For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a ninja. I’m out. I remain committed to martial arts as always but not to being “ninja” or to being part of ninja stuff. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile,disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years,... I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.

Today I woke up in time for breakfast (I had missed it yesterday) and then decided to walk into Oxford. It's a pleasant walk, and the weather was perfect for it. In Houston I'd be a puddle of sweat before fifteen minutes had passed, even at 8:30 am. It's August, for crying out loud! But in the temperate climate of England I was fine.

I didn't have to meet Andrew until 9:55 am, so I took advantage of the time and got some shopping done, exploring up High street to Cornmarket street, then to Magdalen street and back. I met Andrew at 9:55 at Christ Church gate, which has been the center of our orbits this entire week; we headed from there back to Magdalen street, as I had one main goal today: to get to Wolvercote cemetery to visit J.R.R. Tolkien's grave-site. We stopped in a store and bought a spray of flowers for two pounds - it wasn't much, but it was all I could find at short notice - and then we caught the #6 bus to Mere Road. Mere road is only 600 meters or so from Wolvercote, though we had to take our lives in our hands crossing the lanes in a very busy roundabout to get to Five Mile street which leads to the cemetery.

I hadn't been able to get a precise location of Tolkien's grave on the internet, and it was a bit daunting for us as we walked through this beautiful cemetery which contains several hundred graves. We finally found some men who appeared to work there, and they pointed us in the right direction.

We came upon the grave of Tolkien and his wife Edith (pictured above). It's a beautiful grave, and it was decorated with flowers and a green bush growing out of the top of the grave. On the headstone Tolkien had engraved under his wife's name the name Luthien. Luthien is the elf-maiden in Tolkien's epic poem referenced in Lord of the Rings and expanded more fully in the Silmarillion. When he died, two years after his wife, the name of Beren, Luthien's mortal love, was engraved under Tolkien's name. From all accounts, Tolkien and his wife had a lifelong romance.

I wanted to leave a note with the flowers, and I hadn't been able to find a blank card, so I tore a sheet out of my notebook and wrote the following on it:

"The grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back.
And he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country
under a swift sunrise."

This is a quote from the end of The Return of the King. I wrote a few other quick thanks and blessings, and signed the note on behalf of the Thinklings. Andrew, an honorary Thinkling himself, having mooted with us several times, was also named on the note.

I found myself, unexpectedly, choking up while I read the note. I am so thankful to God for J.R.R. Tolkien and his magnificent work, as I am likewise thankful for C.S. Lewis.

The thought occurred to me this week: without Jesus, C.S. Lewis is just another brilliant English scholar who I've never heard of. Without Jesus, there has been no Narnia, we haven't been brought to our knees in worship in Perelandra, we haven't marvelled at God's redeeming patience in Till We Have Faces, we haven't been strengthened in our faith through Mere Christianity, or gained wisdom from The Screwtape Letters, or found solace in A Grief Observed. And I believe that without Jesus, we never would have had the epic tale of friendship, courage, sacrifice, redemption, and triumph over evil that is The Lord of the Rings. Without Jesus our hearts are never broken by "beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron". Without the witness of Christ in his life, Tolkien does not produce that work.

I honor these men, but all true honor goes to the Lord who inspired them and gifted them so magnificently. This is one reason why I don't despair over the apparent or observed dearth of noteworthy creativity coming out of Christian circles today. An amazing thing happened in Oxford a half century ago. That is not so long ago in the scheme of things and, though we may be at low tide (our entire culture, both Christian and non-Christian, may be) the wave will crest again.

But I digress. Andrew and I spent a few more moments by the grave, and then made our way back to the city center and ate a lunch of pizza bagels and ice-cream.

At 1:15 we met up with some of his Baylor classmates and made our way to Magdalen college for a tour and some class time. Andrew's professor, Dr. Hanks, was gracious enough to allow me to take part in this. Before I describe the tour, I'd just like to say that Andrew's classmates are all top-notch people. They were gracious to me, polite, well spoken, obviously very intelligent, and a joy to be around. The whole afternoon was a treat for me.

Magdalen College is absolutely beautiful. It has to be seen in person to be fully appreciated (although my pictures, linked at the bottom, will give you a taste). Magdalen's buildings are festooned with gargoyles. Magdalen students claim they have the best gargoyles at Oxford and, though I haven't seen every building in this university, I'd be hard pressed to imagine better gargoyle work. Magdalen is also the greenest, lushest place I've seen thus far.

We took a tour of the outer portion of Magdalen chapel, which has amazing stained glass work, carvings, and paintings, and then made our way around the campus, ending up with a view of the building C.S. Lewis lodged in while he was a professor here. It is a "newer" building, having been built in 1751. Dr. Hanks pointed out Lewis' rooms. We then followed the path called "Addison's Walk", which is the walk Lewis took with Tolkien and Hugo Dyson the night he was convinced of the truth claims of Christianity. Addison's walk is beautiful, lined with stately old trees and lush greenery.

