Encounters #4: "Three of us have decided to journey away from the Manor."
Three of us have decided to journey away from the Manor.
Two months in community is wearying and our mouths are clammy from conversation. It is time for a holiday.
With spire-aimed eyes and thisty anticipatory gasps, Michelle, John, and I board a train together with packs clinging to our shoulders.
We follow the tracks into Oxford, a place-name that connotes ancient academia, writers that we dream of so earnestly, our ball-point Bics click and snap at their heels.
Within a two-hour period, we will have two different examples of the glory of God, one built of stone and stained glass, another composed of paper and dust.
We attend Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral. In the manner of millions, we kneel on cushions well-worn from previous pious knees. The choir’s voices fill the lofty arches and call Sunday to a close. It is grand and beautiful.
After the Evensong service, we head off in search of groceries. Passing a church called St. Ebbs, John pauses to glance into the Anglican service in session. Had I been alone, I would have kept walking; praise God for peers who sway decisions. We slip in the back and listen to a sermon that is already half-over. The post-service mingling just may be the most awkward half-hour in the world to The Visitor, but free coffee and refreshments draws us in in the end.
We start chatting with an older man. He has clear blue eyes behind rimless spectacles and a moustache-less white beard. In most conversation, our descriptions of L’Abri are often complicated as we try desperately not to come across as members of some sort of cult (especially when we are carefully navigating our way through British Immigration) and rarely are we answered with:
“Oh, you’re from L’Abri? Yes, I have heard of it. I was a worker there in Switzerland with Francis Schaeffer from 1961-1965.”
which, tonight, we are.
It is such a pleasant surprise to come across a person who is initially a stranger but, after a single sentence, is now related to the particular world in which you live. Put in a context, they are not strange or foreign anymore.
Joe invites us back to his little flat and around his kitchen table, we present our contribution for the meal: a 35p bag of rolls that had been happily nestled in a backpack all day. Combined with Joe’s excellent selection of instant soups, we have a feast that Christ would have gladly offered to 4,996 more followers. He tells wonderful stories about the early days of L’Abri and living with the Schaeffers, his studies at Harvard and Princeton and his current work with students at Oxford, and most vividly, his stories of his wife, Linette. He reads out loud from some of her books (she was a journalist and author). Joe has one of those magical reading voices that bring any story to life, full of tangible textures, heady scents, and bright images.
He tells us that he’s going to show us his library and leads us to the back of the flat. He opens a door into a scene that made us gasp. There aren’t just bookshelves, there are cases and bays and aisles and tower-turrets and arches and garrets and domes, books piled on every chair and spare spot of floor, shelves crisscrossing out of reach at the ceiling.
Five hours pass, he drops us off at our hostel and we sit quietly together, separately in awe of all the lovely stories we had been privileged to hear.
And at the end of three days we have returned home together to the Manor House.
And at the end of three months we will return home, separately together, back to the far off places we came from, until we are gathered up again.
Anna Shogren
Two months in community is wearying and our mouths are clammy from conversation. It is time for a holiday.
With spire-aimed eyes and thisty anticipatory gasps, Michelle, John, and I board a train together with packs clinging to our shoulders.
We follow the tracks into Oxford, a place-name that connotes ancient academia, writers that we dream of so earnestly, our ball-point Bics click and snap at their heels.
Within a two-hour period, we will have two different examples of the glory of God, one built of stone and stained glass, another composed of paper and dust.
We attend Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral. In the manner of millions, we kneel on cushions well-worn from previous pious knees. The choir’s voices fill the lofty arches and call Sunday to a close. It is grand and beautiful.
After the Evensong service, we head off in search of groceries. Passing a church called St. Ebbs, John pauses to glance into the Anglican service in session. Had I been alone, I would have kept walking; praise God for peers who sway decisions. We slip in the back and listen to a sermon that is already half-over. The post-service mingling just may be the most awkward half-hour in the world to The Visitor, but free coffee and refreshments draws us in in the end.
We start chatting with an older man. He has clear blue eyes behind rimless spectacles and a moustache-less white beard. In most conversation, our descriptions of L’Abri are often complicated as we try desperately not to come across as members of some sort of cult (especially when we are carefully navigating our way through British Immigration) and rarely are we answered with:
“Oh, you’re from L’Abri? Yes, I have heard of it. I was a worker there in Switzerland with Francis Schaeffer from 1961-1965.”
which, tonight, we are.
It is such a pleasant surprise to come across a person who is initially a stranger but, after a single sentence, is now related to the particular world in which you live. Put in a context, they are not strange or foreign anymore.
Joe invites us back to his little flat and around his kitchen table, we present our contribution for the meal: a 35p bag of rolls that had been happily nestled in a backpack all day. Combined with Joe’s excellent selection of instant soups, we have a feast that Christ would have gladly offered to 4,996 more followers. He tells wonderful stories about the early days of L’Abri and living with the Schaeffers, his studies at Harvard and Princeton and his current work with students at Oxford, and most vividly, his stories of his wife, Linette. He reads out loud from some of her books (she was a journalist and author). Joe has one of those magical reading voices that bring any story to life, full of tangible textures, heady scents, and bright images.
He tells us that he’s going to show us his library and leads us to the back of the flat. He opens a door into a scene that made us gasp. There aren’t just bookshelves, there are cases and bays and aisles and tower-turrets and arches and garrets and domes, books piled on every chair and spare spot of floor, shelves crisscrossing out of reach at the ceiling.
Five hours pass, he drops us off at our hostel and we sit quietly together, separately in awe of all the lovely stories we had been privileged to hear.
And at the end of three days we have returned home together to the Manor House.
And at the end of three months we will return home, separately together, back to the far off places we came from, until we are gathered up again.
Anna Shogren