Oxford, 5/27/08

Don June 5th, 2008

I’m going to take a break from the poetic history for a while to report on my trip to Oxford, England, where I will be teaching a course on the Inklings in their native habitat to eager American students from Summit Minstries.

Arrived yesterday to 55 degrees F and a blowing rain. This is England as the English know it, not the idyllic summer’s day, that Shakespeare said hath all too short a date, that I knew on my previous incursions, and that we will hopefully enjoy later in June. But the bus from London followed Lewis’s route down the long hill from Headington into town over Magdalene Bridge, and the ancient foundations are still where I left them on my last trip: Carfax, St. Michael’s Tower, Magdalene Tower, Tom Tower, the Radcliffe Camera, and the spire of St. Mary the Virgin all still point upward to heaven, though the hearts of most Englishmen no longer follow them. Mine is still susceptible to their influence, as perhaps now only a foreigner’s can be, one who has not come to take them for granted.

The students will be coming in and getting settled today. We have a reception for them at 5:00, and then a pub meal, probably at the Red Lion, which is right around the corner from OSAP [Oxford Studies Abroad Program, which is coordinating our stay]. It is still overcast today, so while I wait for that meeting I think I will put off my traditional hikes through Port Meadow and Christ Church Meadow and dodge the showers in Blackwell’s Book Shop, whose entire floor of used and out of print books is calling my name.

From the Dreaming Spires,

Don

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