We ended up on a short bridge leading to a gate which itself leads into the pasture land where the Magdalen deer herd is kept. It was on this bridge that Dr. Hanks held class. The subjects of the class were two of the books in the Narnia series: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle. Dr. Hanks teaches with a Socratic method, so the students were very involved in the discussion. Gosh, they're smart. Together the class explored the parallels between TLTWATW and Christianity. One student noted the parallel of the cracked Stone Table and the law of Moses. This is one I hadn't considered before. There was also a lively discussion on the themes of The Last Battle, including a discussion of Lewis' inclusive theology as evidenced (possibly) by the Calormen Emeth's acceptance by Aslan. All in all, I was fascinated and felt privileged to get to be an observer of this class.

When class was done, Dr. Hanks let us know that we had been given permission to tour the inner part of Magdalen's chapel. The main attraction there was that we each got to sit in C.S. Lewis' chair and have our picture taken. This seat is currently owned by another Magdalen don, but there is a memorial plaque honoring Lewis on the chair.

With that, our tour was over. Andrew and his friends Brooke and Brittney joined me for cookies at Ben's Cookies, and at this point my time in Oxford was starting to run short. Andrew had some things to do before dinner in the Great Hall this evening, but still had perhaps an hour, so he and I went to the two pound bookstore near Christ Church. That's right: every book, two pounds. And there are a lot of good books in there. I bought P.J. O'Rourke's On The Wealth of Nations in hardback and Andrew bought Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. We then went to the St. Aldtate's Tavern where I ordered a fish and chips that we split. We talked for awhile, and then it came time to go. We're guys, so we didn't make a big deal of it, we just hugged and said goodbye, but I miss Andrew already.

On that note: I'm so glad Andrew was given the privilege to study at Oxford, even just for five weeks, and I'm so thankful that God provided so that Andrew could go (and God certainly did that, and has continued to provide). It was pleasing to hear people, from his classmates to Dr. Hanks, speak highly of Andrew to me and, most commonly, note the profound nature of his comments and observations in class. Everyone seems to like Andrew.

Most of all, it's great to have a twenty-year-old son who actually wants to spend time with his dad. I will never forget this vacation, and the hours we got to spend together exploring Oxford and talking about the things we love.

It's been a great trip. Tomorrow I will bid Oxford farewell and start my journey back to Houston, arriving hopefully in time for my sweet Bethany's 17 year birthday party. I'm a very blessed man.

Thanks for walking along with me in these posts. Now, go read some Tolkien or Lewis, it will do you good!

Cheers!

(If you're interested, you can view all the pictures I took today here)

Built into our plans for the week was to have a day without a lot to do. The day following our whirlwind London trip seemed as good as any, and so we kept Sunday as open as possible.

I let Andrew sleep in - we had originally made plans to attend Christ Church cathedral for services together, but looking at him struggle to stay awake on the train Saturday night convinced me that maybe he deserved a break from my schedule for awhile. So Sunday morning I made my way alone to the Christ Church main gate at 11:15, in time for the Cathedral Eucharist service. If you are attending the service, the derby-wearing Christ Church protectors allow you to walk to the Cathedral through the "forbidden zone" of the Quad. That was a treat, and I snapped a few pictures surreptitiously coming and going.

The Eucharist service was wonderful. It was an Anglican service, a first for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I struggled to keep up, however; I had received a paper program that summarized the hymns we were singing, but I realized once things got rolling that I missed out on the bound booklet that contained the real keys to the service. I'm sure they're used to the slightly dazed look a clueless tourist adopts during the service when he doesn't have a booklet, but I hung in there. The songs were high hymns, and there was a men's choir that sang several prayerful songs, a few in Latin. The message of the day was on materialism, and it was a very good one. The priest spoke of how we often invert the roles of the Spirit versus the Material. Both are good, as Christ's Incarnation proves, but the Material is to be in subjugation to the Spirit, and is to be used to build the Kingdom. He warned us that if we get this backwards, we will see the material things which are our true treasures turn to "spiritual dust in our hands". This was thought-provoking for me, and I profited from it. At the end of the service we took communion, with wafers and a shared communion cup (filled with wine, not the grape juice I'm used to).

Following the service I met Andrew for lunch; we went to Old Tom's pub (just another ale-house that's been around for three hundred years) and I ordered fish and chips. I know English food gets a bad rap, but I have completely enjoyed the fare I've received here. It's good, simple food and it suits me well.

Following lunch, Andrew trekked with me back to Windmill road, where I'm staying. I got some down-time and even took a nap, and Andrew worked on a paper that he has due. Around 5:00pm Andrew headed back to Oxford to get ready for dinner in the Great Hall, and I followed around 7:00pm to meet up with Andrew and a number of other Baylor students at Bodleian Library for a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Bodleian has been in existence since 1602 and is the main research library for Oxford, and it is a magnificent building with a large courtyard. Also attending the performance was one of Andrew's professors, Dr. Hanks, who is one of the kindest and most engaging people I've ever met. I was very impressed with the students as well. They are all top-notch young people, polite, cheerful, friendly, and smart. The company I got to keep last night was very good.

This was to be an outdoor performance of A Midsummer's Night Dream, performed by an acting troupe from Shakespear's Globe Theater (!!!). The performance took place in the large Bodleian courtyard; the Globe players perform after the manner of the plays done in Shakespeare's time, complete with very limited technology, just a simple set and some lighting, no sound system, and with a minstrel-show feel in between acts. The costuming for the play would have been foreign to the Globe players of yore, however; it was done in 1920's style, and included a rarity: a female Puck dressed as a 1920's flapper. You can see the stage and the setting in the picture, above.

