Summer Morning

 

Oh that my word were done
As birds that soar
Rejoicing in the sun:
That when my time is run
And daylight too,
I so might rest once more
Cool with refreshing dew.

- Christina Rossetti

You wake up on a summer morning. It is still dark, but the sky is beginning to glow at the horizon. Warmth surrounds you and the humidity holds the air in its embrace, but you had a good, restful sleep.

Stretching out under a thin cover, you listen - - silence of the early morning is only penetrated by a bird across the street, chirping its pre-dawn call. You ponder the silence and let it calm you as your thoughts come out of a dream you now cannot recall. It faded seconds after you opened you eyes, shimmering for a moment as you hovered between the dream world and the waking reality.

Notions and recollections of the previous day might be starting to shift into your mind, but you hush them with a prayer of thanks - -

    Lord, thank you for this day

Recognizing the gift that a new day is, your mind begins to reflect on that. The temporal nature of our everyday warrants a response from you. Do you ignore the significance and keep trudging into the day to day activities without thought, or do you pause to recognize something beautiful or lovely that occurred, and give thanks to God for it. No matter how small. You might simply say - -

    Lord, thank you for the rain shower last night.  It restored the sunburnt soil. The air felt refreshed afterwards.

Nothing is too small (or too big) for God, and to be thankful for. In all honesty, do we reflect with prayers of thanks for the things we so easily do not take notice of? Turning over some thankful thoughts, lifting them in prayer before rising from the soft sheets, your heart is already set to a state of thankfulness - - ready to see and recognize all the reasons the morning is a gift and filled with beauty.

Now you rise and peak out the window - the glow of the dawn deepens and light casts aside the velvet sky. Soon you find yourself making tea or coffee and your mind leans into a little prayer - thankful for the hot drink to wake you and get you started for the day ahead. And you feel the possibilities of the day rise to meet you like the steam off your drink.

You begin to notice that the quiet of the morning stirs you into a deeper reflective state. Something in you wants to address that. Sitting at your desk or table you take a notebook and pen and linger over some pages of reflections sipping the tea or coffee as you go. Filling blank pages with your current words.

Nothing big or dramatic, but you notice how good it feels to let out some thoughts on paper. No matter how jumbled they might seem. Every page becomes a tale of a day, idea, creative notion - captured at a moment that is already gone by the time you finish the sentence. But now it lives on in the notebook. Its temporal nature as a thought becomes something lasting - you can re-visit sometime in the future.

That's the gift of notebooks and writing by hand. A tangible way to see your own handwriting, unique to you, and some ideas you may forget in a day, but could read again and feel inspired by. 

It's a lovely summer morning as you close the notebook. The sun is up and brightly casting the sunshine outside your windows. Until tomorrow...

Research Days, Stormy Nights

 

With summer heat upon us (as we reach the Summer Solstice), we get into the cycle of repeat weather. The nature of bright, sunny, hot mornings and days lead into the afternoons brewing menacing clouds and thunder - it's on constant rotation. A storm was swirl and build together over our heads and we don't even notice it. Sometimes the storm hovers just a few miles away, sitting there like an angry dog guarding something. I can hear it and see it lurking, but it sits just over the road (seemingly). But then it eventually crosses over the road and pours out the built up heat in the form of heavy rain. I take full advantage of the darkened stormy atmosphere by grabbing my current read (The Return of the King) and getting cosy in my armchair to enter the world of Middle-earth. Stormy weather warrants curling up with a book. 

Then, later in the evening as the sky clears a bit and the sun lowers nearer to the horizon, the sky is ablaze with fire from the sun. It's amazing how the dark and light contrast so dramatically in the sky. The dark is darker and the light is radiant. Glory to God for His creation.

I am still working my way through the huge book of Christina Rossetti poems, loving every page of it. This poem I read this week seemed oddly, aptly appropriate, titled "For one Sake":

One passed me like a flash of lightning by
To ring clear bells of heaven beyond the stars:
Then said I: Wars and rumours of your wars
Are dull with din of what and where and why;
My heart is where these troubles draw not nigh:
Let me alone till heaven burst its bars,
Break up its foundations, roll its flashing cars
Earthwards with fire to test and purify.
Let me alone tonight, and one night more
Of which I shall not count the eventide;
Its morrow will not be as days before:
Let me alone to dream, perhaps to weep;
To dream of her the imperishable bride,
Dream while I wake and dream on while I sleep.

