One of the foundational texts most of us had to read in secondary school is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, about a caravan of pilgrims on the way to St. Thomas Becket’s shrine in Kent. We complained about having to read it, but I feel sorrier for kids today not made to read it. It’s good for you. It’s beloved partly because it’s so secular—bawdy and ordinary and alive—and not just churchly.
The travels I have upcoming are a combination of sacred and secular, if a bit more PG than Chaucer’s tales. I’ll be in Prince Edward Island next week to lecture about preaching to a synod of Presbyterian ministers, being sure to oblige them by quoting Anne of Green Gables at some point (Oct 20-22). I’ll also lecture on preaching for the Lester Randall Preaching Festival that we at TEMC have helped cosponsor for many years on October 27.
The night of the 27th I leave for the UK for a few days. Our son Sam is studying abroad in St. Andrew’s this semester, continuing to work on his love for theology and the arts. London is as good a midway point to meet as we could find. I find my soul fed by the cathedrals in the UK. They are surprisingly more ancient than most Roman Catholic cathedrals. Had England remained Roman, those Norman churches would have been updated. They’d still be beautiful, but they would look very different—more like churches in Italy or France do today. The ecclesial treasures in places like Winchester and St. Alban’s inspire precisely because we can feel their antiquity. It was this sense of awe that inspired the Eaton family and led to the building of our gothic edifice on St. Clair.
Cathedral worship has been something of a good news story in the Church of England in recent years. Small village and parish churches may be struggling, but more people are attending worship in England’s 42 cathedrals. Another western good news story is the rise of English choral evensong . . . in the Netherlands. That’s right, in some other country than England. Most Dutch people do speak English, especially in cathedral cities, but one wonders why the choral tradition hasn’t taken hold with Dutch song. Roll out English choral music in a Dutch cathedral and watch people flock in. It’s odd, I’m not going to lie to you.
From England I travel to Israel for a pilgrimage with Canadian Christian clergy sponsored by the Israeli consulate. Our sponsors insist we are welcome to ask any question, however prickly, and Israelis are known for appreciating straight and blunt talk rather than politesse. It’ll be a good time to be in Israel, with hopes for peace as high as they’ve been in recent memory. I’ve gone on and led pious Christian pilgrimages but have never gone on a trip designed to learn about Jewish experience, so I look forward to all I stand to learn and to come back and share with y’all. We will be visiting some of the sites associated with the October 7th massacre and no doubt will join our Jewish elder siblings in praying for peace at the Western Wall. I’ll be back to preach to you again on November 9th.
With the extraordinary pastoral staff we have here at TEMC I don’t worry about leaving overmuch, you’re in such good hands. But I will miss you and pray for you, as I hope you will for me. Take me to lunch when I’m back and I’ll share some of the bawdier stories collected, though I’m sure I’ll have nothing on Chaucer’s Wife of Bath.