The play was fantastic. This was Shakespeare in all his comedic grandeur, complete with a good dose of Shakespearian bawdiness and excellent performances by the Globe players. They all did a fabulous job, and they sang and played instruments too (and danced the Charleston in between acts to boot). We laughed heartily throughout. The play ended around 10:30pm, with multiple curtain calls.

I parted ways with Andrew and his Baylor colleagues and began making my way to the bus stop. It was just around this time that I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day except the fish and chips I had earlier. So I found a street vendor and bought a cheeseburger, which had that European tilt to the flavor from what I'm used to, but was still good. I was making my way toward the bus stop to head back to Headington when a policeman pulled over and motioned me to his car. At first I thought he was going to ticket me for jaywalking (which I was guilty of) but instead he gave me a look of concern and said:

"Is that a camera yer holdin' in yer hand?"

"Um, yes officer."

"Well, take my advice and stash it away. Yer jest askin' to be robbed."

I thanked him and shoved my camera in my front pocket, waited for the bus (surrounded by a bunch of teenagers and a priest), caught it and made my way back to Windmill road.

This whole vacation has been a mid-summer's dream come true for me. I've had an incredible time. Only one more full day left.

If you'd like to view the pictures I took yesterday, you can see them here.

Yesterday, Andrew and I had only one thing on our itinerary; to leap into London with everything we had; to "rub one's nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was." (C.S. Lewis).

That's a big challenge when considering a city like London, and for a day with only so many hours in it. But we gave it our best shot. We boarded our train for Paddington at the Oxford railway station and enjoyed a nice, fifty-five minute commute into London. Andrew had worked diligently to have all the directions we'd need to fulfill our itinerary, acting as our navigator for the day, and he did a fabulous job, as I would have immediately gotten myself lost hopelessly in London's warrens. I will give London this credit, though: unlike Oxford, London labels its streets plainly and in large letters. In Oxford, there's no sense labeling a street because five paces after the sign the street will have changed its name.

Our first goal was to get something to eat. Our second goal was to arrive at the British Museum. We accomplished both in one fell swoop. We rode the Tube toward the museum and, upon arriving, discovered a hot dog stand right outside it. The hot dogs there were excellent, by the way, and Andrew was pretty excited because the stand carries his favorite soda, Sunkist, which he hadn't yet seen in Europe. From his reports it ended up tasting like Fanta, but it was still good.

The British museum was - you'll hear this word a couple times in this post - overwhelming. We rammed through much of it in about an hour and a half, but probably only saw a small fraction of one percent of what it offered. It's just huge. We walked through ancient Greece and Rome, ancient Egypt, ancient Ur and Babylon, and much of the history of Europe.

There were lots of sculptures and busts in the museum: busts of various kings and emperors, including an impressive collection of Roman emperors. These were important in their day: without mass media the Emperor needed a way to get his image out in front of the populace, so the emperors are represented in sculpted images of exaggerated youth, vitality, and heroism. There were large displays of armor, helmets, swords, spears, and the other implements of war. Toward the end of it, I found myself becoming a little depressed; it's amazing how much of mankind's history revolves around conquest, intrigue, wealth, weaponry, and politics. This morning at Christ Church cathedral we sang a song that reminded me of what I saw in the histories yesterday at the museum:

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control.
Shame our wanton selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,

- God of Grace and God of Glory, v. 3
Following the British museum, we again hopped on the Tube and made our way to the Imperial War Museum. Once again, it was overwhelming. We spent some time in the main room admiring the aircraft, tanks and rockets on display there, and then made our way down into the trenches of World War I. The trench simulation was very good, with the sites and sounds (but not the smells, thankfully) of trench warfare in the Great War faithfully reproduced. We heard interviews of soldiers who had "gone over the top" into no man's land and were the only ones left standing of their platoon,

All wars are awful, but World War I gets win, place, and show in the most hellish war imaginable sweepstakes. It was such a terrible, stupid war, full of waste and senseless bloodshed. I'm amazed at the English people for what they endured in the 20th century: not one but two world wars right on their doorsteps that stole entire generations of their young men.

Peace to them all . . . Ypres and the Somme ate up most of them. They were happy while their good days lasted.

- C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, chapter VI - Bloodery
We moved from the Great War section to the section on World War II, and were again met with tales of great courage and heroism on all sides. But also of troubling hatred.

"They were all murdered because we hate them."

- Felix Landau, SS sergeant, speaking of the victims of the Holocaust
I'm thankful to all those who sacrificed so much for our freedom, against such evil.

We finally left the War museum as dinner was calling us, and we had to make our way to Trafalgar square, again on the Tube. We had dinner in a nice pub called Garfunkel's, where we ate some very good Italian food. We were both footsore and brain-weary at this point so we took our time over dinner, and then headed to the National Gallery which is a magnificent building at the head of Trafalgar square. It was closing in about 45 minutes, so our visit there consisted mainly of a nearly-blind rush through room after room of paintings. To give you a sense of the scope of this art gallery, I think we went through about eight rooms devoted to the 17th century alone. The paintings were magnificent and my one regret is that we didn't have more time for this museum. I saw Monets, Van Goghs, Gaugins, and Rembrandts, among many, many other artists, and we stayed until they started shooing us out.

