And Opened Up The Doors...

Our destinations for today were the Museum of London and St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’d never been to either, so I was pretty excited. The museum was really great. The exhibits were in chronological order, which was very helpful for my brain. Visual time lines are fantastic! Once again, there were several school groups there and we could hear the teachers explaining displays and asking questions. These kids were 5 or 6, 7 years old at the most, and they were so smart! And they were so excited to be in a museum seeing all these displays and artifacts about their history. We were humbled by how much these kids knew. As I’ve mentioned before, I am learning so much history!

We had a guided “backstage” tour of St. Paul’s. We were able to go through parts of the cathedral that aren’t open to the public, which was really neat. We saw an intricately engineered spiral staircase (which happened to be used in the filming of Harry Potter and something…) and loads of old prints and Christopher Wren’s drawings of the plans and ideas for rebuilding the cathedral. The cathedral that we know today was built in the late 1600s into the early 1700s, after the great fire in London in 1666. The tour was really nice, but the real fun began after the tour when we decided to make the great climb to the top of the domes.

Honesty moment: I have this thing about heights. I’m not really afraid of them, but maybe I’m afraid of them. I never think I’m afraid of heights till I’m right in the middle of a hike up a mountain trail or a staircase of a lighthouse or a ski trip down a mountain… These events have sometimes ended in not-so-pretty sights. But whenever (or, in some cases, if ever) I do make it to the top, I never regret it. Well, maybe except for that whole snow skiing thing. That’s at least something I’ll never do again. Moving on…

This afternoon I was, at least, aware that I would likely have to coax myself up the (somewhere close to) 600 stairs. I couldn’t look up or down on the many spiral staircases. I never let go of the wall or handrails as the walls narrowed around us. I told and retold myself that people had made this trek for hundreds of years and I was perfectly safe. And I may or may not have been singing hymns in my head to calm myself down.

But you know what?!? I did it! And here is what I saw!

It was unbelievable. It truly was. And terrifying. But absolutely worth it.

When we finally made it back down those 600 steps, a few of us decided to stay for Evensong. Evensong is an evening choral service held (almost) everyday at St. Paul’s.

Pause for a little “Callie Ann History”: I grew up in a small southern town, in a small southern Church of Christ. I went to a Catholic wedding once when I was young, and Midnight Mass once in high school and I had a few Baptist friends. College pretty much turned my life upside down when I decided it would be cool to study the Bible academically and moved to Nashville to attend Lipscomb University. I even majored in “Bible.” That’s right. Just Bible. (Sometimes I tell people my degree is in “Biblical Theology” just because I think that sounds cooler.) Anyway, my years at Lipscomb opened my little CoC eyes to the many other denominations and church movements and, most importantly, to what the Kingdom of God really means and should look like here on Earth as it is in Heaven. Yes, friends, that means the Kingdom is real and it is here. And I, for one, am excited to be a part of it.

And so, this evening, sitting in an Anglican cathedral, in an Anglican mass for the first time in my 28 years, I felt the presence not only of the Holy Spirit, but also that cloud of witnesses that has gone before us. It really was incredible to sit in that building that is older than the United States of America and take part in an act of worship that has spread countless generations and denominations. And to know that no matter how different our backgrounds may be, we are all His creation and He delights in us all! Honestly, what is better than that?! Not a damn thing, that’s what!

Can you tell I enjoyed it? And, yes, I cried a little. Who’s surprised? 

Minnie says hey.
Also, I climbed to the top of that! What!?