W
e went to an Evensong service at Westminster Abbey - awesome! The Evensong service is a contemplative service, so there is no sermon and no mass; just prayers, an Old and New Testament reading, and a choir singing (sometimes with organ accompaniment, sometimes without). The music was beautiful (in Latin and English) and the building incredible, but it made me think of man's sinful nature and how easy it is to turn from the truth and stop following after God. For this amazing structure, built to show the glory of God and inspire men to worship Him, was filled with large statues of Prime Ministers, church leaders, and other important men, with plaques on the walls honoring this group or that group, and elaborate burial markers of those deemed important enough to be buried here. Though the burial markers may have been intended to remind one of the brevity of life, it all seemed to glorify man and his accomplishments rather than the Creator and Redeemer.
We went to the Tower of London which is so much more than just the white tower. It's a whole castle - very large, very medieval looking and very cool. We walked on some of the walls from tower to tower (there are more than a dozen towers and each has a name) and got to go inside several of them. (What a great place this would be to play hide and seek or capture the flag!) Some were used as residences, royal and otherwise, some for prisoners, one is a chapel, etc. The crown jewels are in the old guards' barracks building and included a video of the Queen's coronation. (Man, she's been Queen for a long time, since 1953!) Most of the crowns and scepters are so heavy it's no wonder they're only used for special ceremonies. Some of the crowns were only worn once!
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| Tower Bridge |
When we went to the British Museum we didn't have time to see everything but we got to see most of it. I liked the statues, gates, and reliefs from ancient Assyria the best. The Assyrian lions/griffins were awesome. They even had reliefs from a palace in Nineveh - they made me think about Job and wonder if these were from the palace of the king who repented in response to Job's unwilling message of deliverance.
The 3 stooges? Maybe not, but still. . . something here reminds me of them.
Th
e Churchill War Rooms and Museum below one of the treasury buildings - very interesting. The rooms were pretty much abandoned right after the war and left locked up as they were until someone decided to turn them into a museum.
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| Of course, no visit to London would be complete without seeing Buckingham Palace. |
- They only allow tours for 2 months in the summer and we were not invited to tea, so we have no pictures of the inside or of the Queen - sorry.
We went to an Evensong service at Westminster Abbey - awesome! The Evensong service is a contemplative service, so there is no sermon and no mass; just prayers, an Old and New Testament reading, and a choir singing (sometimes with organ accompaniment, sometimes without). The music was beautiful (in Latin and English) and the building incredible, but it made me think of man's sinful nature and how easy it is to turn from the truth and stop following after God. For this amazing structure, built to show the glory of God and inspire men to worship Him, was filled with large statues of Prime Ministers, church leaders, and other important men, with plaques on the walls honoring this group or that group, and elaborate burial markers of those deemed important enough to be buried here. Though the burial markers may have been intended to remind one of the brevity of life, it all seemed to glorify man and his accomplishments rather than the Creator and Redeemer.
We went to the Tower of London which is so much more than just the white tower. It's a whole castle - very large, very medieval looking and very cool. We walked on some of the walls from tower to tower (there are more than a dozen towers and each has a name) and got to go inside several of them. (What a great place this would be to play hide and seek or capture the flag!) Some were used as residences, royal and otherwise, some for prisoners, one is a chapel, etc. The crown jewels are in the old guards' barracks building and included a video of the Queen's coronation. (Man, she's been Queen for a long time, since 1953!) Most of the crowns and scepters are so heavy it's no wonder they're only used for special ceremonies. Some of the crowns were only worn once!
The Churchill War Rooms and Museum below one of the treasury buildings - very interesting. The rooms were pretty much abandoned right after the war and left locked up as they were until someone decided to turn them into a museum.
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