This completed our museum-hunting for the day. We also had on our plans the Churchill museum, but that proved unrealistic in hindsight. So we made our way to the Queen's Theater to see Les Miserables, which has been running in London for twenty five years. I had never seen Les Mis and was unfamiliar with the story, so I bought a playbill and read up on it while we waited for the play to start. It was magnificent! Not only was it a great, entertaining musical skillfully done, it was also surprisingly redemptive. It's a tale of sacrifice and forgiveness from start to end, and I walked out uplifted. Uplifted and also dead-tired, as it was now past 10:30pm at the end of a long, full day.

We still had a long road ahead of us, though. We trekked the few blocks to the Piccadilly Circus Underground and rode it to Paddington Station, arriving about five minutes till 11:00pm. We had to run to catch the Oxford train that was boarding at Platform 9.

"Uh oh," I thought as we boarded. The train was packed, with barely room for us to stand just inside the doors. And it was hot. So, dog-tired, Andrew and I stood sweating among teeming masses, including a young gent and his lass who decided that this would be the perfect place to start snogging.

To take my mind off the snogging happening four inches away from me, I tried to engage in conversation with the middle aged British couple crammed up against the door. I could hear them discussing Les Mis, as they had also attended that night, so I tried to join in, using my best Texas opener, "So, did you have good seats for the play?". But they didn't appear to be much interested in conversing with the sweaty American invading even the small personal spaces that Europeans value, so, since they were staring at me like I had a third eye, I decided to drop my attempts at communication. I resigned myself to a long, uncomfortable journey home.

But then, a miracle! Oh thank you, Glorious, Shining city of Slough! The train stopped at the Slough railway station (unexpectedly, as we had only one stop on the way in, at Reading), and a number of people exited the train. We still had to stand, but the young couple was able to take their intimacy over to a seat, and we had more breathing room. And then the next (unexpected) stop, and even more people got off, and Andrew and I were able to find seats into which we collapsed, until we arrived back in good old Oxford at midnight.

From there, Andrew and I each took our separate cabs back home: he to Christ Church and me to Windmill road in Headington. Upon arriving home, I skyped for a bit with my lovely better half - poor thing: I get to look at her while we skype and she has to look at me - and I was also able to talk to two of my kids, Bethany and Blake, as well. Finally, we said our goodbyes and, as the time neared 2:00am, I fell asleep.

London, thanks for a great day. I'll never forget it. But it's good to be back in Oxford.

If you'd like to see pictures from today, you can find them here.

This morning I woke up, ate an early English breakfast (which was awesome - more on that in a later post), posted the previous post that I was too jetlagged to post last night, and then walked over to Christ Church's main gate to meet Andrew at 11:00am. He and I found a little shop and got a slice of pizza and sat and talked for awhile, and then, around noon, caught the bus to Kilns Lane and Lewis Close, which is where you can find C.S. Lewis' house, the Kilns.

We had to wander around in this residential area a little while before we found the Kilns. It's a beautiful little house, lovingly restored (probably in much better shape than when C.S. Lewis actually lived there). We were a little bit early so we hung around in a nearby lane leading to the C.S. Lewis nature walk and pond. When our 1:00pm tour time approached we went to the door of the Kilns and rang the bell.

A matronly English woman answered the door, and when she found out that we were there for a tour, she asked us if we wouldn't mind waiting for a few minutes in the garden. So, Andrew and I took our seats in the garden that C.S. Lewis used to sit in. It is - I have to resort to a more British-sounding adjective here - lovely.

A few minutes after we sat down, a very nice lady popped out of the door of the Kilns and asked us if we'd like some tea.

Tea.

Would I like to have some tea . . . in C.S. Lewis's garden . . .

I avoided the temptation to shout "WOULD I? WOULD I?!?!" - and instead said something like "Thank you. That would be splendid." I actually don't think I said "splendid", I probably said something more American like "awesome", or "neat", but let's pretend.

She and another very nice "scullery maid" (that's how they laughingly referred to themselves) brought us tea on a very nice serving, with sugar lumps, cream, and cookies. I took a picture of it, above.

The aforementioned two ladies are Americans, by the way. Interesting.

Another group of five people joined us a few minutes later and tea was brought out for them as well. And then we entered the Kilns. We sat in the sitting room and listened as our guide, Kim Gilnett, told us the story of the Kilns and C.S. Lewis. He did a fantastic job. Andrew had already done this tour and confirmed for me that it's not a scripted thing. Kim is a Lewis aficionado from Seattle Pacific University (he's also an American) and he asked us about our interest in Lewis, shared anecdotes, pointed out photos, talked about Lewis' wife, Joy, and in general kept us spellbound for nearly an hour. Among the anecdotes shared were ones about Lewis's generosity: Lewis didn't feel right making money from writing about Christianity, so he gave a lot of his money away - always to needy individuals, rather than causes. And always anonymously. This helps explain why he, Warnie, Mrs. Moore, other boarders, his gardner, Mr. Paxford, their cook, and later Joy Davidman and her two sons, continued to live at this relatively small house that Lewis had bought in 1930 for $3,300 pounds, till Lewis' death and beyond.

As an aside, Kim is not a big fan of the dour portrayal of Lewis in the movie Shadowlands.

