In my end is my beginning.
England Semester is over! I’ve been in San Diego for almost a week, and it’s really good to be home. I’ve missed the sun, the familiarity, and so many people. The day I got home, I went to plug in my laptop and realized that for the first time, I didn’t need a plug adaptor. My plug fit in the outlet. It was so easy. That’s how being home feels. There’s no need to constantly process what you know against what you’re experiencing around you. There’s a certain friendliness about San Diego…and so much more space to breathe. I had forgotten how much I enjoy being alone.
But I do really miss everyone from EngSem. It’s weird being with the same group of 30 people constantly for 4 months straight, and then all of the sudden going in different directions. And it’s strange knowing that this chapter of my life is over. I’m going to miss getting lost in a city, and being anonymous. Still I know that in every end, there is a new beginning. I’m looking forward to a new semester at Westmont, and to seeing everyone I’ve missed!
I wasn’t so good about blogging for the last month. But here are some pictures! (That’s worth something, right?)
Here’s to new beginnings! (I’m visiting Westmont this weekend!)
Some words of wisdom from Eliot
Every day is the day we should fear from or hope from. One moment
Weighs like another. Only in retrospection, selection,
We say, that was the day. The critical moment
That is always now, and here. Even now, in sordid particulars
The eternal design may appear.
–T.S. Eliot (Murder in the Cathedral)
I have to remind myself that worrying solves nothing. Every day is the day. Every day holds the possibility for anything. And really, when not terrifying, that thought is exciting. It’s all in the perspective.
Revelations in Rostrevor
Ceasefire
By Michael Longley
I
Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears
Achilles took him by the hand and pushed the old king
Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and
Wept with him until their sadness filled the building.
II
Taking Hector’s corpse into his own hands Achilles
Made sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake,
Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry
Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.
III
When they had eaten together, it pleased them both
To stare at each other’s beauty as lovers might,
Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still
And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:
IV
‘I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’
Today we had a private poetry reading with Michael Longley (crazy, I know). He had a calming presence and a huge love for language. He made it clear that poetry is his religion. The process of creating and reading his poems is as far as he comes to any kind of spiritual experience, a self-proclaimed agnostic. His reading was very life giving in a different sense than I expected.
Many people in Ireland are fed-up with formal religion, claiming to be “more spiritual than religious.” And frankly, in light of all that I’m learning about the troubles, I really don’t blame them. Heck, I’ve been growing progressively more fed up with the church and formal religion myself over the past couple of years. But in Ireland, the majority of the problem stems from the conflict between Catholics and Protestants, and the fact that the two denominations have come to be associated with opposing political agendas – Catholics with the movement for freedom from British rule in Ireland, and Protestants with loyalty to the crown. The issue is complicated, but in short, there has been a staggering amount of violence in the years of conflict between the two, with the IRA bombings, and events involving the British Army like Bloody Sunday. It’s frustrating to see how the church’s association with politics has tainted many people’s perception of God. Sadly, I can draw parallels between the church here and the church in the US in that respect, though on a much more subtle level.
But this afternoon after the poetry reading, we went to a Q & A session with a monk at the Benedictine monastery down the road. The conversation we had with him was the most life-giving experience I’ve had on this trip so far. The monks belong to an Order from France, and moved to Northern Ireland years ago during the troubles to pray/work for reconciliation between Irish Catholics and Protestants.
Hearing Brother Thierry talk about his views on denominational differences and corruption in the church was encouraging. He was saying that a lot of the problems in the Catholic Church (he spoke very humbly from the Catholic perspective) have stemmed from its tendency to define itself in opposition with the “other.” When this happens and there comes a moment of crisis, the church ends up stressing non-essential aspects of doctrine in effort to preserve its identity. Minute theological issues (such as the worship of Mary, the logistics of the sacraments, eating and dress) become inordinately important. Such hyper-conservatism becomes an attempt to preserve order and credibility in the midst of controversy (like the troubles in Ireland, or the child abuse scandals in the Catholic church). But this hardening of doctrine is merely an indicator of the church’s unwillingness to acknowledge its own responsibility in such problems. (Usually when someone wants to change others, it’s a sign that they are not ready to change themselves.) This is extremely relevant in the face of what my own family has experienced in certain churches this summer.
Brother Thierry’s main frustration in the ministry of reconciliation has been the fact that people on both sides are open to the idea of healing, but not ready to acknowledge their own responsibility, and the intimate suffering they have been involved in. The crisis has caused the institution of the Catholic Church to harden its doctrine into a rigid set of conservative constructs, which allow people no means of personally dealing with such ridiculous rules and impossible expectations, and only invite them to fall short.
I was most struck by Brother Thierry’s view on all of this brokenness in the church. In his words, “Sometimes the temple is in ruins. But it is still a sacred space.” The church is broken in Ireland. We as people are broken (no matter how much we try to ignore it). But ultimately, “When we feel the pain, we desire the healing.” Recognition of our own brokenness is the only way we can begin the process of making things right again. In the words of GMH, “all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil.”