While the heat rages endlessly outside, I sit at my desk reading and researching, working on my next book. I make tea or coffee, put on some instrumental music, and get focused and working. This atmosphere is conducive to thinking. I have nowhere I need to be, I will have time later to run an errand, but for now, I can completely focus. I get up and search my bookshelves for reference material. Today, I need to reference some of my Owen Barfield books. I quickly grab four of them, and plop them down on my desk to dig into. It gives me such joy to search my own bookshelves to find books to reference.

So onward I go, back into the books, waiting for the next storm to arrive later on. 

Summer Weather

 

Heat rises steeply, vertically, highly
Accumulating utmost height in the sky,
Swirling and festering clouds form
Not gentle, but heavy with storm
Winds beset, precede the clouds
A call to the indoor, safe haven now
Wild and fierce, relentless, no release
I wait for it to slow; it doesn't cease
Lightning flashed, its power too much
An otherworldly tap, with its milli-touch
And power is gone, overwhelmed by power
All I really wanted was a cooling rain shower
Not today, says the storm, my power is today,
But in a couple hours, the wind swept it away.

The wonder of weather during the summer months. Infused with heat and moisture are all the day. The morning awakens with clear blue hues, sun, and heavy air. As the hours progress the heat rises into the atmosphere and builds up in the formation of clouds. Sometimes a storm will develop and form right overhead, crashing suddenly onto the hot landscape. I peak out the window and see the wind blow and the rain falls in sheets. I watch in wonder and pull out a book to read - isn't that the natural thing to do to enjoy the atmosphere inside? The awe of creation fills me when weather acts like it was created to do. Until the power flickers out....but then it's all swept away and the atmosphere clears.

The heavens were made by the word of the Lord,
and all the stars, by the breath of his mouth.
He gathers the water of the sea into a heap,
he puts the depths into storehouses.
Let the whole earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world
stand in awe of him.
For he spoke, and it came into being;
he commanded, and it came into existence.
Psalm 33.6-9

Stack of Books

 

Current and recent bookstack. Some of the books I've read or currently reading now. It makes me so happy to have a little bookstack of good books. 

Alice's Oxford - People and Places that inspired Wonderland, Peter Hunt

Well this was fun. After coming back from Oxford, I was right back in Oxford, visiting all the places associated with Alice. There was a little bit of history about each place, and how it showed up in the Alice books - many of which I had not seen before. The author also included many of the Tenniel illustrations and insights how Oxford shows up in many of those scenes, such as the Queen of Hearts scene in the garden. In the drawing there appears in the background the Lily House of the Oxford Botanical Garden. The Botanic Garden might be where Alice met some of the flowers in Looking-Glass, who were rather philosophical.  

Loss and Gain, John Henry Newman

The story of Charles Reding, a young undergraduate at Oxford in the 1840s, who journeys through the tumultuous religious times in the Church of England, as liberal enlightenment ideology entered the church, the Oxford Movement rose against it, and Catholicism was deemed as antichristian. Charles navigates the deep discussions with his fellow undergraduates, his family, and elders. Written as a fictional autobiography by Newman, it is the story of his conversion.

At the beginning of the book:

"But how are we to arrive at truth at all", said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason."  

Sounds a bit like pre-conversion C.S. Lewis, doesn't it?

The Manuscript's Club - The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts, Christopher De Hamel

With beautiful color photographs of the manuscripts this is a visit with 12 different collectors or scholars of these manuscripts. Manuscripts have survived for this many centuries because they are valued and preserved. Why were they important and why are they still important? Why were handwritten manuscripts still produced after the printing press was developed? We travel through history to visit each person and their role - from Saint Anselm the Benedictine Monk (1033-1109) to more modern times of Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962) and the space in between. It is an interesting study of the people who had influence on these manuscripts, and their reasons for it. A bit of history and bookish detail along the way. 