Following our time in the sitting room, Kim took us on a tour of the house, including the dining room, the kitchen, several of the studies that are in the house, one containing Warnie Lewis' typewriter upon which a large number of Lewis' letters were typed up from "Jack's" manuscripts, etc. We saw the room C.S. Lewis died in, the kitchen, and a number of bedrooms. It's not a large house by any means, but it holds a deceptively large number of rooms. We also met Jerry Root, editor of The Quotable Lewis, who was studying his Bible at the desk where Lewis often wrote during the time when he authored the Narnia series. Professor Root was preparing for a weekend seminar, where students come and are put up at the Kilns for several days to learn more about Lewis.

Our guide, Kim, has been a Lewis scholar since the 70s, and was a part of the restoration of the Kilns that started in the early 90s. There's a story there: After Lewis' brother Warnie Lewis, who also lived at the Kilns, died in the early 70s, the home was sold to a family that proceeded to change a bunch of things, even to the point of renovating the kitchen in the 1970s Avacado Green Blech™ style, so the restoration team had its work cut out for them. In addition, C.S. Lewis and Warnie pretty much smoked non-stop in the house during their waking hours, so there was quite a bit of heavy tobacco stainage that was discovered when the restoration team stripped the newer paint off. All in all I think they've done a fantastic job. The people who run the Kilns seem to have a genuine love and enthusiasm for Lewis and it shows.

I don't think I'll ever forget taking afternoon tea in the Kilns garden.

Once we left the Kilns we walked around the Kilns' pond, and then walked over to the church that C.S. Lewis attended where we viewed his gravestone, which is in the church cemetery.

Following this, we headed back to Oxford's city center and Andrew took me on an abbreviated Inklings walk. It was great - we walked by the first house C.S. Lewis stayed at after arriving in Oxford, visited the gravestones of a few of his Inkling friends such as Hugo Dyson and Charles Williams, walked past Magdalen college, and ended up at the Eagle and Child pub for dinner. It got me wondering what a "Thinklings walk" would look like. We'd start at BloDingle, probably, which was the site of our first few moots, and go from there, ending up, I suppose, in a quaint little town in Vermont . . .

But I digress: at the Eagle and Child we ordered some delicious "pie" (think pot-pie, not fruit-pie) and then I caught the bus back to Headington.

It was a great day. Tomorrow, London!

Click here if you'd like to see the pictures I took today.

If you don't have Facebook, try this link to see the pictures.

I arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning at 7:30 after a pleasant flight from Houston. I was somewhat bleary because I don't sleep well on planes, but I can't complain. Catching the Oxford Express at the airport I arrived at Headington, Oxford and made my way to my lodgings (a nice little B&B off of Windmill road). After getting settled in and exchanging a few emails with my eldest, Andrew, who is studying at Oxford this summer, I began my trek towards Christ Church college.

The weather was cool, about 70, and the skies were overcast. It was an enjoyable walk. It occurred to me that C.S. Lewis must have made this walk thousands of times, as the Kilns is less than a mile from where I'm staying.

Andrew and I met up near Christ Church cathedral and began our day. We made our way to the Kings Arms pub for lunch, where we both ordered bangers and mash, because what's better to start off a day of Oxford? It was delicious. We spent some time exploring the city and talking about its history as we walked. Oxford's city center is bustling with a great deal of pedestrian traffic, and the roads go every which-way and change names often, as roads in ancient cities are wont to do, so it took awhile for me to get my bearings. We walked down the Thames for a mile or two - I kept threatening Andrew that I was going to adopt my best rube American accent and ask a local where the "Thaymes" was" - and turned down a country lane that appeared to our right, passing by a soccer pitch and cutting through the meadows back to the city roads. During our walk we talked about Tolkien and Lewis and the works of literary genius those men produced. It's a wonderful feeling to be walking the same roads they did.

At 2:30 I bought a visitor's ticket into Christ Church proper - Andrew is a student there and has full run of the place - and we ventured into Christ Church cathedral and the Great Hall, where the students eat breakfast and dinner each day. I haven't seen the movies, but evidently Hogwarts is patterned after the Great Hall. Andrew gets to eat here five nights a week and, from a look at the menu and all his reports, the food is exquisite.

The cathedral was fascinating. There are memorial plaques and statues all over it honoring the departed and dating back centuries. There is also evidence of the Reformation-era expunging of any references to the saints, from blanked out faces on stained glass to the removal of saint's relics from the memorials.

Following our visit to Christ Church, we made another exploration through the streets of Oxford, ending up at St. Phillips book store where I purchased Lewis's The Discarded Image and Andrew bought a book by Hobbes, primarily because of who wrote the forward (the name escapes me). By this time I was starting to get a bit foggy, having been up for over 26 hours, not counting a few brief moments of dozing on the plane. So we grabbed a quick meal at Pret a Manger and then we popped over to the Bird and Baby to share a pint with Tollers and Jack. I read them some of my latest work. They both laughed heartily and pronounced it "pure rubbish".

Just kidding about that last part (but wouldn't that have been wonderful!). After dinner I caught City Bus #8 back to Headington, uploaded some photos, and crashed.

If interested, you can see pictures from Day 1 here: Oxford, Day 1. If you're not a Facebook user, try this link.

