The Crew Meets the Inklings

Have you ever had a moment in your life where multiple experiences clash together, in the way a Sigur Ros song, to merge into a single, ultimate, beautiful experience? I read the short story Sonny Blues to Sigur Ros music and dim lights causing my heart and soul to cleave to the words on the page. Incredible of experience. But that experience has nothing on what happened to me last Friday in Oxford, England...

For my spring break, I made my way to Folgaria, Italy, Paris, and London (more on the other places later). But I want to focus solely on my only 6 hours in Oxford.

While in Rome, I really only wanted to visit the pub that C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their group of friends known as the Inklings hung out in from the late 30's to the 60's. I wanted to sit in the room they sat in, drink the beer they drank, talk about the things they talked about, and enjoy company as they did. I mean, I was excited about the Colosseum, St. Peters, and such but for some strange reason, I wanted to lounge in the very place that the greatest Christian mind (Lewis) of the 20th century lounged. I had read about the Eagle and Child pub in Lewis' biography about his conversion in Surprised by Joy.

Why would I really want to go to such an obscure place in the vast history of the church? Honestly, I don't know. Other than the temporal desires previously mentioned, I think I desire to meet friends in a place that I call my own and talk about Theology with people who you love and who love you; a company who is not afraid to tear down your idea in the search for Truth. So count this as my stepping stone to fulfilling my desire one day back in the States.

So while in London, a few of us decided to make the hour train ride to Oxford. Everyone made fun of me in my unfettered excitement for this Pub, to the point that it frustrated me. But that is beside the point. When we arrived in Oxford, we set out on finding the pub. To all of our surprises, Oxford is not a small town. Hoping to find the pub on a leisurely stroll is not quite possible without a little luck. So after we asked for directions, we found our way to the Eagle and Child pub.



I literally spent all 6 hours of our time in Oxford sitting in the pub. When we went in, the room where the Inklings met had an open table for all 5 of us to sit. The others went to walk around before they would eventually come back but I stayed not wanting to lose the table.

When my friends left to go explore the town, I stayed at the table in the Inklings' room and took some time to read Lewis' Mere Christianity, while sipping on a nice, but strange, green ale. I don't know if he churned out some of his logical, rational arguments on the law of nature in the room, but to read his arguments there definitely was a treat. As Steve put it, it seemed as if you got smarter for just sitting in the room.


(Yes, the picture is staged)

Greatest of all was the friendship we built with the manager of the pub. In our time there, he shared with us stories he heard about what kind of conversations went on with the Inklings and things of that nature. Through the conversations, I assumed that he was a Christian. I mean, he told us he jumped on the opportunity to manage the pub when his boss offered it to him because he loved to read Tolkien and Lewis as a kid.

Once American politics came into the conversation, things started to get interesting. He made some jokes and jabs at Bush and Texas but we let them blow over in order to avoid conflict. He also asked us about our point of view on Obama. We kind of tip toed around that one too with a non-committal answer like "we just need to wait and see." But with all of this side stepping, Jennifer's blood pressure boils past her tolerance line since she avidly supports pro-life, and rightfully so. It showed deeply in her face. As calmly as possible, she mentions her pro-life stance in order to show her dissatisfaction with Obama.

This took our discourse in a completely different and incredible tailspin towards Religion and Christianity. Soon do we find out, our friend is an agnostic. But this conversation was not a harsh or irrational or angry discussion. Our manager friend asked sincere questions and added constructive thoughts that every thinking man or woman, Christian or non-Christian should ask and think about in their search for Truth. Questions and comments that involve the problem of pain, the nature of evil (if it exists) and how it pertains to death, the validity of the Bible, and so on and so forth. Amazing, a conversation like this usually delves into the irrational with random Christian phrases being thrown around with no substance or spit spewed out in anger because of the disconnect between the two opposing sides.

Here is the greatness of the day summed up: A few friends and I sat in the Inklings' pub, in their exact room, read Mere Christianity, drank a beer, talked about life and God to each other as well as to a man who did not believe in God. Amazing, huh?

More to come later on the rest of my spring break as well as something on Love (Christian, not marital/sexual), which I thought a lot about while on my break. It will probably be jumbled and incoherent, but hopefully not. Also, more pictures on Picasa later.

-Justin

Beautiful Greece

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. "For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD ' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' "Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man." Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this." So Paul went out of their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
-Book of Acts


Ya, I stood on the Aeropagus. The very place Paul was in the 1st century A.D. It was awesome.