1984, George Orwell

I have been wanting to re-read this book. It's the kind of book that warrants a re-read every few years as our world changes, it is that warning reminder of the importance of truth, freedom, words, and meaning. Orwell builds this soon-to-come future of how life could look if we do not continue to fight for freedom, a totalitarian regime would control every single aspect of your life: Big Brother would be watching you from all your screens at home, what you read, where you go, what you write, what you say. Even what you think (the Thought Police will eventually catch you). Once they have your thoughts in their control it's a total loss of humanity.

"The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death." (pg. 7)

Black Coffee, Agatha Christie

Such a fun read. This is adapted from the play that Agatha wrote. A family mystery in a large estate home. A poisoned coffee leads to death, but who put the poison in the coffee? And why? Poirot is called in to help discover the truth, and as he talks to members of the family, additional motives for murder are revealed. You try to make your own assumptions based on the conversations who did it, but some new tidbit of information makes you question your theory. 

Christina Rossetti, The Complete Poems

I've mentioned how I have been reading through her poems and it is wonderful. Such a mix of topics from family, seasons, nature, religious, dream-like, creative. Some are so beautiful I read them a few times:

Time was I bloomed with blossom and stood leafy
How long before the fruit, if fruit there be:
Lord, if by bearing fruit my heart grows heavy,
Leafless and bloomless yet accept of me
The stripped fruit-bearing heart I offer Thee.

The Bookish May

 

JUNE
Indeed I feel as I came too soon
To round your young May moon
And set the world a-gasping at my noon.
Yet some I must. So here are strawberries
Sun-flushed and sweet, as many as you please;
And here are full-blown roses by the score.
More roses, and yet more.
(May, eating strawberries, withdraws among the flower beds.)
(Christina Rossetti)

I mean, every month is bookish, so let this be the sum of the bookish month of May. It's hard to believe it's already time to wrap up the month of May. May sits in the "in between" space before summer officially kicks in, but it's certainly not spring anymore. The weather seems a bit uncertain, like it can't make up it's mind. Part of the month was lost in a blue sky daze, dry and hot. Then suddenly it took a dramatic turn to the stormy afternoons, whereby now I have to pay attention as I leave work - will I be able to run an errand or will I get caught in a deluge? 

A quick day trip down to the coast, a little visit to my hometown, and then a bit of frolicking in Sarasota, of course my main goal was to visit the bookstore in the Selby Library, a favourite spot of mine since high school. It's always good to get back there. 

I also had the privilege of attending the Chesterton Academy Gala, which was an inspiring evening celebrating the classical academy with discission on virtues missing from schools today. G.K. Chesterton wrote a lot about the Christian virtues, and is a good guide to us all as we think through living and learning (for the next generation, and for ourselves, no matter how old we are!).

And I took my niece book shopping as we had an afternoon hanging out, which was a joy. Then we came home and read. It makes me happy to browse books and see anyone excited to read. I grab those chances whenever I can.

Amongst many other books, I've been reading through this massive collection of the poems of Christina Rossetti. Every morning I read a handful of pages of her poems. I had no idea she had written so many. This book is 880 pages of her poems, and I am loving them. I've always liked Christina Rossetti, but I think now that I am visiting with her more, she's at the top of my poet favourites. She was a faithful Christian and a creative spirit. He writings play with different rhymes and musicality and it's just beautiful. Some poems are lyrical and emotional, some are a response to a reading in Scripture, some are children's poems, some like the extract above play with personifying nature (or the months of the year and it's simply delightful, and some are in praise of nature as God's creation.

Our heaven must be within ourselves,
Our home and heaven the work of faith
All thro' this race of life with shelves
Downward to death.

So faith shall build the boundary wall,
And hope shall plant the secret bower,
That both may show magnifical
With gem and flower.

Needless to say it's been a wonderfully bookish May, and I am very glad about it. June has a lot to live up to.

Embracing the Analog

 

A couple weeks ago I read a book about the masters of art and how to view them through a Christian lens (called Rembrandt is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey). It was such an enjoyable introduction to several of the masters. One of my goals is to learn more about the masters of art from history, who the artist was, why their work is important, and what it can say about truth, beauty, and goodness. So I am on a journey of art discovery. The epilogue of the book was titled "We are short on masters" and it was very compelling to me. The truth of it. We lack true masters of things today which evoke the transcendentals - truth, beauty, and goodness. Today, we are distracted by celebrities and musicians (not really masters) who do not set good examples or evoke the goodness we would want to pass down to the next generation. The culture focuses on hedonistic lifestyles and influencers who lead and show how it can be done (with seemingly no consequences). Their lives are on display, not a creative mastery of something, it's all about them, often standing for the opposite of goodness and truth.