And now, off I go for another day in Oxford! Today Andrew and I will be visiting the Kilns, taking an Inklings walk, and perhaps visiting a museum after that.

The leak is capped.

Thank goodness. Pray that it holds.

In my previous post, (right below this one, just look down) I told you what happened to the mutineers of the H.M.S. Bounty. They took some women from Tahiti and settled on an island in the South Pacific. After all but two of the men had been murdered or killed, only one man remained. He found a Bible, turned his life over to Christ and led the women and children on Pitcairn Island to become a Christian community.

It was originally written as a column for my local paper, and I posted it here at Thinklings at about the same time I submitted it to my editor.

I told my wife the story and she thought it was so cool, that on Thursday morning at Ladies Bible Study at our church, she came to my office and asked me to come tell the ladies the story. They thought it was cool too, as it illustrated what they were studying about reforming Kings who turned their people back to God's law.

I, of course emphasized that the fact that the current residents of Pitcairn Island are still Christians is a testimony to the power of God's word.

Enter Thinklings commenter Jonathan W. In only the second comment by a reader,in which he told me that most of the island's grown men (including the mayor) had been charged with sexual crimes against children going back decades.

You can go see the drama unfold as the truth does under the original post's comment thread. (Of all the articles linked there, this is probably the best one.)

Imagine my shock and dismay to learn something like that after I had written triumphantly about it here, in my local paper and shared it excitedly with a bunch of ladies in a Bible study.

I told everyone that all of the Island’s current inhabitants are Christians. Turns out they weren’t acting like it. The girls on the island were “coming of age” sexually speaking at ages 12-14, at least that’s what the residents of Pitcairn claim. Their argument in court was that because of their inherited Tahitian culture, that it was culturally acceptable. Some of the women who had been victimized for years said differently. (And for those of you who might remind me that Mary was around 14, on Pitcairn Island they weren't necessarily getting married young, grown men were having sex with girls as soon as they hit puberty, and probably some before that.)

What are we to learn from this? Does this horrible new information mean that the point of the previous post is invalid? After all, I was trying to demonstrate how God’s word changes lives, and I pointed to the fact that the island’s current residents are still Christians as evidence of that. Does their rampant immorality disprove that premise?

I don’t think so. Instead, it teaches us another lesson: just because one generation embraces the Gospel, doesn’t mean the next one will. It also shows us that religion can be empty and meaningless if it is missing the most essential ingredient.

The most essential ingredient is knowing and trusting Jesus personally. The Gospel doesn't change your life just because you hear it on Sunday. Your children may continue your religious traditions, but that doesn’t mean that they have what matters. In fact, if religion is all they have, they have nothing.

This important truth is why Moses stood on the banks of the Jordan telling the new generation what God had done in their parents’ generation. (That’s the entire book of Deuteronomy.) He also asked them to renew the covenant with God that their parent’s had made. He knew that if the new generation didn’t deliberately choose to follow God, they wouldn’t.

Again and again we see this pattern repeated in the Bible. For example, the entire book of Judges is about how one generation turns back to God after suffering for their sin, and crying out to him, and then each succeeding generation forgets about God again and “does what is right in their own eyes.” Many generations later, King Josiah rediscovers the book of the Law of God which had been forgotten in a back room of the Temple. (Ironically, that book was probably Deuteronomy, the very book whose whole purpose was to remind the next generation to remember God and to choose him for themselves.) This discovery causes him to lead his people in repenting of their sins and dedicating themselves to the LORD.

There’s a reason that Moses (yes, in the book of Deuteronomy!) says that, you are to teach your children to Love YHWH with mind, passion and action (6:4-7).

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

And at some point they must make the decision for themselves. Each generation has a choice: whether or not they are going to follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before, for good or evil.

Of course, that lesson here isn't quite so shocking. It's as old as the very first "second generation" --- Cain and Abel.

You will get different answers depending on who you talk to. An outsider to both religions will say, “Yes.” The reason they say that is because Christians and Jews and Muslims all believe that they are worshiping the God who spoke to Abraham. So historically, all three religions point back to the same God as the god they worship. Plus Muslims and Christians both call him "God". (“Allah” means “the God” in Arabic.)

Muslims say that they worship the same God that Christians do. It’s just that Christians are committing blasphemy when they associate any other being with God. So when Christians call the Holy Spirit or Jesus, “God”, it is seen as blasphemy. Muslims say that Jesus was a prophet who came to call the Jews back to faithfulness to Allah and that Christians who worship Jesus as God are wrong to do so.

However, most Christians deny that they worship the same God as Muslims. Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Christians believe that we can point to Jesus and say, “There’s God” and Muslims obviously disagree. Christians believe that God is triune, one God in three persons. (Muslims see this as polytheism.) Because Muslims reject the triune God, Christians will say that Muslims are not worshiping the God of the Bible. Another reason many Christians will say that "Allah" and "YHWH" are not the same God is because the attributes of the God who reveals himself in the Bible and the attributes of the God who reveals himself in the Koran are not the same.

Here’s an analogy: Let’s say you are talking to someone and find out that you both know the same person. Let’s call him, “Bob.” So you talk about that same person for a while, exchanging stories about Bob. Then someone walks in that you don’t recognize. And you say to your friend, “Who’s that?” and your friend says, “Oh, that’s Bob.” And you say, “That’s not the Bob I was talking about. I was talking about a different Bob.”