I also ran in the original stadium in which the Greeks ran in for the Olympics. All of the guys raced each other the full 200ish meters and I won. Another great moment.



While in Delphi, 7 of us hiked up the mountain in which the Throne of Apollo used to rest upon. The day was beautiful and the hike was relatively easy. That day, all 7 of us referred to ourselves as Bear Grylls.


Also, in Delphi, my dinner table controlled the restaurant. The place served us these doughnut hole things doused in cinnamon and powdered sugar. Since our table helped serve some water and french fries, they gave us 3 extra plates of the delectable desert.

Both nights in Athens we went to the local Starbucks. I miss good American coffee. We also ate dinner at KFC. It is not Babes, but it definitely hit the spot.

I also gained a new nickname in Athens: the Dog Whisperer. While we hung out at a local bar on the street, a pack of dogs made their residence next to our feet. All in all, about 7 or 8 sat around us. This pack of dogs attacked 3 men. One of them fended them off with a chair while another used his bag. But when the 3rd attack began, I yelled at the wild dogs and they all came and sat back down with us. The Dog Whisperer.


Have you checked the news lately? The Acropolis shut down the day we were supposed to go to it because of a strike by its workers. Great timing.

Our last stop was in Nafplio. If you want to know about my excursions up this mountain, which I am not proud of, email me or Facebook me and I'll send you a detailed story of what went through my head and heart.


Along with staying in Delphi, Olympia, Athens, and Nafplio, we visited Corinth and Mycenae on day trips. You can check out more pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mcgeejm/Greece#

-Justin

Hamlet

I struggle to catch on to big themes in individual works of literature. I really need the help of a teacher to point me to what the author intends for his reader to see. If I do catch on to something, it is usually a small quote from a character that cuts deep into my core. When a moment like this comes, I usually always relate to a character who commits some grave sin or to one who is deeply troubled.

Hamlet, when he confronts his mother on her act of marrying his Uncle 2 months after the death of her husband, tells his mother, "You go not till I set you up a glass (mirror) / Where you may see the inmost part of you!" The purpose of literature accomplishes this very idea to the reader. It sets up a mirror to flesh out the inner core of the reader by way of the action on the page.

While Hamlet is definitely a troubled character, something the Uncle/murderer/king said really stuck out to me after Hamlet, through the play, exposes the actions of his Uncle.

"Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that struggling to be free
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees, and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
All may be well...
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

Does anyone else ever feel this way?

-Justin

My New Name

A new nickname has been coined for me here in Rome: the hobo. I'm not quite sure why my so called "friends" call me this, but they do with much joy. Here are some pictures. Maybe you can help me figure out why they call me a "hobo."

Supposedly a lady in Sicily asked Kara, Khang, and Robert if they were in any danger since I was following near them. The beard does wonders, I guess.

The Essence of Life

Throughout literature, men and women often have to go places to learn about themselves, life in general, and the world around them. In Moby Dick, Ishmael goes to the sea while in Frankenstein, Victor runs to nature. If I was smarter, I could name others but I'm not fully "UD" yet (maybe one day). For me, I always thought I leaned toward nature, like Victor. But after this last weekend, I realized I was completely wrong.

This weekend, I went to Milan. Some of you might think, since Milan is arguably the fashion capital of the world, that fashion now brings me to understand the world. Sorry Mom, but that is not quite right.

But instead of spending my time shopping at Gucci and Louis Vuitton to increase my fashion sense while decreasing my walet, Ali, Khang, and I basked in the glory of San Siro (the incredible stadium) for the Inter Milan/AC Milan football game. Inter, which is known historically to be the more inferior team, was in 1st place in the Italian league while AC Milan (sort of the Yankees of Italian football) was in 2nd. I have had a difficult time thinking of a way to describe this experience but I think what follows will suffice.

For you American football fans, it would be like going to the Michigan/Ohio State (or Texas/Oklahoma or Georgia/Florida, etc) game when both teams are ranked #1 and #2...on steroids. If you are a baseball fan, it would be the Yankees vs. Red Sox with them both on top of the AL East separated by only 2 games...on HGH+anabolic steroids+amphetamines.

