A New Old

Happy Epiphany, everyone.

Traditionally, my family celebrates Epiphany by setting out our slippers the night before with hay (actually, popcorn) for the wise men's camels.  Then the wise men leave gifts in the slippers overnight.

Today, I didn't have any slippers to set out or popcorn to put in them, but I did attend a beautiful service at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin:

Afterward a friendly lady gave us in impromptu tour.  (She was a retired history professor and a professional tour guide.)  The tour helped me to start redefining my idea of old.  She made a lot of comments like, "This part is a later addition.  It wasn't built until the fifteenth century."  And I thought my house was old.

We learned that this church is where the original Oxford university began, back in the 1200s.


And then this evening we attended an Evensong service at Christ Church:

During the service I thought about all the people who had sung the same words in the same building for hundreds of years.  I always wondered if "standing in the same place as such-and-such was x years ago" was  really as special as tourists say.  Actually, it was -- but not because it was ancient or traditional.  It was because the words I was singing to God were true, and I believed them, and other people whom I don't even know had also sung them to the same God and believed them.  (Wow.)

I also learned that this is the place where Harry Potter learned to fly broomsticks.  I wasn't as impressed by this because I haven't seen or read Harry Potter yet, but that fact did make it more amazing for some of my classmates.