God’s Grandeur
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.
I cannot exaggerate the impact that this conversation had on me. In a way, it saved my faith in the midst of many philosophical hang-ups and a long-developing bitterness at problems in the church. I have come to realize though, that regardless of the issues that occur in an institution marred by human flaws (as everything in the world is), the person of Christ and our love for other people are the only things that matter. Faith is not about an institution, perfection, or a water tight set of doctrinal beliefs and philosophical proofs. It’s about trust. And it’s about a community’s representation of God’s love to the world.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is Love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13
Blaaaahh
At the moment I am simultaneously working on 6 different papers. Six. Along with other reading, and general life events which require processing.
And I have lost my ability to be articulate.
Great.
[Also...I like the way tea looks as you pour milk into it and the two liquids swirl together just before they mix.]
A few hours alone in Galway…means I’ll write a poem.
Galway, Ireland
[This is supposed to be broken into couplets, but the formatting isn't really working out here. So just imagine it in couplets.]
On a promontory between two rivers
flowing out to sea, I walk alone.
One river thrashes virulent.
The other flows placid.
In their parallel journeys, one fights
as the other accedes to tide’s inevitable purge;
a resigned recognition
of the unjust workings of the world.
I am alone with the silence and the fog,
the flecks of rain on the grass at my feet,
and the overcast glow of the sky
as the sun’s faint orange ekes through white.
Pale light glosses the evening; a reminder
of another day, another era fading.
Smoke drifts from distant chimneys;
the heavy ash a smell, black as this land’s history.
It rises silent above the rooftops,
carrying secrets unuttered, toxic.
I pace to the sound of my own blood
pulsing behind my ears.
I accede to the rhythm of my heartbeat,
as the rivers accede to their end.
The smoke accedes to the sky,
as the people accede to their myth.
The land accedes to the waves,
as history crumbles in clods of broken past.
The sea is a giant tear, rolling down the cheek
of a nation, stained with blood and ash.
–Alicia (2010)
“Where is home now?”
“Where is home now?
Follow the rain
Out to the Dublin hills.
Let it become the river.
Let the spirit of place be
A lost soul again.”
–Eavan Boland
Poetic distractions…(before the taking of a toast and tea)
“Behind each point to be solved
lies some prying impulse. Behind the fact
is some falsehood. Beneath the floorboards
lie the ancestors,
wailing and gnashing their teeth.”
–Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill (from Melusine, translated by Paul Muldoon)
I like this. It strangely reminds me of Part V of The Hollow Men, by TS Eliot (which, incidentally is blocked by the web filter at Woodbrooke. Do the Quakers have something against Eliot?). I wonder if Paul Muldoon did this on purpose in his translation?
And speaking of TS Eliot…
I can identify with this poem these days:
–
Hysteria
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved
in her laughter and being part of it, until her
teeth were only accidental stars with a talent
for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps,
inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally
in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by
the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter
with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading
a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty
green iron table, saying: “If the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden,
if the lady and gentleman wish to take their
tea in the garden …” I decided that if the
shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of
the fragments of the afternoon might be collected
and I concentrated my attention with careful
subtlety to this end.
I believe that pretty much sums it up.
Two things I’ve learned at Woodbrooke so far: I love Quakers, and Thin Mints can make anything better.
(This wasn’t taken at Woodbrooke. It’s a path near Dryburgh Abbey in Scotland.)
I’m at Woodbrooke, a Quaker study center in Birmingham, after a crazy week in London. We’re finally slowing down from all the constant travel and getting into classes more intensely for the next couple of weeks. It’s a nice change of pace, but I feel like I still have a lot to process before I can completely focus on schoolwork.
The gardens here are gorgeous, and I love the Quakers’ uncluttered, contemplative lifestyle. I walked around outside today, and it was the first time in a while that I’ve allowed myself to be alone with my thoughts. So it was a little overwhelming.
There are several paths that wind through a bunch of trees behind the garden’s central pond. I started walking with no destination. Early on, I hit a dead end with an iron fence covered in ivy. So I took a different path. Ironically enough though, I walked down several paths, which diverged and converged, but always seemed to lead me to the same dead end with the fence. It was really frustrating. I felt like my path situation was some kind of symbolic representation of my mental state. My mind has been going in circles. I keep coming back to the same issues by different means and ending up with no resolution. (I realize that this is vague.)
I’m noticing how much my identity is dependent upon my external environment, and the freedom that I have to express certain aspects of myself in different places. It’s strange, going from place to place, each time gaining a different understanding of who you are, only to have it changed again. You’re left without a tangible identity to hang on to – on a new path in the woods, that ends at the same place, with no sense of resolution.
All this to say, I did receive a package from home. Along with other things, my mom sent Thin Mints. =] And Thin Mints always help. I love my family.
Annnd, completely unrelated, here’s a picture of the Thames in London!
