30 October 24, last day in Oxford.
Aaron and I had a pretty relaxed weekend last week, I did laundry, we had a meal from the open market in front of his apartment. We talked about going to evensong at Christ Church, but I begged out, I was so happy to stay home. I caught up on a lot of emails and writing and took a couple of gourmet naps. Sunday, we had Mass at the Catholic chaplaincy again and went back to Somerville in the evening. As I mentioned, they have been an interfaith chapel from the beginning, and instead of doing evensong, they do something called Choral Contemplation. Theirs is an auditioned choir led by a very fine director. The theme was ‘Love Conquers All’ and the guest speaker was Dr. JC Niala, who is a Kenyan by birth but now works for the Science Museum here at Oxford, her specialty being chemistry. She is also known as a “guerrilla gardener.” The choir was both more informal than the other places singing evensong and more refined. There was also a fine organist wearing a kippa, so I assume Jewish. The choir sang Gustav Holst’s setting of “I Love My Love,” which was followed by a reading from the Bahái writings in both Swahili (Dr Niala’s native tongue) and English. Then the choir did a modern setting of George Herbert’s “Love Bade Me Welcome” followed by a reading of Dr Martin Luther King’s Sermon in Atlanta––“I have decided to stick to love…” The Dr Nialia read one of her poems, about gardening (but not really) and gave a fine sermon. They ended by singing a marvelous rendition of Thomas Tallis’ “If They Love Me.” All so so fine. I was left thinking, I think that I would rather be a part of a beautiful artistic service like this, which exuded spirit (Spirit), than at an evensong sung by people singing it for aesthetic reasons instead of as prayer.
Monday we only had an evening commitment together, but I had the opportunity to hang out with Lucas Tse again. He had offered to give us a tour of All Souls’, but Aaron had class, so I got him all to myself. Wonderful lunch, as has been the norm, and then a long conversation, first in the garden and then in Lucas’ office. That evening Aaron and I went for Vespers, the “real thing,” because this time it was with an Anglican contemplative community of nuns called the Sisters of the Love of God. They knew Aaron a bit because he has frequented their Vepsers before and had written ahead to get us an invitation. They also had us in for “recreation dinner,” as they called it. The Mother Superior gave us a tour of the rather modern facilities and told us all about them. They’ve been there since 1916, they run a small press, they were the home of the famous (at least to us monks) Sr Benedicta Ward who did the collections of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, The Lives of the Desert Fathers and the Lives of the Desert Mothers. (I had actually stayed there before some years ago and was housed in her former rooms.) We had a great conversation with them, especially with one sister, Helene, who was from Massachusetts and knows our Sr Sheila in Windsor. We parted like old friends with invitations and promised to come back again.
Tuesday was a full day. We were back on that same part of town, this time to meet with Martin Whittingham and Richard McCallum, who run the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies (CMCS). It’s not officially part of the university though both of these gentlemen are also on faculty there. Their mission, since 2008, has been “teaching Christians honestly about Islam, teaching Muslims honestly about Christianity, and supporting high quality research on the Christian-Muslim interface.” And their team includes both Christian and Muslim research fellows for up to 3 years, scholars and other associates as well as the permanent staff. They have a regular Bible-Quran study and they also sponsor a fascinating residential Summer School for Christian and Muslim young people each year, billed as “not your usual inter-faith encounter!” where they engage in some what we call “difficult conversations” in trying to understand each other’s faiths. I again asked loads of questions and also checked in with them about some of the authors I have read to see if they took them seriously, which was amusing. They were very diplomatic but honest.
We had one more lunch then with yet another chaplain, Rev Andrew Gregory, this time at University College. That was a whole different conversation. Rev Gregory told us more about what it means to be a chaplain in an environment that is mostly proudly secular and rather anti-religion, in spite of its history, where most of the colleges were founded as religious houses. He tends to see his role more as a counselor, a “wellness officer,” which of course is a pretty fine ministry as well. Sometimes it’s better to be the presence of Christ rather than try to proselytize. (I’m sure the Holy Father would agree.) But I must admit that I was a little surprised at how often I heard that the environment at Oxford is so highly rational that it can be a little antagonistic to spirituality. I have to think that there is a great craving out there for spirituality as well. It was then that I realized that we had had no real interaction with or conversations about Hinduism or Buddhism, which suddenly struck me as a surprise since there seem to be a lot of Indians and certainly a lot of other Asians from China, Korea and Japan.
