Getting Loose

Lagniappe

I’m not sure it is truly a French word.  I think it is more an American French word, which is a polite way of saying that it is Cajun.  It basically means something added.

We were on our way to the Museum of London when I happened to look across the street and see something about Aldersgate.  Mind you, we were never setting out for Aldersgate, but crossed the street to read the sign.  Lo, and behold, without even designing it, we were at the very address where John Wesley had the most famous of his many conversion experiences.  I could not believe it!  Talk about a pilgrimage spot for Methodists!

Eucharist

At its root it means to be thankful, to give thanks, to be grateful.  And I was all three.  Not just today at half past 12 GMT, but also every first and second Sunday at our church.  That is the essence of the sacrament of holy communion.

We went to see St. Paul’s Cathedral. (Take the virtual tour on that site.  It is stunning)  It was well worth the price of admission.  This is the church where Prince Charles and Lady Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales,
married.  This is where the famous architect, Christopher Wren, is buried.

We got to participate in the Eucharistic service there in the nave of the cathedral.  It was interesting to me that the flow of their service is identical to ours:

 

 GATHERING

LITURGY OF THE WORD

LITURGY OF THE SACRAMENT

DISMISSAL

Whereas our flow is:

ENTRANCE

PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE

THANKSGIVING AND COMMUNION

SENDING FORTH

I leaned over to my wife and said, “I sure am glad they have learned something from the Methodists about the order of worship.”  She was not amused.

This is a statue of St. Paul on the grounds outside. 

Jade Terrapin

We discovered Terrace's mascot at the British Museum.   It was a majestic sculpture from India's Mughal court (i.e., between 1526-1805).  It was beautiful.  It weighs a little over 90 pounds, and is about 19 inches long. 
  
  It was at least as precious as all the people who make up the softball teams that play for Terrace.

The Clerical Collar

Over here in JOE (Jolly Ole’ England), all denominational clergy wear a clerical collar.  

I knew that before I came over, and I wasn’t sure what I thought about it.  I tend to wear clerical collars only very occasionally—like for a funeral in a funeral home (which they call crematoria over here), or an occasional wedding, or when I have to act  in some official capacity at a public event, or very, very occasionally when I go to the hospital, or when I get my driver’s license picture made.

But to come to JOE, I went ahead and bought 2 additional clergy shirts (one black and one grey--both long sleeved).  Here, I use them exclusively for Sunday service, going to residential homes (i.e., nursing homes), and other sundry activities. 

I’ll have to admit it does tend to make me feel a little more official somehow, like I have on a costume that people recognize the credentials that go with it. 

What will I do when I get back?  I just am not sure.  I like travelling incognito in a lot of ways, yet on the other hand, wearing a clerical collar opens a lot of doors.

I’ll just have to see.

Oxfordshire

Kathleen and Peter were very generous and took us motoring out to Oxfordshire.

Now let me explain to my American friends.  “Shire” was originally an old name for county.  So Oxfordshire (pronounced OX-ferd-sher) is Oxford County.  In a lot of ways, that area is like home for Peter who is in his 80’s.

On the way to Burford, we went through Oxford University.  It was amazing to see this campus.  It has to be one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world.  I’m not sure that I saw Christ Church (the college where John Wesley studied), but I might have and did not know it.

On our way to eat, we stopped at Huffkins
to have a spot o’ tea.  It was great.  High Street which this faces must have a 1:4 elevation rise!  The Mrs. And I walked around town, and they were having a bazaar in the basement of the Burford Methodist Church (Zoom out and it's to the right of the Gallery) there on High Street. 

We then stopped at the Church of St. James the Great (zoom in all the way to the point and double click on the church at the top of the picture)  across the river at Fulbrook.  This church has been in existence since the 1200’s.  Absolutely astonishing to me.  They finally decided to take out a few pews from the back of the nave, and use more flexible seating to have a social area in which to visit and for community use.  Since doing that, the church has had more people to come to it.

We had lunch at the Masons Arms at Fulbrook. 
It was a pub at which we ate a wonderful meal. 
(The insides were really much darker.  The camera inside of my telephone compensates for the lighting in a way over which I had no control).  I had Oxford sausages and for dessert I had Apricot pudding.  But it is not pudding as we think of in America.  It is much more akin to the style and substance of bread pudding, albeit there is no bread in Apricot pudding.  (Just like Yorkshire pudding is not pudding as we think of it in America, but a baked, stiff, puffy, wonderful delicacy that was eaten before the main course, filled with gravy so that guests and family members would not eat as much meat!)

