New blog!

Dear friends and faithful readers,

I'm happy to announce that I've started a new blog, which will hopefully have a cleaner feel and also allow me to upload pictures more easily. Follow this link to check it out.

Cheers,

Molly

Because I've already celebrated Thanksgiving

T. S. Eliot (brilliantly) on the value of tradition and the meaning of Christmas:


The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
Some of which we may disregard:
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
And the childish — which is not that of the child
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.
The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
So that the glittering rapture, the amazement
Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,
So that the surprises, delight in new possessions
(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),
The expectation of the goose or turkey
And the expected awe on its appearance,
So that the reverence and the gaiety
May not be forgotten in later experience,
In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,
The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,
Or in the piety of the convert
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit
Displeasing to God and disrespectful to children
(And here I remember also with gratitude
St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):
So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
(By “eightieth” meaning whichever is last)
The accumulated memories of annual emotion
May be concentrated into a great joy
Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
When fear came upon every soul:
Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.

Westminster Abbey | December 2014

Here we have no continuing city.

 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

Hebrews 13:14

It seems appropriate that I am presently spending a lot of time volunteering in what was designed as a wayfarers' chapel, given that I've felt a bit of a wayfarer myself these last few weeks. I left California for London in mid-August, left London the next day for Wales, spent another several days in London, left again for about five days in Cornwall, returned to London, moved up here to Cambridge, then back to London for a wedding -- and now back in Cambridge for a bit. 

I had no idea, at the beginning of this year, that I would be living in Cambridge. In March it appeared that I would be leaving England, only to return for a visit in late summer, but with no real long term prospects, visa-wise. The way things came together still slightly boggles my mind, but I know that I am meant to be here this academic year anyway, and am trying to remind myself to stay open to what God has for me to learn, be, and do.

Here are a few pictures from my travels over the past few weeks.

Min, who kindly welcomed me to London and dealt with my jet lagged self!

At the Green Man Festival, in the Brecon Beacons (Wales).

Not sure why, but this installation was called The Shipping Forecast, a la BBC Radio 4, presumably.

My first-ever real festival!

Debs and I!

My jacket apparently doesn't cast a very flattering shadow.

Mousehole, Cornwall. Retreat with the London (now former) housemates.

St Ives.

Reading on the beach.

Not even posed!

All four of us! Julia (taking the picture?), myself, Sarah and Lucy.

Beach!

Julia at the Minack Theatre

Oh, the places you'll go!

St Michael's Mount

Birthday in west Cornwall!

Poldark country.

Cambridge

Now I know what asters look like. This is the dining area in "my" new flat.

More to follow, including possibly some pictures from Heather and Tel's wedding, if you're lucky.

Ode to a fresh-faced year

 Don't worry, there's really no ode. I believe I'm doing the world a service by limiting my poetry output.

Any cleverness aside, if you're like me, you feel a little thrill of anticipation at the start of this new year, even though January can seem a bit bleak - Christmas past and lots of grey skies and chill and early-falling nights before spring.

Still, the 'what ifs' and 'just maybes' are enticing. You have to remind yourself that last year was no walk in the park/picnic/bed of roses [choose your own metaphor]. This year, too, the good will come with the bad, and sometimes good new things bring bad things along with them - like the joy of love that is punctuated by goodbyes (cf. Romeo and Juliet II. ii.184).

Sorry, verging on poetical again. Back to the point. I believe I've alluded to this before, possibly at the start of another year, but I think it bears repeating. A history teacher at my university back in the States, at the start of more than one term, I think, read to us from Philippians 3:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 

- Philippians 3:12-14 - 

Our teacher would then go on to tell us to forget both past successes and past failures. These verses are, in effect, a call both to humility and to freedom; we're not to be weighed down by our past. Not that we're to forget lessons learned or the important people in our lives, but those things we think we're pretty great at, or those things we think we've made a complete mess of . . .  all of that is behind.

So this year, I'm reminding myself to leave all that behind me, trusting that my mistakes are covered by Christ's blood and that my successes are not worth remembering apart from the ways they demonstrate God's grace. 

And I want to press on to what lies ahead, for "He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it" (I Thessalonians 5:24).

 

San Luis Obispo, CA | Christmas 2015

endings & beginnings

Be adored among men,

            God, three-numberèd form;

        Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,

            Man’s malice, with wrecking and storm.

    Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,

    Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;

        Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:

Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

[Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Wreck of the Deutschland]

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by
the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's
death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.

[John Donne]

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from . . ..
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them . . ..

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

[T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"]

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death . . ..

 

Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[I Corinthians 15:24-26, 53-57]

Somewhere in southern Wales | June 2014

London + Books

Miss these sunsets and these hills.

But on occasion London has it's own brand of lovely.

Yeah, I was taking these from the comfort of our flat.

Cool looking little pub I recently discovered while looking for the local library. The Prince of Wales--sounds promising!

In our course entitled Reading as a Writer, we are reading books that each of us has helped to select. "My" book, which we discussed this past Monday, was Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away. As I reread it, I rediscovered this amazing quote:

God told the world he was going to send it a king and the world waited. The world thought, a golden fleece will do for His bed. Silver and gold and peacock tails, a thousand suns in a peacock’s tail will do for his crib. His mother will ride on a four-horned white beast and use the sunset for a cape. She’ll trail it behind her over the ground and let the world pull it to pieces, a new one every evening.

Jesus came on cold straw, Jesus was warmed by the breath of an ox. “Who is this?” the world said. “Who is this blue-cold child and this woman, plain as the winter? Is this the Word of God, this blue-cold child? Is this His will, this plain winter-woman?” The world said, “Love cuts like the cold wind and the will of God is plain as the winter.” 

~ Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away

(Copied from the First Things blog because I was too lazy to go upstairs to grab my own copy of the book.)

Exploration

The Gherkin

Lloyd's of London on the left, the Cheese-grater on the right.

Went to Open House London with a friend I met from Montreal, to see what was to be seen.

Leadenhall Market, and a rather long queue.

But the line went at a reasonable pace, and we made it into the Lloyd's building in about an hour and half (if that sounds like a long time, people said the line for the Gherkin was probably 3-4 hours). This is looking up from the atrium.

Escalators.

Riding up in a glass elevator. These types of things (elevators, toilets, etc.) were situated outside the main structure of the building for easy access for repairs. So the inside-out design is not only interesting to look at, but also practical.

This room was, I believe, from the 18th century, and they somehow transported it and reassembled it in this modern building.

The Shard, and closer in, the Walkie Talkie.

Tower Bridge.

London Eye.

Offices facing the atrium.

St. Paul's.

Can you see me?

Someone's working.

Apparently this building melted part of someone's car.

One of the elevators over to the right.

Looking down at the atrium.

I guess I was a little fascinated by the escalators.

Escalator mechanism.

Library in Canada Water.

My new residence in Kennington!

And the sun came out today (British Library).

Living/sitting room.

Kitchen.

Park in the sunshine!

"History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage it need not be lived again." ~ Maya Angelou (WWII memorial)

Old and new.

Maybe a little excited about the sunny weather. Amazed also by how green it is.

I like the idea of collecting pictures of graffiti from places I travel to. I don't know what any of this means, so if anyone does and it's offensive, I do apologize.

Skyline.