A Canterbury Tale

This place is so inspiring.  Not that I've seen much of Canterbury.  My hotel is literally at the Cathedral Gate and due to a couple of obstacles I've not ventured beyond the old city centre.  But the Cathedral is why I came.  For 1400 years people have worshipped here. Boggles the brain.  There is story after story of the events of this place beginning with Augustine through WWII and still making history today with the inspiring work going on here.  The influx of pilgrims, of course, started with the murder of Thomas á Beckett while he was leading Evening Prayer for goodness sake!  His witness for doing the right thing, not what the king wanted, inspired people and they heard that miracles were occurring here so they started coming from everywhere.  And of course they made a big party out of their journeys.

The photo above is an altar at the spot of the murder.  Much around the Cathedral focuses on martyrdom, freedom from oppression and world peace.  Even with gobs of tourists (pilgrims) about, the Cathedral is a peaceful place to be.  The docents are the nicest I have every encountered.  They would just come up to me and start telling me stuff they thought might interest me.  The Cathedral Chaplain prayed in the nave with a microphone every hour - prayers for the world.  Then he would just wander around chatting, showing people things.  If it came up with any of the clergy I met (tons of clergy around here) or the docents that I was a clergy person they would take an interest in me and want to show me particular things - it was like a private tour.  A priest had sweet things to say about the Episcopal Diocese of Texas and said they are all praying for the ECUSA and everyone seemed to love the USA.  Refreshing!

One of my obstacles was getting sick during the night.  Surely it wasn't this lovely Beef and Ale pie?

Maybe the delicious strawberry that my taxi driver offered me as he asked if we had strawberries in the US.  I'm guessing their strawberry season is short as there was big excitement about having them. You can see the street vendor was nearly sold out.

I would definitely come back to Canterbury.  It is very touristy, what with so many pilgrims, but still it is wonderfully quaint and the people I've met are great.  I don't plan to go to Winchester, but for some reason this crazy song keeps rolling through my brain!

Winchester Cathedral