I got home Sunday evening from my holiday in England. It was such a terrific trip in so many ways. The reason for the trip was, itself, pretty wonderful. My ‘bonus daughter’ Amanda, who is a PH.D. student at Emery University was invited to share a paper at a conference in Oxford, and I got to go along. We spent time both in London and Oxford – where Amanda totally rocked her presentation.
In addition to doing and seeing countless amazing things, I got to do something on this trip that has actually been on my ‘bucket list’ for over 30 years! I wrote my Master’s thesis on John Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost. Since then, I’ve wanted to leave a rose on Milton’s grave. Call it homage to a great poet or just a simple thank you for the beauty of his words. Well, it turns out he doesn’t exactly have a grave. He was buried under the chancel steps at St. Giles’ Cripplegate church in London.
St. Giles’ has been a church since before 1000 A.D. It’s been burned and bombed and survived wars and the plague. Shakespeare lived near it, and his nephews were baptized there. Oliver Cromwell was married there, John Bunyan (who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress) attended services there, as did Daniel Defoe (writer of Robinson Crusoe), playwright Ben Jonson, and many more.
It’s still an active, alive church. Humble and quite plain really. It’s dwarfed by glass and steel buildings all around, and a bit hard to find (my GPS couldn’t do it!) But, a thousand years of prayers, praises and petitions silently echo through the sanctuary. A thousand years of voices and hearts coming here to honor and worship God are still somehow present. It’s a place that feels holy and welcoming. I paid my respects to Milton – put my rose at the foot of a statue of Milton – and stood a moment in an island of history and God’s love. Thankful.
