Church in Kendal

...is at the Town Hall, although the branch president says that they are hoping for a building of their own soon. We don't really have a place to stay between church and our evening fireside, so we often walk up the hill to ruined Parr Castle. Being outdoors doesn't keep us from our Sunday afternoon naps.

Gardens at Brantwood

Brantwood

Journal, 2007: Everybody says they're in love with Ruskin. He was a sweetie, with the courage of his convictions and a dire mental illness. Why do the very good people so often have such painful private lives? Or they're unhappy in love or their chldren hate them or whatever. I wonder if depression has something to do with both goodness and a painful private life. We are only good if we have a keen sense of guilt? I don't believe that--in general I think happy people are more kind than unhappy people.

Maybe being good leads to an awareness of what needs to be different. If one is self-aware enough to be good and do good, and aware enough of others, perhaps then one is also aware of how limited one's own efforts are. As a person who is not often guilt-ridden and not especially good, but who is related to a lot of guilty, good people--I hope they're not doomed to a bitter old age.

Ruskin Museum and Grave, Conniston

Rush write assignment--"defend something" (2007):

Talking with Mike H., I remembered again (with delight) that in Britain, socialism is not a dirty word--in fact, it's a patriotic attitude. Ruskin's ideals of the duty we have to take care of each other and improve the world we leave behind are too often lost or ignored by American First Worlders in the 21st Century. We have more advantages than nearly anyone else who has ever lived on earth, and with those advantages come responsibilities. We're too eager to embrace the Gospel of Wealth, trickle-down economies, or the generally mistaken idea that a rising tide lifts all boats, and forget that improving the lot of our fellow creatures requires smart thoughtful work and resources--including money. We as professed Christians betray our Christian heritage when we look out only for ourselves.

Rydal Mount

We walk from Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's first house, to Rydal Mount, where he lived after he became wealthy and respectable.

Grasmere

Dove Cottage:

Grasmere gingerbread:

Class in the churchyard where Wordsworth is buried:

Helvellyn

The next hike is from Keswick to Grasmere, over Helvellyn, which can be exactly the way it sounds:

Derwentwater

Chris, John and I took the launch (water taxi) out on the lake. I used to view romantic paintings as hopelessly fantastical and improbable until seeing Derwentwater under scudding clouds and afternoon slanted sun. One photo from today, with the hill in shadow and filtered golden light on the trees, looks just like a landscape by one of the most improbable romantic painters. (2003)

Castle Rigg Stone Circle

So why did this happen? Did the stones grow out of the earth like a fairy-ring of toadstools? Did extraterrestrials bring them down on space ships? Did God raise them himself, or herself, or themselves, through the right temporal cortex of prehistoric homo sapiens whose descendents raised the cathedrals at Yorkshire and Salisbury and Winchester?

What is the religious impulse in human beings? I feel it—felt it stronger and more often when I was younger and with greater blood flow to the right temporal lobe. But here on this little knob of land, surrounded by beautiful mountains and walled fields and God’s own country--the wide and clouded sky--religion is still the biggest question. (2005)

Keswick

Youth hostel:

chocolate (the first best sign of civilization):

Keswick Green:

Scafell Pyke

The next big hike, from Wasdale to Keswick, is over the highest mountain in England.