Day two

Greetings from London!

Well we’re properly here and a wee bit less jet lagged after some sleep. One of the things to remember is that air conditioning is not a really big deal over here. While the weather is a bit more temperate [highs in the mid 70’s], things do get a bit stuffy in some places, particularly the Tube. The Highbury Centre, where our class time is spent as well as where we’re staying, isn’t air conditioned either, so it’s open windows and chirping birds.

Today our classwork began in the afternoon, but we had scheduled free time in the morning – this allows the whole class to get to the city and get a bit oriented before our formal work begins. In the morning, we took a trip down to the Tate Modern Art Museum. The Tate Modern has become one of my favorite places to visit. First, it’s free – a big plus! But more than just being free, It’s a reminder that there is a huge conversation going on about what it means to be human, what is the meaning of life and how should we understand the world. Too often it feels that we in the church world somehow think that if we offer the same answers to these questions as the church did several hundred years past, our work is done. The Tate Modern is a constant reminder that we need to work A LOT harder to speak effectively and sincerely in our time. It’s hard, hard work we’re called to do.

You can see a small sample here. An artist, Cildo Meireles has an installation called Babel 2001. It’s a tower of radios, all playing at the same time. We’re sometimes tempted to think that this is a silly or not very “artistic” sort of thing. It’s only a stack of radios that happen to be playing a bunch of noise. That’s not serious, is it? But the artist is asking us to think about information overload and failed communication [sort of like the story of the Tower of Babel in the book of Genesis]. That’s a very serious conversation, now isn’t it? What role do we play, should we play, in this conversation?

I’m also attaching a photo of a few of us here. Luanne [blue shirt, green backpack], Dr. Miller [blue shirt, yellow backpack] and Kierstin [white shirt, print backpack] are walking across Millennial Bridge toward St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Have a great Sunday! We’ll pray for all of you at church tomorrow. Pray for us, too.