Grasmere

Last weekend, Professor Ward led us deep into the dales of the Lake District. We arrived in Grasmere, former haunt of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and various other figures of English romanticism. After touring Dove Cottage, where Wordsworth and his family lived for almost ten years, and sampling some of the apparently famous Grasmere gingerbread, we began our hike up into the mountains overlooking the lake. The farther we went, the more the landscape opened up below us and around us. Halfway up, we met a dog running down from the rocky tarns, excited by the crowd of us invading its master's property. We discovered the reason for the dog and the ancient rock walls stretching up and down the mountainside when we reached the crown of our hill and were greeted by the disgruntled baas of a flock of sheep standing along the ridge above us.

On the way down, we met an older man hiking with his friend. Because of his pension, he said, he was able to spend much of his time hiking around the world. He talked about a trip he had planned to mountain-bike in Alaska and backpack through

the American northwest. He also had more than a few opinions about our government and some understandable complaints about the monopolizing schemes of a certain Mr. Murdoch.

As usual, thank Elizabeth for supplying the beautiful pictures.

A Municipal Valentine's Day

Elizabeth and I celebrated Valentine's Day together last night. We tried out a local Italian restaurant (her request) that I had read about online called Ask. It's housed in the York Assembly Rooms, an old 18th century building with a magnificent main hall. Marble pillars, Grecian statues, chandeliers (with flame-shaped light bulbs, of course) and some oil portraits of obscure Yorkshire dignitaries. The food was delicious. She had some kind of fish-stuffed ravioli and I had the aptly-named Vesuvio pizza. It was one of the hottest things I've ever eaten. We had some very tasty wine with our meal, Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay. Neither of us are wine experts by any means, but we were very pleased nonetheless.

Fourteen Generations (Golden Rain)

After lunch I went back to my room on the third floor of F Block and opened my Bible to the first chapter of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus. Something about this dry record moved me. There was a sense of building tension, like the main theme in an overture being introduced. My drapes were drawn open and the sun was angled into my eyes, getting more and more intense as I read to the point that I couldn't discern the words anymore. It was about the seventeenth verse when I looked up. Bright flecks like snow or dust were slanting past my window. The sun was pouring through the clouds above York Minster, lighting up the sudden rain. I put down my Bible, opened the window and stood there looking out over the city until the rain stopped. I felt blessed somehow. The wind was blowing lightly and people were coming to and from classes, laughing and covering their heads. It's sunny today for the first time in four days.

"Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham

to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and

fourteen from the exile to the Messiah." – Matthew 1:17

On a different note, I watched the American Superbowl two nights ago. Dan, a bartender at the Student Union and new acquaintance of ours, invited us over to his flat. The game was more or less a disappointment first because the Colts lost (and as a former Indiana kid, I was obligated to cheer for them) and second because it was broadcast without the typical bombast of Superbowl commercials. Normally I feel the back of my hands start to itch when I have to sit through advertisements, but everyone knows Superbowl ads tend to be more interesting than the game itself. The evening did give us a chance to debate the true identity of a package of chocolate-covered wafers: cookies (the Americans) or biscuits (the Britons)?

Monastery Life

Today I did my laundry in the little porcelain sink set into one corner of my room. Above the sink is a mirror about one foot square with chips in it. Behind the flimsy headboard of my bed is an iron radiator that I hung one of my towels over to dry. The walls are white, and the paint is peeled off where former residents tacked up posters. I have a long desk, two chairs, and a nightstand just big enough to lay a pair of newly-washed boxers over. The round light fixture in the middle of the ceiling flickers for about two seconds before turning on. I can see the Minster rising over the apartments of north York. In the evening, I can hear the bears ring the call to evensong.

Professor Ward assigned some excerpts from Wordsworth for tomorrow. In the last book of his autobiographical saga The Prelude, he writes:

"... howsoe'er misled,

I never, in the quest of right and wrong,

Did tamper with myself from private aims;

Nor was in any of my hopes the dupe

Of selfish passions; nor did wilfully

Yield ever to mean cares and low pursuits;

But rather did with jealousy shrink back

From every combination that might aid

The tendency, too potent in itself,

Of habit to enslave the mind, I mean

Oppress it by the laws of vulgar sense,

And substitute a universe of death,

The falsest of all worlds, in place of that

Which is divine and true.

The last four lines especially struck as emblematic of my greatest frustrations with myself since starting College. Dorm life was characterized most of all by noise: Xboxes, stereo systems, TV shows, movies, and the general buffoonery of adolescent maledom. I love all of the above things to a degree, but I've also realized that they tend to distract me from the seriousness, sadness, and beauty of life. Reading these lines of poetry and thinking about the austerity of my living quarters gives me reason to hope for more out of this trip than a chance to get out of Grand Rapids for a semester, tour a few castles, and be over the legal drinking age. Four months of scrubbing my dirty clothes in an old sink might actually be my way of "living deliberately." It could be a means of abolishing "the laws of vulgar sense" in order to live by the anarchy of the divine and true.

Credit for the photos goes to William Overbeeke, a fellow YSJer.