From there we saw a lot of the country side.  I have a couple of pics from St. Edward’s at Stow on the Wold (that's the name of the town). 

You have to almost be rich to live in England.  Two of our dollars about equals one pound (£).  Some of the residences out in the country with their dry stack stone walls were breath taking.  It was like in one of these kinds of places that people like John Lennon or Madonna would be living I suppose.

A very moving day and we covered lots of sites.

Acton Hill

I went to the Good Companion group at the Acton Hill Church.  It was a group that met in the back of a sanctuary designed to seat 1,000 people. 
Quite an impressive structure with stone facing (though this is the old church just around the corner, but you get the idea).  They were cordial, meaning not all of them fell asleep as I described my call into ministry, and a little of how we have had to do things differently at Terrace in order to survive and grow.  And that attendance has grown by 12% in three years as a result.

 

Graham, their lay leader was so gracious to collect me at the manse and drop me off again.  On the way back, we got to talking about the common language that divides our two great nations, e.g.,  they have no trucks in England.  What they have instead are lorries.  And police officials are not called cops.  Perhaps coppers, but never cops.  Cop is an Americanism that probably comes from the meaning of nabbing someone.  We stand in line.  In Britain they queue.  In NYC they stand on line.

 

In Britain, the further north you go toward Scotland, the more difficult Londoners find their ability to understand the accents in northern England!

 

For supper we went to Maxim’s. 
We are fortunate that it is on the same block where we live right around the corner.  It is most likely one of the best 4-5 Chinese restaurants in all of London. 

Greenford

People have really gone out of their way to be kind to us here in England. 

Ken and Hazel “collected” us from the manse at 6 p.m. to make sure we got to the church by 6:30 p.m.  This was not even their home church, but they were looking out for us!

Sunday night, I was to do the evening prayer service at Greenford Methodist Church.  Of the 10 point circuit, their minister, the Revd. Kip Bennett,
told me that Greenford had by far the largest evening attendance.  And I would say that he is spot on.

A goodly crowd assembled to hear my take “On the Discoveries of Faith.”  Short version?  Our physical senses can tell us lots about this physical, material world.  But they do not give us a clue about the invisible world, or the eternal world, or the spiritual world (and yes, those are three very different things).  Those three are only opened to us through faith.  ‘nuff o dat.

I was very impressed with the A/V system of this small church.  Michael was actually able to play a video I had given him about the reading from Hebrews 11.  I had gotten it from The Work of the People.

I was pleased that I got through in just a hair over an hour. 

Again, one thing that really impresses me is what a singing people these Methodists are.  They put my 9 a.m. crowd back home to shame.  And the melodies they sing are much more difficult than anything we attempt on Sunday mornings!  We had a full liturgy on Sunday evening, and sang six different hymns, and we further sang all of the stanzas!  I need to bring my Director of Music and Fine Arts, Lavena, over here and let her listen and see how all of this is done.

I had been told by the Revd. Jack Matkin, who earlier in his career had spent a year in Barnstaple, England as a Methodist minister, that it was pretty nearly axiomatic that every Methodist service had to have five hymns.  And that has pretty much been the case!

Rachel, from Sierra Leone, was such a jewel.  She attended the service, which was not in her home church, just to make sure that we would know which bus to catch to go back home!  What a loving spirit.  But Graham was splendid to carry us all home anyway!

T. Parker & Sons, Ltd.

One of the treasures that we have discovered on Northfield Avenue in Ealing is an outstanding bakery. (Look at the revolving camera.  You will see both the church and the bakery across the street from each other)  I mean I have rarely ever used a bakery before, but oh my goodness, this one is phenomenal.  Fresh baked breads six days a week. 

I love baked bread that has a very hard crust, and a fluffy interior, and crikey, this bakery has it!

I had been told by Les about these Cornish pasties  
(pronounced PAWSS-tees).  Back in the olden days the miners would use them as a lunch and hold them by the pinched edge on the outside.  They would eat the interior and then throw the pinched edge away because their hands would be so very dirty.  One half of it was a meat pie, and the other half was like an apple pie.  But Les said, they’ve done away with the apple part, so it is just a meat pie. 

I saw them in Parker’s and decided I wanted one.  I also got a loaf of baked, unsliced bread, and my wife got a freshly made prawn sandwich on whole wheat bread. 

When we got to the house, the pasty was still warm, and I bit into it, and I thought it was going to be like pie dough for the crust.  Au contraire!  It was like multi-layered phyllo dough.  I could not believe what I had bit into.  It was astonishingly good.  It was superior in that it cost less than $3.

