(But let's not get too philosophical. I mean, every unit of time is such a pivot-point: each minute is "the present." This is on my mind because, on either side of writing this, in the past and the future, I'm writing a history essay. In history you deal with pivots almost exclusively, which you might say is the great insufficiency of history in understanding the past. After all, if all we ever study is when things change, we miss the times when things aren't changing. Then again, if time never stops and nothing is truly frozen -- not even ice, if you can believe the chemists about "energy" -- then I guess you can say everything is made up of pivots, of changes, of shifts, and so we really can't help but focus on them.)
In any case, where I am is in the lower chamber of the great architectural and intellectual hub of Oxford, the Radcliffe Camera (or, in Oxspeak, the Radcam). I'd show it to you, but photography is strictly verboten in here. (And please keep all hands and feet inside the car at all times. In case of loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will float gracefully into your laps as you plummet not-so-gracefully into Earth's.) Suffice it to say, it's got a remarkable grotto-like feel. Built into the corners of the dimly lit set of stone "bays" that surround a central dome are dark wooden shelves filled with books of all sorts of boring blues and maroons. It's the heavy, cavernous coolness of the place that keeps bringing me back. There's no clock in here either, which seems to leave me forgetting that spending an entire day writing about 15th-century books is not the most exhilarating use of the sunshine.
Ah, but where I've been is a great deal more interesting. Friday night I was able to squeeze into a packed Oxford Town Hall, pictured to the left, to hear Tim Keller (senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan). He's without a doubt the ablest, humblest defender of the faith I've ever encountered -- well, see, I never actually met C. S. Lewis. His book The Reason for God (the foundation of his talk in Oxford) isn't just a bestseller and a thrill to read; it's a firmly grounded, deeply stirring challenge to skeptics. What Tim Keller manages to do with so much finesse and wit and spiritual wisdom is to turn the apologetic defense of Christianity as a worldview and faith into a keenly reasoned offensive against disbelief. He concludes that in fact there's far more of the unfounded faith decried by the unbelieving to be found on the skeptic's side of Christ than on the believer's. Wow. Anyway, Keller's talk was a spectacle, and to see so many intelligent people in the audience thinking deeply about his challenge was not just a testament to Keller as a thinker, but to the undeniable presence of the Spirit in his work.
Ah, but what will I be doing, where will I be going? Tonight there's a performance of Olivier Messaien's "Quartet for the End of Time" in college, and I'm promised it's worth hearing. It was written while Messaien was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, and first performed in that camp by a group of prisoners. It's in parts that are based on the various sections of Revelation. It should be very interesting (and live classical music is, in my experience, always worth the time).
Then, once my work is finished
I cannot wait to see you, and hang out with you. It will be a great vacation for both of us. Have fun in the other locations, that precede the U.S.A.Wow, what an adventure your on. Love, Dad
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