Oxford and Vicinity

Today is transitional.  Together with the rest of the C.S. Lewis Conference attendees, we leave by bus for Cambridge University, where we will stay the next 4 nights.

Oxford has been busy but enjoyable.  Yesterday we went out to C.S. Lewis' home, called "The Kilns," where he and his brother and later he and his wife lived.  It's a cottage that he bought mainly because of the 9 beautiful acres that surrounded it.  Today, as you might imagine, it's surrounded by newer homes.  The pond that was originally part of the acreage has been donated to some government entity and has been designated as a nature preserve.  Our guide suggested that the pond and its environs served as the immediate inspiration for the landscape and the animal characters in Lewis' Narnia Chronicles.  It seemed like a believable proposition to me.

As I think I mentioned in my previous entry, we've been staying at Keble College on the Oxford campus.  Most our our meetings have been held at St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, about a half mile down the road.  Many Oxford buildings and churches have an interesting history; St. Mary's is no exception.  One of the key figures in the English Reformation was a man named Thomas Cranmer, who was Archibishop of Canterbury and author of The Book of Common Prayer, one of the most influential worship resources ever written.  Cranmer was instrumental in setting up the Church of England under King Henry VIII, but was caught up in the ever-changing church scene that unfolded in the years following Henry's death.  Under Queen Mary (who was Roman Catholic), Cranmer (apparently) agreed to give up the Reformed faith.  But in a dramatic sermon given in the very church where we've been meeting, Cranmer took back his recantation, declared his loyalty to the Reformation, and was taken down the street to the entrance to Balliol College, where he and his companion, Hugh Ridley, were burned at the stake.  As the flames licked his body, he is supposed to have cried out "Play the man (be a man), Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."   

Thus endeth the history lesson. 

One thing I've enjoyed at Keble is the traditional English breakfast.  You can have fruit and toast if you like, but the English breakfast will stick to your ribs: ham, sausage, a poached egg, a whole boiled tomato, toast and . . . beans (as in pork and beans).  I ate it every morning. 

Connie is out buying souvenirs.  I must finish packing, check out and get on the Cambridge bus.