and have our fireside there.

Church on Our Own

It's too far to find a way back to Glasgow for church on Sunday, so this is one of the few places we meet on our own, without visiting a formal ward or branch. We meet in the commons if it rains,

although you can still take a Sunday walk outside on a drizzly Sunday afternoon.
If it's sunny and warm, we meet out in the woods. Rowardennan hillside (2007):

Rose and Jordan are both talking about the Atonement. I still don't understand it. Or maybe I don't or can't accept it. The world, humankind--I--need healing. Maybe he (Jesus) is saying--don't suffer, let go the guilt, be happy. Repenting is required too--changing what I do when I do harm. It's something I need daily, as a process of life, rather than as one big event at the last, daily giving him my burdens, being grateful, thinking of him, following him. The muck of hurt and imperfection and mistake--just walk away from it, at the end of the day--walk away and leave it alone, don't dwell on it or stay in it or count it up or obsess on it. Just leave it and be happy.