To start off, while we were in line before the game (more like a mob) our gate consisted of all Inter fans with the gate next to us consisting of all AC Milan fans. The AC Milan fans began to sing, chant, and give the appropriate finger to the Inter fans in our gate. The Inter fans retaliated by whistling to drown out their singing. Even though I haven't seen the movie The West Side Story in its entirety, I have seen the part where they dance and sing when the gangs "fight." Think of it as something similar to that.

Also, while Ali, Khang, and myself were in the mob, Ali noticed that the guy next to me put a knife in his shoe. A little disconcerting, to say the least. But I haven't heard of any stab incidents from the game, so that is good.

Here are a few pictures and videos from before the game to show you what a game is like. I think they give it more justice than I ever could with my words:








This is UD: Reading Oedipus before the best football match in Italy.


Inter won the game 2-1 behind goals from Adriano and Stankovich. Pato, a 19 year old phenom, scored the only goal for AC Milan. Overall, it was a great match by two incredible teams.

Of course, I really don't find my existence, truth, and the such through a football game but it definitely was one of the cooler experiences of my life.

-Justin

"Ah Ha" #2

It is now time for the 2nd installment of the "Ah Ha" moments. I hope you enjoy.

1. Have you ever stood somewhere or seen something historically significant and imagined the events that took place there? As I stood in the Circus Maximus, I saw in my mind the crowds rise to their feet in the grandiose arena and roar as the chariots raced around each corner. I pictured Christians being martyred for their faith. And for the first time in my life, while I stood in the exact place of death, excitement, and magnitude, I realized the History of the place actually occurred. I began to understand that History is not just about teachers quizzing students about some random facts that seem to have no importance but it is something real that can teach you about your life, God, and the culture you live in. The same thing can be said for my experience in Pompeii as well (see previous post).

On top of that, this realization about History has helped me understand, just a little, about the struggles I have had in my Christian life. Since I grew up in the church and in a Christian school, I heard the stories of the Bible all the time. By the time I was a junior and senior in high school, it seemed as if I knew everything about the Bible and Christianity and the rules that applied to it. I absorbed the material given to me for the sake of either gaining a "Christly" reputation among my peers and elders or for the sake of making a good grade. I did not understand the gravity of the information itself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, "If the 'extraordinary' (righteousness) were important for its own sake, we should, like fanatics, be relying on our own fleshly strength and power, where as the disciple of Jesus acts simply in obedience to his Lord." To be a Christian is not to be wrapped up with the idea of righteousness or knowing about all the things of the Bible for the sake of it. In its fullness, Christianity means obedience to God, which comes through the realization that what is being told through the stories and parables and letters actually took place on the east part of the Mediterranean coast. Moses, Abraham, the Israelites, Jesus, Paul, and Peter all really did exist and their stories point us to the truth of God. I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't, sorry.

2. In my last post, I wrote a story about a homeless man who decorated the statues in the airport lobby. There are also many men and women throughout the city of Rome begging for money. I'm always torn on what to do: give them money or look at your feet as you walk by. For one, they could be a scam and they are just trying to rip you off to fill their drug or alcohol addiction. But on the other hand, I am drawn to Jesus' words in Matthew where he says, "I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink...'Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You'...The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'"And I remember Brian Ward, the youth pastor I worked for, say who are we to judge who is scam or not? We are supposed to be like Jesus.

But my shoes look very nice, though. They are somewhat new.

-Justin

Pompeii and Sicily.

Yes, it has been a while since I updated. I apologize. This will probably be a little long so you can either bare with me or skip it all together. I'm a little lazy right now so I don't want to proofread all of this. If it is impossible to read, let me know and I'll go back and check it all.

Not this last weekend, but the weekend before, our entire class went to the city of Pompeii to check out the ruins. Pompeii is an incredible city to walk around. You are literally wandering into houses and walking on the exact stone of a city that was completely destroyed and covered in ash by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The most surreal moment was viewing the plastered bodies of people along the wall of the city who were attempting to escape the destruction. The place in which we viewed the bodies are in the exact place in which they died.
Weird...

Now, about the trip to Sicily. We had a flight to Palermo, Sicily early Friday morning so instead of waking up at 4:30 to catch a taxi, a few of us decided to spend the night in the airport on Thursday night. Here is where a few problems occur. First off, Kara, Khang, and I made it to Termini, the train station in Rome, 20 minutes after the last train left to the airport. After Kara tried to persuade the cab driver to lower his fare, to no avail, we decided to take the B line metro south with the hope of walking the rest of the way. On our way to the metro, the train security began to close the gate. We had to run to make it through the gate in time. When we made it in, we went to the side of the B line that was going north, instead of south. We only had two minutes until the train arrived so we had to run around to the other side where we barely arrived in time.