We don't value the things of old and the gifts they give us of learning from them (discovering along the way how amazing they are in true talent and wisdom). As a virtual reality grows more and more, the analog creative skills diminish, even basic things like knowing how to write in cursive or reading an analog clock face. I've heard that these things are no longer taught to children in school, so what else are they not learning? Sure, the new certainly has its place I don't dispute it, but I write from a literary and creative perspective to defend the analog. Books, pens, paper, and time. 

High schoolers getting ready to graduate go through their school years never reading an entire book. They look it up online for summaries and plots. Old books and thinkers are not part of the curriculum. Developing young minds to read and think deeply, learning to think for themselves and defend their ideas is a thing long forgotten in the public world. We will have even fewer masters in the next generation.

My experience researching and reading in Oxford is hopeful. All the analog activities of finding books, reading books, touching original manuscripts, letters, and papers of those past authors of such brilliance. These are all valued at Oxford. These things are not arbitrary, they are in fact the greatest technology invented - books and letters, paper and pens. This is how we have shared ideas and creative avenues for centuries. They involve a writer who takes a tangible object creating something using the ideas in their minds. They propel discovery and deep thinking. These things cannot be lost, yet our culture more and more seeks to reduce and diminish their importance.

It all just gets me thinking and wondering about the simple objects of paper, pens, and books. My younger self was hugely influenced by the act of using these objects to fight boredom, be creative, generate my own ideas and stories, and share words with others. These formative years of my life held a love for these analog ways of thinking and expressing ideas. I know that I am a more thoughtful and deep thinker in my adult years partly because of this.

I was pulling books off the shelves in the Bodleian Library that were from the late 1800s up to a decade ago, finding them in the various locations was part of the tangible enjoyment. I would carry them up to the upper Radcliffe Camera to read. Then, one day I was pulling Lewis Carroll books to read and research which I opened to the front pages, as I usually would, to see the Bodleian stamp of acquisition (which is in every book) as March 20, 1930. I was sitting in the Radcliffe Camera that morning, it was March 20, 2025. Exactly 95 years from when that book was stamped into the Bodleian Library. It was a serendipitous moment that could not have happened except with hard copy books. It made me smile the rest of the day.

I say all this as I type it out on my laptop, and yet I made all these notes in my little jots notebook with a pen as it hit me one day. I always have a little notebook on me or close by me wherever I am. I love thinking on paper. There is something about gripping the pen and the movement across the page that gives you enough time (almost) between words to keep the flow of thought in sync with your pen. I have to eventually type it out, but it's not as satisfying. Do you write with pen and paper anymore? Do you read physical books?

Oxford Has Changed Me

 

How has Oxford changed me?

It's not dramatic as a movie would portray, in fact, I am probably the most boring creature ever with no drama, seeking the quiet lifestyle. Yet sometimes it is the subtle, small bits over many years that grow to become an underlying aspect that you at some point realize affects almost all areas of life. However, on this recent particular stay, I can say there are some bigger impacts that excite me to continue to ponder and study:

- Oxford has helped me navigate independent research and lifestyle. I have never been in the UK for so long at one time before. The experience has helped me enjoy the discovery of how to live in a foreign country, to study and find things in libraries, where to go for lunch, food shopping and cooking, where to spend some exploring time. It has caused me to be more friendly to random people in the daily routine and conversation.

- Oxford has helped me learn to use my time wisely. Being so focused in my research, I had to make sure I dedicated time to that, reading, and writing, whilst I also continued to keep up with my real world work and other daily things that needed to be done. Even with the longer stay, time was limited, so I was very careful with planning out all the books and manuscripts I wanted to spend time with.

- Oxford has propelled me to recognize how content I am with my (seemingly boring) life, how blessed I am. In both places, home and whilst in Oxford. I am happiest when surrounded by books and have a lot to read, study, research, and think about. Add a little bit of good food, coffee and tea, and a few artistic adventures (art museums, history museums, orchestra concerts, lectures) and I am content. It is a quiet, but thoughtful lifestyle. Enjoying the daily routine is key, and setting myself up with the things that bring such enjoyment in the pursuit of creating something good through my writing.

