"I met Brad at the University of North Carolina in 1957. He was a brilliant student. We'd be walking to class to take a test and he would flip open the book and say, 'I guess I'll review a little.' And I'd have studied for days!" (Carol Hall)
As most of you know, I have been off for the past two weeks studying Biblical Archaeology at Keble College, a part of that incredible sprawling English University system at Oxford, made up of twenty-some individual Colleges. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to study and revisit the homeland of our Episcopal Church and I would like to take this time to share with and report to you some of what I experienced and learned.
I went to England this summer for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious was to broaden my knowledge as a Bible teacher. "Continuing Education" as it's called, and I must say that need was splendidly met. The course was taught by two scholars. One was an Old Testament professor from Johns Hopkins University and the President of the American School of Oriental Research. He is in the process of developing a whole new synthesis towards understanding the early religious history of Israel. Using many of the new archaeological discoveries of ancient clay tablets of the Near East from mysterious places like Ur and Nuzi and Nineveh, he presented us a marvelous review of how these Assyrian and Babylonian texts in cuneiform writing connect with and often support the history and writings of the Hebrew Scriptures.
As an added attraction, this professor had just returned from an ancient ruin in Jordan, and he told us of a newly-uncovered mosaic floor in an Early Byzantine Christian church (about 400-500 A.D.), which listed and pictured all the early Christian churches from Egypt to Jordan. "It is destined to be a truly exciting discovery when published next year," he said, for "there were churches listed that no one has ever heard about." The undeveloped photos were still in his camera.
Our second scholar-teacher was a true archaeologist who has been digging around the shores of the Dead Sea for some fifteen years in search of the ancient biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He has found and excavated one site, with the Arab name Bab-Ed-Dorah, which might prove fruitful, for it shows evidence of destruction by catastrophic causes. But more important are the hundreds of burial sites he discovered nearby; small tombs which when opened up provide a hitherto untouched picture of life in the ancient Bronze Age world.
Inside, and virtually all intact, he has found whole skeletons, some six thousand pottery jars and bowls in perfect condition, jewelry, spears, axes, clothing, meat on plates and even table grapes preserved for three to four thousand years by some form of fiery heat. "When I opened the first tomb and crawled in," he said, "it was like stepping thirty-five hundred years into the past, a mini-version of the now-famous opening of King Tut's tomb in Egypt."
Along with these splendid lectures, we made three field trips to see the ruins of the Roman town of Bath, the still-mysterious Stonehenge, probably erected during the time of the Patriarchs, and we spent a half-day at the British Museum looking at ancient cuneiform tablets and biblical artifacts.
It was quite a treat to watch both scholars read and translate for us these ancient texts as if they were a simple shopping list (which some of them were).
We will be hearing more about these archaeological finds when I begin our Fall Bible Series on the Exodus and Moses.
The trip also provided me with a God-given opportunity to be alone and catch my breath a bit; to broaden my inner vision as well as my outer knowledge. One night last week as I was sitting in my very cold university dorm room reading through the Lessons for today, this one verse from Deuteronomy caught my attention:
"Only take heed," said Moses, "and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen."
As I thought about this I remembered my favorite story about journeying which helped me understand what Moses was saying about "seeing." It's a familiar story from the folk wisdom of early America about Daniel Boone.
One day Daniel Boone took a friend with him on one of his trips into the wilderness. As they were preparing for the day's hike, Boone's friend said, "Where do we go today, Daniel?"
Boone looked out over the wide valley ahead and pointed to an outcrop of rocks on the far side. "That looks to be about 20 miles from here," he said. "If we start now we should be able to pitch camp by sundown."
So they took off through the woods. They made new paths where no one had ever walked before, deep in the virgin woodland, with no obvious guides to follow. And then, shortly before sundown, they climbed a rocky ridge to stand at the very outcrop of rocks they had seen from across the valley that morning.
Boone's friend stood there amazed. "How in the world did you find this place?" he said. "We saw it only once early this morning, and all day long we've been walking through the woods. How were you able to do that?"
The old pioneer thought for a moment, then responded, "I don't know exactly, but maybe it's because I have a near look and a far vision."
What I experienced at Oxford was an opportunity to give my near eye a rest--to detach myself from the regular routine and let my far vision take over for a while. For along with all the stimulation of academia and excitement of Oxford, there is always the sense of aloneness and loneliness that comes up for me when I take time away from time. Along with missing my home family and this wonderful parish family, all those big questions begin to erupt, like: Who am I? Where am I going? What's the meaning of life anyway? And, what does God really want?
I'd love to be able to tell you that I discovered some deep and wonderful insights to these theological questions, but I didn't. What I did sort out is that life's really okay, I really like what I'm doing, and I continue to feel good about who we are and where we are headed as a parish. It was an opportunity for me to thank God for all the many blessings we have shared for the past four years.
The course ended last Monday evening with a banquet in the great Dining Hall of the College, and at 8:00 o'clock the next morning, I was on a speeding train headed up to Edinburgh, Scotland. Under the order of our senior Scotsman, Willett Magruder, I was en route to collect a memento from the original St. Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle to place in our new church building. Willett had written ahead to tell them I was coming, but I had no idea of what to expect as I walked up the next morning the long esplanade to this 11th-century castle which dominates the whole city.
My compulsion tends to lean on being early, so I stopped off at the Queen Margaret Chapel building and took a few pictures, then went on to find the Castle offices.
I was met by the Superintendent of Historic Monuments and the Rector of the Royal Church in Edinburgh, where the Royal Family attend and whose parish includes the St. Margaret's Chapel. We had a friendly conversation about our Building Program and our unusual request for an appropriate memento, and then the Castle Superintendent went over to his desk, brought back and presented to me with great pride a large grey stone. "I had my engineers cut this last night from the original stone foundation of the Queen Margaret Chapel," he said. "It's literally a part of the 11th-century Church, and we hope it will be a fitting memento for your beautiful new Church." The Rector sitting next to me looked up a bit astonished and said, "Well, this has never happened before. Congratulations, Brad!"
I stuffed the rock into my briefcase, and with profuse thanks, carried away my treasure. And then I prepared for the long twenty-four-hour journey back home the following morning.
So now I close this report of my journey to England and Scotland and present to you, the people of St. Margaret's, Palm Desert, this piece of the original rock of St. Margaret's original Chapel--a suitable memento for the newest Church in Christendom to bear her name. Amen.
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