Old and New Adventures

I didn’t realize just how tired I was until I stopped walking, reading, thinking, writing, and planning for a whole day.  It has been nice to rest.  And by rest I don’t mean sitting still on a chair, but playing Christmas carols on the piano, visiting with my parents, driving around town with my sister, and watching Beauty and the Beast.  I treasure this time with my family because it will be short.  In three weeks time I will be moving to Washington D.C. and beginning work as an intern for Senator Enzi.  I am so thrilled for this next adventure; it is one of the highest honors of my life thus far.  For me, there is nothing else right now that weaves my loves together so tightly: serving the Lord with my mind and serving our country.  If you couldn’t tell already, I have always loved America deeply and I see this as my own humble opportunity to contribute to the preservation of our liberties, justice, and peace.  My prayer is that the Lord would greatly bless our nation and that we be good stewards of this abundant land and enduring, mighty constitution we have inherited. 

But even though I am filled with joy for this new opportunity, I am still remembering Oxford and still have many things to share with you.  Tonight I have stories from my trip to Bath and Stonehenge.  They were such strange places to visit really, but ‘musts’ for a traveler in the UK.  At least, they weren’t at all what I expected, though I don’t really know what I had expected.  It just wasn’t what I saw.  We travelled to Stonehenge first that day.  Upon arrival we were given museum phone things to listen to as we walked around the stones.  I tried to listen to mine but lost interest about 10 minutes in.  I know, I lost most of the educational value by doing that and I tried to be a good visitor by learning something about the stones while there.  But I failed, miserably.  The only thing I remembered was that the stones were positioned equally in a circle so that the sun shone through each open space perfectly for a month, hence the big celebration there during the summer solstice.  However, I was left with a general impression of mystery, which I think can’t be helped when you visit a site as unique as this one.  Ancient stones brought to their spots from many miles away, no records of civilization or transportation, no other remaining structures, the stones in a perfectly symmetrical circle, an altar stone in the middle.  What are you supposed to make of that?  No one has yet figured it out so I relegated my time there to observing the silhouette the stones made against the blue English sky.  It was striking; the stones were much smaller than I expected, but they stood strong and cold.  Stark against the warm and lively English countryside.  They stood there tantalizing me with their mystery that will never be known in full, and whispering the truth that they had seen things that will forever be hidden.  Often I think that if walls could talk they would share thousands of stories.  But I think that if these stones could talk, they still wouldn’t say a word.  There was something austere and poignantly distant about them, my response to which I found was respect.  If Stonehenge wants to keep its secrets, then I won’t intrude its privacy.  After all, some things really are best left unsaid and simply experienced. 

Then we all piled back onto the bus and headed towards Bath.  I really enjoyed this city and wish we could have spent more time there.  But like Stonehenge, this city was strange and not what I expected.  Parts of the city were almost sterile, in that the buildings were all reminiscent of Roman architecture and very austere.  The air there was full of minerals and left you feeling rather oily, which I actually enjoyed for the afternoon.  We spent most of our time at the Roman baths museum.  Before this little day jaunt I never really considered how Rome was civilizing Britain so early on, in the first century.  Somehow for me this seemed to connect England’s history to the rest of the ancient world.  What most impressed me, however, was that the baths were still functioning off of ancient plumbing.  The men and women of Rome left us such a rich legacy of civilization and I was so moved by the fact that I was able to see and touch the fruits of their labor 2000 years later.  I just love the way people make something of the world they are born into, how there is never an end to ingenuity and creativeness. And I’m so glad I had the opportunity for even a brief visit to this city in order that I might gain a deeper appreciation for what the Romans did for Western civilization. 

The further removed I become from Oxford, I realize that some memories become sharper and some are quickly fading, like sand through my fingers.  I’m in a mad writing frenzy right now in the hopes to capture as many of my memories in words as I can before they dim too much.  Next blog: Rowing. 

Cheers J