We had a map of where the airport was located, thanks to a map that Dr. Roper drew for us. Unknowingly and surprisingly of course, the map was not drawn to scale. But not knowing this, we hopped off of the B line at a stop we arbitrarily chose. Not only did we walk the wrong way out of the train station, but we realized that the airport was about a 3 hour walk on a highway. Oh ya, I forgot to say, it is midnight by now. So we decided to bite the bullet and pay for a taxi we found at a random Sheraton Hotel we ran into.

At the airport, we spent the 1:00 AM hour reading Aeschylus' The Eumenides. Good play but lets just say, I forgot most of the information of the play when I took the quiz on Monday. Oh well.

But we finally made it to Palermo, Sicily after little sleep and a short flight. We spent most of our time in Siracusa, which is on the eastern coast, and on the road enjoying the beautiful scenery of middle and eastern Sicily. When in Siracusa, we saw the 3rd oldest amphitheatre, a beautiful Greek theatre that looked out on the sea, and the "Ear of Dionysus" which is a large cave while staying in a nice, cheap, and quaint Bed and Breakfast.



Cool stuff, so I think.

Another airport story. Kara had a different flight than the rest of us so she was going to sleep in the airport again. So Khang and I decided we would join her and sleep in the airport. Lets just say that the Palermo airport isn't as nice as the Rome airport. I slept a few hours early while Kara and Khang stayed up and then we switched. They slept while I kept guard. As I was sitting and reading the Phaedo at 2ish AM, a homeless man makes his way into the airport. He wanders around attempting to get into every locked store and room. He fiddles around with the pay phones for about 15 minutes as well. After all the failed attempts to get into stores and rooms, he decided to attempt some art. Three or four statues stood in the middle of the airport and he thought it would be a good idea to decorate them.

So for around 30 minutes, he rummaged through the trash gathering paper and bottles for his masterpiece. To be honest, I was a little nervous to look his way so I was noticing most of this through my periphery. When he has finished and sat down out of my view, I decided to look at what he had done to the statues. He placed a water bottle in a horses' mouth along with putting a sheet of paper in horseman's hand. He had also scattered paper, cups, bottles, and other objects on all the other statues in the middle. Hands, arms, and heads had trash on them. All and all, it was a strange and somewhat nerve-racking experience to encounter at 2 am in the morning.

Also at the Palermo airport, my friend Steve tried to smuggle in a cheap bottle of wine that he was going to give his dad since he is Sicilian. Of course, the security caught it. When they retrieved the bottle, they made the mistake of putting the wine in the nearest trashcan. Steve and a few others decided they could get it out of the trash can with no one noticing. They scanned the area making sure the cameras didn't point near the trash can and checked to see where each guard was. When the moment was right, Steve made a run for the wine. Steve successfully obtains the wine and makes a dash for the gate.

While at the gate, I noticed a contingent of security guards congregating near the gate. I told Steve and he proceeded to sit and stay as unnoticeable as possible. Multiple guards then made their way too where we were sitting. As Steve sat nervously for what was to come, the guards called on 2 other guys and a random girl who wasn't even part of our group to bring their bags to them. The guards, of course, found nothing. They came back, seeming to be a little irritated, and went over to Steve's bag. They opened it up and found the bottle. A guard grabbed Steve by the neck and escorted him into an interrogation room while making a scene about it all in front of the entire Palermo airport. All of us sat in utter confusion on what was to come with Steve.

Steve said that most of the security guards of airport joined him in the interrogation room. They proceeded to scream at him in Italian which Steve knows none of. After noticing that his last name is Grosso, which is Sicilian, they become highly confused at how he can't speak any Italian. They can't believe it. They yell at him a little more. After all of the inaudible screaming, the cordially shake his hand at let him leave...without the wine. Crazy.

So those are my recent experiences. More to come I'm sure. I'm going to an AC Milan vs. Inter Milan soccer game this weekend so I'll probably have something to say about that.

If you would like, you can check my pictures to view what else I saw in Pompeii and the other places. I also put pictures of our trip to the Capitoline Museum, which was great, as well as pictures of my trip to Sicily. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.