07 March 2010

Day Five, London, 6 May 2010

Today is my sister Wendy's birthday, and I will spend the entire day thinking about her,  and giving thanks for her place in my life.


I thought of her especially yesterday at Stonehenge with the sheep grazing all about the monument - sheep grazing with great dignity.  Wendy appreciates that in animals - just their presence and dignity.

Today it is the British Museum, and I skip breakfast at St. Katharine's and proceed to get on the train, getting off at Bank and going over to Charing Cross.  I do need something to eat, and look around for a Tea Room, but don't see anything that suits me.  Then I notice, between St. Martin in the Fields (a wonderful Wren church) and the building next door a kiosk with a stairway leading underground and proclaiming, "The Café at Saint Martin in the Fields".  (These are apparently quite common, having seen one at Westminster Cathedral, and at the Methodist Central Hall.)  So I go in and have a delicious Spanish Tortilla with aioli, and an orange juice.  


The Organ at Saint Martin in the Fields

The last time I was in this church was in 1974, and I was in agony - only day 2 into a pair of new shoes purchased for my first European trip.  So my memory is clouded with pain, recalling only a very dark church, a most welcoming pew that I sat in for some time, and a humorous story about one of Joanne's colleagues, Dr. Edna Parks, being mistaken for Her Majesty, the Queen.  All of this came flooding back, and I was unprepared for all the light.  The window behind the altar has been replaced with a rather modern thing - can't tell whether or not I like it.  They were preparing for a concert that was to be given that evening, so people were bustling about the chancel.


Chancel Window at St. Martin in the Fields

The man in the foreground gives you an idea of how bright the room as become.  There were many touches about the room that I had never seen before or had forgotten.  It was quite delightful.




Trafalgar Square is always amazing to me.  It was full of life.  Some were there to be in the sun (after several days of gray).  Some were there to go to the National Gallery, some to the Portrait Gallery.  Some were just walking through.  Some were there to protest something - it was a voice with an Irish accent, but I kept hearing "Iran", so I don't know why they were there.  I knew why I was there - it was for the National Gallery.  Oddly enough, when Jo and I were here in '74, we didn't go in!  Now it was time to make up for lost opportunities.  It's difficult to do in an orderly fashion, so I just started out - didn't worry about chronology.  The painters that jumped out at me were Zurburan, Holbein, Turner, and  Saenredam, and there were several others that I had never heard of before.  The new (to me) Sainsbury wing is quite nice, and having revisited the arguments about what this wing should look like, I'm afraid that in retrospect I have to agree with Prince Charles.  Venturi and company accomplished a nice post-modern building.  My friend, Paul Groth may not agree.

I haven't talked much about food - well I am in Britain, after all.  For lunch I went to the museum restaurant and had a Lentil and Lamb Pie that was just extraordinary.  Those Cornish pies and pastries are just wonderful.  

My back is beginning to bother me, and it is cold.  None-the-less I decide to walk over to Westminster Abbey, down Whitehall.  A thought comes to me, that was formed a bit at Windsor, and comes to full bloom as I make my way past all the government buildings.  It is about statues.  We need more of them.  We need them to be of people who have stepped up and out and have done something for society.  I am thinking about the King Memorial in San Francisco which is photographs and words.  Most, people who visit there, I think, don't read the words - they look at the spectacular water.  Statues cause us to pause and say, "Who was that?"  Yes, we need more statues to lift us out of egalitarian ignorance of great women and men, and to honor their departure from the ordinary to the extraordinary.  Here's to you, Winston!


Big Ben

Westminster is closed, St. Margaret's is closed, and I am a half hour late for Even Song.  Even more so I am tired and cold.  So I go home, buy some chicken (good!), and curl up with Marilynne Robinson's Gilead.  The cursillo people are walking about the place singing an American Spiritual (I am reminded of Marilyn Jackson's comment during a procession on M. L. King, Jr. Day at Saint Francis while we were singing Lift every voice and sing, "Give it up white people!") carrying candles and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Ah, people.  How wonderful to be alive.






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