The God who speaks in the New Testament says very different things about himself than the God who speaks in the Koran. “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’" (Matthew 17:5). The Muslim would read that and say, “No, that’s not God talking because Allah has no son.”

The Koran says,

“And they say, ‘Be Jews’ - or, ‘Christians’ – ‘and you shall be on the right path.’ Say: ‘Nay, but [ours is] the creed of Abraham, who turned away from all that is false, and was not of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God’” (2:135).

Perhaps a better way phrase the question is “Do Christians and Muslims believe the same things about God?” And in that case, everyone can agree that the answer is clearly, “No.”

It's been one of those mornings. Nothing major (certainly nothing even remotely approaching tribulation) has happened, but I still faced a few challenges. I was up late last night, and woke up this morning early to discover that the water heater wasn't working. I spent most of the time I had planned to use to prepare for the morning's CYS service scrambling in the attic trying to determine what was wrong. I ended up re-lighting the pilot and that seemed to do the trick.

So it's been a bit of a scattered morning, and after getting the College/Young Singles worship time practiced with Molly, Andrew, Andrew, and Leslie I headed back home to check on the water heater (and finish some prep). So I'm missing church, on Father's day. I'll head back in a bit for the College/Young Singles class.

I say all that to say this: To whoever wrote "I Love Bill Roberts" on the whiteboard in Roadside - I don't know who you are, family member or friend, but I thank you. I needed to see that this morning, and to be reminded of the One who always, always loves, and who used you today to encourage me. That did the trick!

Lars over at Brandywine books: "For all you relativists who have trouble figuring out the complicated differences between good and evil, this is what we call evil."

He's referring to the Taliban's (apparently retributive) hanging of a seven-year-old boy.

Drat . . .

Check out this graphic to see how deep the Deepwater Horizon well was drilling. Keep scrolling down . . . Wow.

[H/T Jonah Goldberg]

And some liberals might actually be figuring that out, and of course, some just want more regulation.

The liberals' fury at the President is almost as astounding as their outrage over the discovery that oil companies and their regulators might have grown too cozy. In economic literature, this behavior is known as "regulatory capture," and the current political irony is that this is a long-time conservative critique of the regulatory state.

The Nobel economist George Stigler of the University of Chicago was one of the concept's main developers, and it is a seminal plank of the "public choice" school of economics for which James Buchanan won the economics Nobel in 1986. Ronald Reagan warned about this in different words in one of his farewell speeches.

In the better economic textbooks, regulatory capture is described as a "government failure," as opposed to a market failure. It refers to the fact that individuals or companies with the highest interest or stake in a policy outcome will be able to focus their energies on politicians and bureaucracies to get the outcome they prefer.

Perhaps if liberals read more conservative economists, they might understand that this is a common consequence of the regulatory state that they have so diligently constructed over the decades. It is also a main reason that many of us are skeptical of the regulatory solutions routinely offered in response to every accident or business failure.

We should add that so far, based on the available evidence, we don't know if this spill really was a regulatory failure. But no matter, the same liberals who made oil drilling one of the most regulated activities on Earth are now busy deploring the energy bureaucracy and rearranging it so that (they promise) this will never happen again. Sound at all like the financial panic and the new re-regulatory remedy?

How remarkable it is to see a President who has put such exorbitant faith in the power of government being excoriated by his allies for a government failure. It's almost as astonishing as seeing Carol Browner, the White House green czar and long-time scourge of fossil fuels, being interrogated on NBC for excessive deference to Big Oil. Sometimes life really is fair.

What is "Regulatory Capture"? I'm glad you asked!

Regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce negative externalities. The agencies are called Captured Agencies.

For public choice theorists, regulatory capture occurs because groups or individuals with a high-stakes interest in the outcome of policy or regulatory decisions can be expected to focus their resources and energies in attempting to gain the policy outcomes they prefer, while members of the public, each with only a tiny individual stake in the outcome, will ignore it altogether. Regulatory capture refers to when this imbalance of focused resources devoted to a particular policy outcome is successful at "capturing" influence with the staff or commission members of the regulatory agency, so that the preferred policy outcomes of the special interest are implemented.

Regulatory capture theory is a core focus of the branch of public choice referred to as the economics of regulation; economists in this specialty are critical of conceptualizations of governmental regulatory intervention as being motivated to protect public good.

The risk of regulatory capture suggests that regulatory agencies should be protected from outside influence as much as possible, or else not created at all. A captured regulatory agency that serves the interests of its invested patrons with the power of the government behind it is often worse than no regulation whatsoever.

I apologize for the political tone of this post and the last one, but I believe Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt has made a great point here.

First, for background: Harrison Schmitt was the second to last man to leave the surface of the moon, and the first true scientist among the lunar-landing astronauts (he was a geologist by training, rather than a test pilot).

Here's an excerpt:

The response after an oxygen tank explosion in the Apollo 13 spacecraft on its way to the Moon illustrates how complex technical accidents should be handled. It stands in sharp contrast to the Gulf fiasco. Solve the problem first; then investigate objectively; apply the lessons; and then, if absolutely necessary, worry about responsibility.

