"Jerusalem" at the Proms

With only seven weeks until we head off to the UK again, it's time to finish posting on our previous trips! Here is a musical assignment for the 2009 students:

Every year the BBC hosts a series of popular concerts, which ends in a display of patriotic fervor, always including Parry and Blake's anthem "Jerusalem". It's a deceptively simple choral piece, and none of the previous groups to go to England have really gotten it under their belts. Listen to it here (words below), so that we can sing it on the trip.

In my opinion, "Jerusalem" is the English equivalent of "America the Beautiful."



"Jerusalem" by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire.

I will not cease from Mental Fight
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green & pleasant land.

(As I understand it, the lyrics in the first and second verses refer to the legendary visit to England of Joseph of Arimathea, and presumably the young Christ)

Two Nations Divided By a Common Language

As Twain says.

I ran across this little example yesterday, in Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon:

...'I beg your pardon,' said Miss Twitterton, leading the way into a sitting-room furnished with a suite in green velvet and walnut veneer, and a surprising variety of knick-knacks, 'for receiving you like this - do please sit down, Lady Peter - I do hope you will both forgive my attire - dear me! - but my house is a little lonely and it's only a short time ago since my hen-roost was robbed - and really, the whole thing is so inexplicable, I scarcely know what to think - it really is most upsetting - so peculiar of uncle - what you must be thinking of both of us I cannot imagine.'

'Only that it's a great shame to knock you up at this time of night,' said Peter.

Which in America would mean happy issue in 9 months, but in the UK simply requests admittance. Also, note the single quote marks enclosing speech (rather than the American double).

Hadrian's Wall (1997)

We rode the coach north and west [from Fountains Abbey], up and down hills on little winding roads, until everyone was car-sick. The hills grew higher and the valleys steeper--real forests appeared, not just tree plantations with the conifers planted in straight lines on the hillsides. We drove for miles beside the mounded remains of Hadrian's Wall with the ditch on the north side. Most of the Wall has been plundered to make the little pasture-walls that quilt the countryside, or the scattered shepherds' stone cots, now abandoned. We came to a high place on the Wall, with a wide view north to the Scottish border, and walked among the remains of a Roman fort, built a thousand years before the Abbey.

The little museum featured pictures of what the Commandant's quarters would have looked like, how the men slept in their barracks, the arrangement of the latrine. The museum didn't have many artifacts--a spear head, a Sicilian coin. It had a life-size model of a Roman on guard, wrapped in a wool cloak, eyes squinting against the wind. It was cold while we were there, even though the sun shone. Those soldiers were a long way from home.

In the end the Wall was not overrun but deserted, as the troops were called home to defend the Empire against attack closer to the capital. I suspect that many of the Romans just stayed here and contributed a Mediterranean strain to the mongrel English mix. [Then-three-year-old] Chris ran a half-mile along the top of the wall to where it disappeared in a copse of tall trees, and had to be brought back.

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.

St. Andrew's Cross (the Flag of Scotland)

Doing the Washing Up

We cook and clean up for ourselves for most of our meals on the trip. One day John had the students listen to Frasier reciting Robert Burns and I stayed behind washing up (2005):

While I was in the members' kitchen, a group of school-children came in, I'd guess between 6-10 years old, and enthusiastically began washing dishes in the sink next to me. One young man said he hoped to open a dishwashing shop, at 20p per dish. I said I wished I had such good helpers. A tiny girl said, "But you're from America, aren't you? I wouldn't want to go to America just to wash dishes!"

At which point I had several immediate and somewhat contradictory thoughts:

1. And I don't want to go to Scotland just to wash dishes!
2. Wherever you go, someone has to do the washing up, and the sooner you learn to do it yourself, the better.
3. A great many immigrants to America (and to Scotland) end up washing dishes, or doing similar jobs.

John Lennon (or somebody) said once, "Woman is the n___ of the world." That's one way to see it. But another way is that somebody has to gently encourage the children to do their washing up (both actually and metaphorically): to clean up after themselves, to not leave big messes behind, to treat the world gently, tread lightly, be mindful, take care. Learn to be a custodian, not an exploiter. If that's my job, I'm OK with it.

Rowardennan Youth Hostel

The Rowardennan Youth Hostel is typical of the places we stay in the countryside, although it is spectacular in its situation on the shore of the loch.
Dorms are pretty much the same everywhere, especially after a wet hike.
The big windows in the commons make a perfect place to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon
or attend class:There are always interesting people to meet and talk to: