London Chronicles, the Third

So, Thursday was kind of an off-day, for me anyway. We tried to see the changing of the guard in the morning, but we found out when we got there that they only change them every other day (MWF) during certain seasons. Friday would be our last chance. So, instead we took some pictures around Buckingham Palace (which looks exactly like it does in the movies...of course), and goofed off by the fountains before taking a stroll down The Mall. Now, in my opinion, it bears a strange resemblance to the Champs-Elysées in Paris...but I’m sure that’s just me. ;) There are some beautiful mansions that line it one side, and Hyde Park on the other, with two arches at either end. It leads straight to Trafalgar Square, so we wandered past once again and found our way to the scenic walkway along the Thames. The London Marathon was planned for the Sunday our our departure, so the sidewalks were teeming with runners. When we weren’t dodging them, we were admiring the view and the monuments along the way to London Bridge. One of my favorites was Cleopatra’s Needle, with its Sphinxes on either side, one of which still bears the war wounds left by the Blitzkrieg. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to endure night after night of bombings in London. Thankfully, we’ve been spared that kind of terror in the United States so far. I’ve always been impressed by the strength with which the British faced that trial. I wonder how we would react?



On our very long walk, we also passed by Cannon Street, which is in the financial sector of London, and found ourselves in front of The Monument. Yes, that’s the only name it has. “THE Monument.” As if there aren’t hundreds of others. :P Anyway, THE Monument stands in remembrance of the Great Fire - another horrible tragedy that I simply can’t manage to wrap my mind around. A city as large as London...engulfed in flames. I guess I would have felt pretty helpless, like all of those people who just sat down to paint it. What else could they do?

Anyway, we also found St. Paul’s Cathedral, which turned out to be even more massive than I thought. We didn’t feel like paying several pounds to go inside another church, even though I’m sure it was impressive, so we just admired the architecture from the outside and continued our pilgrimage toward London Bridge and the Tower of London. London Bridge isn’t really that pretty (I wasn’t expecting it to be), and the view was definitely not as spectacular as the view from some of the other bridges. But, now I can say I’ve been there. :P I can also say I’ve visited the Tower of London, and I have to say it wasn’t exactly what I expected. It felt more like a tourist trap than a historical site. The tour was also extremely expensive, and we were exhausted and starving by that point. Of course, the history behind the Tower of London has always intrigued me, and I would have liked to have seen the ravens and maybe the Crown Jewels, but I realized that it wasn’t really worth as much to me as I thought. So, we ate a picnic lunch in Hyde Park, watching a man do some sort of really strange yoga. It looked pretty boring, since he kept doing the same thing over and over and over. Anyway, that wasn’t really the highlight of the afternoon. Hehe. The highlight of the afternoon was the British Library.

I’ve wanted to see the British Library for a long time (just like a lot of things in London), and it was definitely not a disappointment. Well...that is, once we found it. Let’s just say we encountered some navigational difficulties. Anyway, there is one room in the Library completely devoted to their collection of famous, original works. I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open during half the time I spent in there, because - get this - not only do they have the original Magna Carta and its subsequent editions, but the earliest copy of Beowulf, some of Shakespeare’s printed plays and collaborative work, one of Jane Austen’s teenage diaries filled with her early stories, Jane Austen’s writing desk, Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” manuscript, three pages of sketchings and theorems from Da Vinci’s scientific notebooks, a Gutenberg Bible, Caxton’s Aesop’s Fables, the illustrated “Alice in Wonderland” manuscript given as a gift to the real Alice, the Codex Sinaiticus, a piece of papyrus displaying one of the Psalms, an original manuscript copy of Handel’s Messiah, Ravel’s “Bolero,” and original manuscripts of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, and Schubert.

So yes, I saw the Magna Carta. I read part of the last chapter of “Jane Eyre” in Charlotte’s handwriting. I took a peek into Jane Austen’s imaginative diary. I stood a foot away from the pages of Da Vinci’s famous theorems written in mirror-image Italian. I gazed at the oldest copy of the Greek New Testament known to exist (Codex Sinaiticus). I noticed the stylistic differences of notation in the written music of Mozart and Handel and Beethoven.

It was humbling to be surrounded by the lingering remnants of so much creativity and discipline, but at the same time, it was even more humbling to realize that those remnants, those legacies, are all that remain of those great men and women. None of them cheated death, no matter how famous, creative, or talented they were. And I’m a human being just like them, gifted with my own unique talents and my own potential to shape the world, but ultimately, I am finite, just like the rest of humanity.

But, there is 1 Corinthians 15.

50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."[g] 
 55"Where, O death, is your victory? 
      Where, O death, is your sting?"[h] 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
 58Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
And that was Thursday. More on Friday later. :)