Nothing in the government’s response to the blowout explosion on the Deepwater Horizon and its aftermath bears any resemblance to the response to the Apollo 13 situation by NASA and its mission control team at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

Gene Kranz and his Apollo 13 flight controllers and engineers worked on the assumption that “failure was not an option.” In contrast, President Obama and those claiming to have been on top of the Gulf oil spill situation “from day one” assumed that failure is an option and, indeed, may want BP to fail for their own ideological reasons. Whatever their motives, the president and his cabinet officers, without any experience in real-world management of anything major, much less a crisis, have no idea how to deal with a situation as technically complex as the Gulf oil spill.

It has been left to BP engineers and managers and to Gulf state officials to respond as best they can in a regulatory environment that is politically charged, incompetent, fearful, and hesitant. Rather than allowing BP to stay focused only on solving the problems of the spill, Attorney General Holder now has launched a civil and criminal investigation!

I think he has a great point (though I don't think I agree with his charge that some in the current administration "may want BP to fail for their own ideological reasons"). I've read everything I can get my hands on about NASA history, and in particular the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. On this point Schmitt is exactly right: NASA endured two huge disasters during the Apollo project. The first was the terrible fire on Apollo 1 that claimed the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The second was the "successful failure" of Apollo 13 in which, thankfully, Lovell, Haise and Swigert returned to earth in one piece. In both instances, job #1 was to fix the problem. It really frustrates me that, in the midst of a huge environmental and human tragedy such as the out of control BP gusher, the Government is already diverting attention and resources by spouting threats.

I hate politics. Fix the problem. Then, once it's fixed, feel free to roll heads.

Charles Krauthammer sees things pretty clearly:

Without forward or active defense, Israel is left with but the most passive and benign of all defenses -- a blockade to simply prevent enemy rearmament. Yet, as we speak, this too is headed for international de-legitimation. Even the United States is now moving toward having it abolished.

But, if none of these is permissible, what's left?

Ah, but that's the point. It's the point understood by the blockade-busting flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who've had quite enough of the Jewish problem.

What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense.

. . .

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.

[H/T Instapundit]

I'm 99.9 percent sure Noah's ark has not been found. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.)

For one, the "ark" was found by evangelicals. I'm an evangelical. I can tell you with certainty we don't have the experience or archaeological expertise to find the ark. No way. Potlucks? Yes, we can do that with precision. Indiana Jones-esque exploratory discovery? Forget about it.

For two, the carbon dating of the "ark" supposedly dates it at like 4,800 years old. Puh-lease! Like a real ark discovery would really buttress the whole Young Earth theory.

For three, Jack T. Chick would never allow it. The Pope and the Church of Satan are in cahoots to hide the whereabouts of Noah's wessel (pardon my Chekov accent), and if you don't believe it, just buy one of his tracts at your local Christian megastore.

For four, the "discoverers" claim they found a perfectly preserved 1611 King James Bible resting comfortably in Noah's sleeping quarters, thus proving that Jimmy's translation is God's perfect Word.

Ok, just kidding about that last one.

My timing on this post was impeccable . . .

A (perhaps oversimplified) definition of postmodernism is this: "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe it sincerely."

Other Presidents have had to mouth these kinds of words acknowledging the value in other religions. But I don't recall any president being so religiously pluralistic in action.

President Obama hosted an Easter breakfast at the White House.

gathering Christian leaders from churches across the country to celebrate the holiday with him.

Speaking briefly to the group assembled in the East Room, Obama discussed his own search for meaning in the holiday and said he is particularly moved by the example of redemption that Christ's story offers.

"As I'm continually learning, we are each of us imperfect. Each of us errs by accident or design," he said.

Obama noted the last words spoken by Christ on the cross: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."

He said those words could just as easily be spoken by the group at the breakfast.

"On this day, let us commit our spirit to pursuit of a life that is true, to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord," Obama said. "When we falter, as we will, let redemption through commitment, through perseverance, through faith be our abiding hope and fervent prayer."

The breakfast was the third religious celebration that Obama has hosted this year at the White House. Last week, he held a Passover seder at the White House. And during Ramadan, Obama held an iftar dinner to break the Muslim fast.

As I read about how he spoke of Easter above, I can imagine him speaking the same sort of "all religions can find value in all other religions" language when he hosted the Jewish and Muslim ceremonies.

And could he have misused Christ's words any more? Is committing ourselves to Micah 6:6-8 really what Jesus meant when he asked God to receive his spirit?

"Redemption through commitment"? If that ain't the Hollywood definition of redemption, I don't know what is. (Except maybe punishing yourself real bad.)

It's like he just strung a bunch of religious words together.

Oh, and what is "each of us errs by accident or design" supposed to mean?

Whose design is he talking about? God's design that we err? Or our own design? And if he's talking about our own design, how do you err by accident, if he's talking about sin, which I assume he is, but is he?

Through hosting these religious ceremonies, he seems to be making an effort to "unify in spirit" major religions. He's also done Diwali.

Mr Obama became the first US president to personally take part in a White House ceremony for the festival of lights, lighting a diya (oil lamp) inside the executive mansion and bowing respectfully before a Hindu priest.

I wonder what religion is next?

Did any other president's host religious ceremonies for other religions?

Is his hosting major holidays for different religions by accident or design?

What do you think?

I think he might be the first postmodern president.