- Oxford helped me appreciate the cosy, familiar home I have full of books and comforts, compared to a more spare stay in Oxford. Living very minimal in the UK came easy for me, but it also made me eager to go home to my little place with my friendly shelves loaded with books. It just made me see how I can live with less. At home, of course, I have a closet full of clothes and shoes, dishes I selected, and shelves of books. I can do both - they each give me a different sense of day-to-day and appreciation, and there are benefits to each.

Lasting Potential of Poetry

 

Cafe Nero inside Blackwell's Bookshop on Broad Street, Oxford

Path along the Cherwell, Christ Church Meadow

When true appreciation is developed, does the love of poetry ever die? Or does it hold into its long-term potential to reach you differently next time you read it? It kind of comes naturally to insert a poem as a revealing or mysterious sounding collection of words, usually set in shorter phrases and lines that don't reach the end of the page. 

The poem is usually trying to communicate some deep insight into something significant to the story being told through the neighboring lines. Something is needed to develop the progress to a proper conclusion. Nothing can quite sum up an overall feeling or transition to something meaning-drenched like a poem. It comes along in my own creative spirit or from another poet. We all have a sense of poetry in us - we just tend to ignore it because it often speaks of something we don't yet understand and can't grasp. We like to let those kinds of things go, rather than explore them. Poems invite us to explore. 

The depth of poems requires more of us than simply reading a straight-forward sentence. Often, a simple sentence, or even a long sentence, cannot convey the proper emotion or idea like a few carefully selected words in a line of poetry can convey. Yes, poems can be long and meandering, too, sometimes that is how the poet works, but often there are short and concise lines like: 

If we should forget you,
foul our shame.

- Dorothy L. Sayers

I love that about poetry. It's a unique way of expression that has existed since the written form of communication has existed, and likely before all that through verbal storytelling. Sometimes poetry is exactly what we need, but we don't know it yet. 

We should endeavor to grasp what the poetry is aiming to be; one might say - though it is long since I have employed such terms with any assurance - endeavoring to grasp its entelechy. 

- T.S. Eliot

Your word of the day is entelechy. It's a philosophy term that means "the realization of potential" (noun). So T.S. Eliot is saying that poetry has potential, but it takes some effort to endeavor to grasp it. So even the great modern poet is saying that the goal or reading poetry is to grasp what it is aiming to be. We can ask ourselves that as we read. We can come back to it another time. That usually means re-reading it, reading it out loud, paying attention to lines for enjambment, and just reading it slowly. Linger over lines. Read them in multiple locations. That's what I did with this book of sixteenth century poets, I picked up the little green clothbound Everyman's Library Edition in the Oxfam shop on one of my first days in Oxford, and read some of the same lines of Sir John Davies and Sir Philip Sidney in various locations - coffee shops, my flat, down by the Cherwell river. Sometimes it takes an atmosphere to help pull you into a poem.

We seek to know the moving of each sphere,
And the strange cause of the ebbs and floods of Nile:
But of that clock within our breasts we bear,
The subtle motions we forget the while.

We that acquaint ourselves with every Zone
And pass both Tropics and behold the Poles,
When we come home are to ourselves unknown,
And unacquainted still with our own Souls.

- Sir John Davies, from "Nosce Teipsum"

Beauty All Around Oxford

 

The ornate, stunning upper Radcliffe Camera. It is hard not to get distracted by this gorgeous ceiling and the carved stonework. It really is so beautiful. I could not believe I got to be in there working and reading every day.

Outside the Radcliffe Camera, the lovely glowing orb lamps are iconic and beautiful.

Inside the Radcliffe Camera. The floating staircase is one of my favourites. At the bottom is the lower Rad Cam. At the top, the upper Rad Cam.

On my way to the library with my latte from Jericho Coffee (in my Bodleian Libraries Keep Cup) on a bright, clear morning.

In the upper Rad Cam, the little spiral staircase that brings me up to the mezzanine level of the upper Rad Cam.

Outside St. Mary's with the spires rising from the church and Brasenose College on the right, with lovely blooms that opened as I was there.