My wife mate has ranted and raved about her prawn sandwiches.  She absolutely loves them! 

I heard about one minister who had been assigned to Kingsdown, and he waited on the steps every morning so that he could be first into the store to buy their delectable goodies.

Parker's is like four blocks form where we are staying.  We have already been there twice.  I know we’re going back again this coming week!

Brecon

It absolutely for me, was a coincidence.  An off chance.  I had never heard of Brecon, Wales before I came to England.  It was the closest town to the Boys Brigade encampment.  But the three older gents—Graham, Dave, Les—and I decided at about 11:30 a.m. to go into town.  It wasn’t a requirement, but it would be a mini-outing.  Besides, I thought I might get to hear some Welsh being spoken.

It was, in many ways, a typical small town, though the buildings, while old, looked far more substantial than I see in most small towns in America.  We stopped at a little café to have a spot o’ tea (though, I was the only one drinking tea—the rest of them had coffee), and the leader of our group, Graham, was eyeing a substantial wedge of chocolate cake.  He kept trying to hint to me that perhaps I might want one myself.  I declined, thinking after all the ridicule about cream tea, I’d much rathe’ ‘ave a scone, thou knowest, but I knew that we’d be back at the camp in a little over an hour, and for once in my life, I decided to have some scruples against gluttony and forgo the food.  My, aren’t I the ‘oly one?

After a nice conversation around the table, we decided to walk through town.  The central focus of the town in some ways was the cathedral.  Now over here in Wales, they do not have a covey of radical Protestant churches like we do in America.  The main church is the Anglican Church.  And it was old looking indeed.  I feel quite certain that it was over 200 years old. 
And that is old contrasted to the standards of a culture from which I come in which anytime a building gets over 50 years old, there is some real doubt about its viability.

Well, it was decided to walk up one side of the drag, and then down the other.  We went down town, and then on our way back up, we passed by the outside of the church, which as I stated was quite old looking.  There was a nice little fenced in lawn beside it and a plaque and a marker commemorating those who had been killed in WWI from the village of Brecon.  I glanced at it and walked on.  But Les stayed behind and was reading some plaque on the outside near the church.  I really hadn’t given it a second thought.  But I decided to go back to where Les was, to see what was so interesting about the plaque.

As I looked closer, I could see it was a plaque about a Thomas Coke (that’s pronounced Cook in these parts).  I thought, “How interesting.  I know that name.  Couldn’t possibly be the man of whom I knew a little.  After all, what good ever came out of Wales? (besides coal and slate)”

Well, reading the marker a little closer, and in the middle it read, “ . . . a supporter of the Methodist movement.”  Then I looked closer still, and it said, “ . . . founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church of U.S.A. . . .”

I said, “Holy cow!  That man was one of the two general superintendents that John Wesley ordained to come to America to begin the Methodist Church.  I know who he is!  He is a very important man in the tradition of Methodism in which I was reared!  And you mean to tell me he was mayor of this town at age 23?  And he was baptized at this church? 
I cannot believe what I am seeing!  I NEVER knew he was of Welsh origins!”

Absolutely serendipitous!  I would have never guessed that a treasure like this awaited me in Brecon, Wales!

BB

There is a rather successful youth ministry whereof the Kingsdown Church engages.  It is called the Boys Brigade.  It is a much older organization than my beloved Boy Scouts.

From what I understand, it started in Scotland in the late 19^th century and is only affiliated with churches.  Its mission is to advance Christ's kingdom among Boys and to promote the habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-respect and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness.

I left Wednesday with a group of older gents about 6 a.m. in the morning and we spent three hours traveling by car to Wales where they speak Welsh.  Once you cross over the bridge ,
 the signs are printed in two languages—English and Welsh--
.  Welsh words look funny.  Lots of double dd’s and double ll’s.  (Wouldn't you know that that sign has neither . . .  but then in Welsh it also reads, "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated".  The person who made the sign thought that that was the translation!)  CWM is pronounced koom as an example.

When I arrived at the camp, they had the USA flag
just underneath their Boys Brigade flag in honour of my coming.  I was deeply touched.

Their food was good and adequate; they played games like pillow fight, and went into town to play soccer and hockey.

The boys were well behaved and the leaders were full of enthusiasm and energy.  They feel a natural rivalry with the Scouting movement.

Notice the patch work quilt country side on the hill overlooking this camp.  The group of boys at this camp won the band (drum & bugle corps) contest for all of London.