And some really cool graffiti!
I miss and love everyone!
York?
As I write this, I’m sitting in the upper level of a Starbucks, the only place with internet aside from the pub where I wrote my Irish Poetry paper last night (which, for the record, happened to have the fastest internet of any place I’ve been to in the UK). I’m facing a wall of windows, directly outside of which is an old stone church tower. It’s a strange mix of the familiar and unfamiliar.
The old cobblestone streets in York are all “pedestrianized” (to borrow a word from Dr. D). It’s rare to see cars in the narrow streets. The buildings are a mix of extremely large, small, old, new, stone, sagging, and extremely ornate. York has an aged character about it. The entire medieval city is surrounded by a stone wall, with arches and such. But there’s also an active college here. So it’s a medieval college town. It makes for a strange mix.
I’ve also seen a lot of bachelorette parties. Apparently a lot of people get married in York. I haven’t seen any actual weddings though…just the bachelorette parties (which, if you think about it, are a strange phenomenon in themselves).
The only word I can think of to describe my experience in York is “surreal.” Strange things keep happening here, and it’s that point in the semester when I’m starting to realize that this isn’t just a vacation. Even though I’m only visiting York, I’m not just a tourist in the UK, and I’m not going home any time soon. It took me a while, but I’m finally starting to wrap my mind around that fact. I’m starting to feel far from the other cities I’ve been, especially Stratford.
London next week!
Edinburgh
I’m in Edinburgh now! This city is absolutely unreal. It’s probably one of the most imaginative places I’ve seen. There are castles and cathedrals all over. The juxtaposition of old architecture and new industry makes it really interesting too. It’s much more fast-paced than Stratford because there are so many tourists here for the fringe festival, and the city is a lot larger. I feel like Edinburgh is going to stretch me more, just because it takes more energy to navigate and things are less familiar.
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Yesterday was our first full day in the city. I went to church with a few people at St. Giles (aka: the High Kirk of Edinburgh – basically the mother church for Presbyterianism). The choir sang selections from a mass setting by Palestrina and it was so beautiful. The architecture and atmosphere in the holy spaces here create a different kind of reverence than I’m used to.
After church, we bought a bunch of fruit and stuff (I’ve been fruit/vegetable deprived) and had a picnic in a grassy field between two castles. It was a beautiful day. Then we walked around the Scottish National Art Museum for a while. There’s still stuff I didn’t see because we were in a hurry. But there were so many amazing pieces (by Rubens and other Baroque and Renaissance artists) and I want to go back. I really liked the William McTaggart paintings that I saw…I had never heard of him. After that, we saw a really interesting (innnteresting) musical called “The Gospel at Colonus.” It was an adaptation of Oedipus at Colonus with gospel music, featuring the Blind Boys of Alabama. It was strange to hear gospel music and American accents in Scotland…but it was lively nonetheless. =]
Today I’m going to catch up on homework. And I’m going to find a coffee shop. (!!!)
Listen
I felt at peace today. . . more at peace than I have in a long time. I didn’t expect this. For some reason, even though I’ve been really scattered with the start of classes and trying to adjust to a different way of living with different people, I haven’t been as anxious as I thought I would be.
There has been more space for silence. I haven’t been listening to music as much, and people and places generally aren’t as loud here. It’s been refreshing, after stepping out of a culture full of noise.
Today I sat down to read the first two acts of As You Like It for my Shakespeare class. I usually listen to music while I read, so I put my headphones in. It was Schumann’s Carnaval on piano – something simple, that I’ve listened to a lot without thinking, just for the “background noise.” But today, the music completely distracted me. I felt like I was listening to it with different ears. I only got about a page into my reading, and had to put it down and just listen. There was so much more to be heard. So I sat there, listening and looking out the window, noticing the way the leaves tossed in the wind and the way people walked on the sidewalk below.
I feel like I have a heightened sense of awareness here. I feel more attuned to the beauty in the world. It’s a nice change. I’m really excited to be on England Semester at this point.
I’m here (in Stratford)!
We landed at Heathrow at 4:00 PM yesterday, then drove to Stratford. I went to sleep around 12, and then woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t sleep anymore. I guess the same thing happened to a couple of people. I just have to get used to the time change, and then I’ll be fine.
Today, we went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company versions of The Winter’s Tale and As You Like It. I was a fan of As You Like It. And we got to walk around Stratford for a little bit.
Stratford is such a cute little town!
This is the guest house we’re staying at. :]
The view from my room!
I probably wasn’t allowed to take this picture (At The Winter’s Tale), but here you go, world!
Tomorrow we’re visiting Kenilworth Castle, then we’ll be back at Stratford for the rest of the week before heading to Edinburgh, Scotland! I’m looking forward to sleep now though.
Today is the day!
Our flight leaves from LAX at 9:10 PM.
Packing: check
400 pgs of summer reading: almost check. Well, it’s a long flight…
British Pounds are more classy than American Dollars…
Three days! :D