Exeter College Chapel. I went to an organ concert at lunchtime. It's one of the most stunning chapels I think.

St. Phillip's Books is a small Catholic Bookshop that stocks beautiful old books, holding many first editions of C.S. Lewis and all the Inklings, G.K. Chesterton, and other poetry, classics, theology, church history. It is a treasure trove.

Still at the library after sunset. View of the other half of the Old Bodleian as I leave for the night. I love the warm glow of the windows and looking across to the other reading rooms and seeing all the shelves of books. The Rad Cam peaking from behind.

Inside St. Mary's at lunchtime. The slant of light on the stone is stunning, the stained glass is lovely. The wooden pulpit ahead has a lot of history - it's where C.S. Lewis, John Wesley, John Henry Newman, and many other important figures preached.

A favourite, much frequented corner - Turl Street and Ship Street. Exeter College ahead. Jesus College to my right behind the wall. I often would get an iced latte from Pret at the other end of Ship Street and walk this way with my drink before heading back into the Bodleian.

The best place for flowers - The Garden shop in the Covered Market. I must visit to gaze at all the lovely array of tulips, daffodils, ranunculus, hyacinth, etc.

A walk along the Cherwell, flowing through Oxford toward Magdalen College.

The sun looks like a star (well, it is) in the sky above Magdalen College Tower.

After service in the chapel at Oriel College. The glow and the deep, velvety night sky was stunning to behold.

Writing in Duke Humfrey's Library

 

With this desire she hath a native might
To find out every truth, if she had time,
Th' innumerable effects to sort aright,
And by degrees from cause to cause to climb.
...
But in this life no soul the truth can know
So perfectly as it hath power to do:
If then perfection be not found below,
An higher place must make her meant thereto.

-Sir John Davies

From my Oxford Notebook

My little booklover's heart is all a-gush: I am sitting in the Duke Humfrey's Library, with only a few of my possessions: phone, laptop, this notebook, and this pencil. I am over the moon delighted to be sitting here with shelves of ancient books right in front of me (and behind me) at a desk in the middle section (of either of the Arts and Sheldon ends). It's such a big deal, I am skipping my morning coffee to spend time in here - I love it. So quiet, stuck in time. Right now I have the whole row to myself. I plan to get some writing done (besides this gushing library love writing) - putting some notes to use to writing more of my draft. This is the perfect place to do it. I don't need access to books, just my notes on my laptop.

My friend who works at the Bodleian Library as a tour guide was giving a tour to a group as I walked in. I tapped her shoulder as I passed and we waved as she was in the midst of explaining some historical tidbit about the oldest library of the Bodleian. It is amazing to think how many times I have taken the tours and now I am independently studying here in the oldest library, breathing in the scent of old books. The aging leather and paper scent - it's so dreamy.

I look around, I look up, surrounded by books, very old books from probably the 15th-16th centuries. Even books painted on the ceiling adorned in Latin. I recall from C.S. Lewis's diary how he sat here reading as an undergraduate, and as a don he later sat here to read all the literature published in the 16th century to write his edition of the Oxford English Literature in the 16th Century mammoth book (he dubbed OHEL). It took him ten years to write it. 

The shelves have some dust between the books, as these books are not moved much, I imagine. They are all in Latin. They can't be lifted out, or an alarm will sound. To help preserve these very aged old books, if you want to read one, you'd request it in the Manuscripts reading room at the Weston to have the book rests and page weights to properly look at one without stressing the spine. Like dinosaurs, they hold secrets of the past, but in human history and thought. They are treasures.

It's a funny juxtaposition - I am sitting here, in these old wooden chairs, nose to spine with these books older than my home country, written in a language I can't read. All is silent in a room full of words.

This place inspires thinking and writing. It reveals how important these things are - researching, thinking, writing, learning, coming to your conclusion after learning from the wiser authors before you. It's a legacy left to us and we shall leave to others. An immense privilege to have access to this. To imagine the authors and thinkers who have sat here through history. The whole space feels like it is frozen in the 15th century, except for the WiFi and laptops. Those modern creations that seems so out of place.

When you appreciate a space and place like this, for its history and literary connections, it elevates the space and motivates the spirit.