Saturday, 2 november, back “home” in Rome
Tuesday evening was kind of the capstone of the week. We had a semi-formal dinner with Baroness Jan Royall, the principal of Somerville College at her beautiful private residence inside the walls of Somerville. The home and garden made a sharp contrast with its surroundings, and would have fit in nicely in Santa Barbara, smart and modern. I knew this meal was coming but hadn’t realized that Aaron had actually staged the whole thing himself. He’s good friends with Jan (she has no airs about being a baroness or a member of Parliament, which she is, and wore canvas gym shoes under her slacks) and asked her to host this soiree. She agreed and allowed him to invite seven others besides the two of us and her. It was quite a group, several of whom I had met before, all part of the Oxford family and a kind of recap of the week: Rev Josh from Trinity, Arziah from Somerville Chapel, Jyotvir, the Sikh gentleman I had met at the concert, Aaron’s good friend Arzoo, who runs the largest health care information center in the UK and whom I had met a few times before in California. And then two people I had not met before, Prof Harvey Whitehouse who teaches in the Sociology Department with a special interest in social cohesion, and a youngster, Matt, another Singaporean, doing his doctorate in quantum physics who is also a jazz bass player on the side, specializing in a very rarified genre of world music/jazz fusion that left me a little dazed as he explained it. The meal was catered and waited by the kitchen staff from Somerville, very elegant, and the dinner conversation around the table as well as the conversation after the meal in the living room over coffee, tea and chocolate mints from the House of Lords (seriously), was notably very down to earth and wide-ranging.
I took the train down to London on Wednesday to meet an old friend, Simon Fellows, who had lived with us at New Camaldoli off and on starting 30 years ago (hard to believe…) and is now back in the UK looking after his ailing father. I arrived at Paddington, made my way over to Charing Cross to meet Simon and then we walked the length of the Mall, past Buckingham Palace, through the park and into Mayfair, then onto Covent Garden and a bit into Soho. I was struck by how crowded London was, and it’s still some time before Christmas!
And then one last meal back in Oxford with some young friends of Aaron’s. Just the opposite of the elegance of the evening before, but even warmer, and the conversation just as enjoyable and deep. Guanxiong is another Singaporean who is studying English at Oxford and I come to find out that, though he identifies as a “cultural Buddhist,” his specialty is the medieval English mystics, Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, etc. with which he is fascinated. He and his girlfriend Maria, from Rumania, had been at the concert and were very moved by it, and had issued the invitation then and there. We immediately launched into a fabulous conversation about spirituality East and West, with him pulling out Old Engish texts that he was studying and asking questions. So excited to be talking to a “real hermit”! That was followed by a short meditation together before our humble and delicious meal. Guanxiong had prepared olive fried rice in the tiny kitchen of their flat and Maria made what she called baked chorizo tofu. Guan had moved his desk into the middle of his room and covered it with paper to serve as our dining room table. (Maria was doing makeup for a play and was late to join us.)
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| Maria, Guangxiong, and Aaron |
Aaron reminded me of a phrase that I use often as we were walking back to his flat: the whole time there had been like an “ambush of grace.” (Did I get that from Paul Ford?) I remember Bede Griffiths, himself an Oxford alum under CS Lewis, once declaring that he was “not a scholar”! I remember that when people refer to me as a scholar. I know I have my gifts and insights to offer, but if Bede wasn’t a scholar than I am certainly nowhere near one. But scholars have their place, and the folks that I met know their place without lording it over anyone (this was one of the things that Jan emphasizes with her students): to be at the service of others. I was so well served by these folks who generously let me pick their brains and were kind enough to ask for my insights from the front lines, I suppose, and appreciate my ongoing and upcoming work and my experience. There is certainly the possibility that Oxford will be a hub of collaboration for me, especially with Aaron there, who made sure that I am connected via email with all these folks.
I flew off to Rome Thursday and was really consoled by how warmly I was greeted by the few brothers that are here at San Gregorio. (Several are out these days.) It actually felt like home, and I slept like a baby in my own room the past few nights. I had agreed to do a day of recollection for the house of formation for a congregation of religious called the Rosiminiani who live nearby today, which was a fun experience. Most of the men were young Africans in simple vows, though there were two Indians, two Vietnamese and even two Italians. Tomorrow, I have an evening with Fr Markus Muff who is in charge of the Benedictine Foundation about my budget for DIMMID, and I gotta say you have to like a man who wants to meet about money over a pizza after Vespers on Sunday night. And then I fly off Monday for the last leg of this wild ride of a year––first to Australia. More on that as I go. For now, buona notte da Roma.
