London - 26 Mar 06

I sit in the “Canonicus Residentarius II” seat in the St. Paul’s Cathedral choir stalls. The music hasn’t begun and I am taking this time to write that each week that I have come to St. Paul’s this thirty minute recital has been the thirty most peaceful minutes of my week. It took me a few weeks to get here after arriving, but I have come here every Sunday I could since then. I have been coming for months now. I feel unworthy. In fact, it is an oddity, this building; it can be simultaneously humbling, intimidating, warm, and welcoming. In my experience many churches can give their visitors these feelings, but I find St. Paul’s giving them all to me during one visit.

Matteo Imbruno, the organist for today’s recital, is playing the "Ballo del Granduca" by Sweelinck right now. It sounds like wedding music at times, but then it dips into different sounds that wouldn’t bode well for a wedding.

“In Domo Domini Domus Dei Nostri” is written under the southern section of the organ. The wooden statues on the frontispiece of the organ need a good dusting.

My thoughts do turn toward home these last few weeks in London. Collin Moore, I miss that kid. God has blessed Aaron and I with a renewed strength, faith, and understanding in our friendship. I see the path back to where we once stood as friends, now we can move forward. Although we had some hard months, probably years, I partly believe those were necessary for our friendship and where I think God wants to take it. We now understand each other in a way that we didn’t before.

I can't wait to see other friends as well. God has blessed me with this semester in London, but He has most certainly blessed me with a great home, family and friends to come back to.

I suspect that Canonicus, and the letters to follow mean something significant. I have three reasons to believe this. 1) It is Latin. 2) The average person doesn’t know what it means. 3) A few minutes after I wrote this entry from that seat I was asked to move to any other seat in the cathedral because I couldn’t sit in that one. I looked up Canonicus and I found out it is the name of a Narragansett leader who yielded Rhode Island to Roger Williams in 1636. Just a hunch, but I doubt that the seat I was sitting in was named after that Canonicus.

As far as the second string of Latin, I think it means “In the Lord God’s House we are one” or “This is the Lord God’s House”. I don’t know Latin, so it could be something completely different.

God did a lot of healing through very long emails I exchanged with Aaron while I was in London. I remember sitting their in the choir stalls and praying for thirty minutes. I would run down the list of every friend I could think of and pray for them, or a specific area of their life. The 7,000 pipe organ is a good soundtrack for prayers. When the music stopped, the praying stopped, but sometimes it continued as I walked home, or if I walked through the empty streets in the City. I would drop a pound or two in the offering box on the way out and take my time walking down the giant steps of that magnificent church.

Picture: The empty streets of the City of London on a Sunday. The City is different from London. Central London is primarily composed of two areas: Westminster (Big Ben, Parliament, and other government buildings) and the City of London, small by comparison to Westminster, is the primary financial district (banks, trading, all sorts of economic firms).