Yesterday's itinerary:  Noon: arrived at Steve's, 12:15: copied Steve's iTunes, 2pm: lunch, 3pm: wondered into St. Martin-in-the-Field's to hear Mozart, 4pm: tea at Cafe Nero and read Julian, 5:30pm: grocery shopping at Sainsbury's, 7pm: caught up on email, 8pm: dinner, 9pm: watched The Devil Wears Prada (until it stopped mid-movie) on Steve's intermittent DVD player, 11pm: fell asleep watching Family Guy.

Topay's itinerary:  1:30pm: woke up, unaware of how late it was, and ate breakfast; 2:45pm: left the apartment; 3pm: wondered around the posh Kensington neighborhood (including Onslow Square and the Michelin House); 4pm: Victoria and Albert Museum (amazing), 5pm: late tea at the museum, 6pm: more of the museum and an epiphany; 7pm: left for home, stopping off to buy host gifts; 9pm: late dinner; 10pm: confusing online search for the Gatwick train for tomorrow, 11pm: still writing and need to pack before bed (it's only a backpack from here!).

Some thoughts after seeing the glass exhibit today at the Victoria and Albert Museum -- 

In some of the galleries, I have not seen certain objects until I sat down, ascended stairs and then looked down, or been forced to look around a corner or out a window. Thus, there are things that are there but not seen, and though I look about me I do not see all of them.

Rather than become rapacious to look at everything, I am delighted to discover that there is more than meets the eye. The eye has to move in many different directions in order to see what else is to be seen. I think this is why I love sculpture, architecture, and glass and ceramic works so much (ceramics less so). They are three dimensional pieces, objects to be seen and enjoyed from different angles, each of which illuminates another aspect of the work, another view into the artist's sharing, another way of seeing something that tells me about another human being and her creation in the world.

I am excited by all this for some reason. Maybe it is, at its core, a realization that I am a humanist. I am enamored with the Greek idea of eudaimonia, human flourishing, as the chief end of virtue and ethics. I also love the doctrine of the Incarnation and its enfleshment in sacraments. Similarly, I delight in the myriad shapes, ideas, personalities, voices, and sounds of all sorts of people, particularly their hopes, fears, and desires that round out their physical selves to put flesh on their spiritual selves (forgive the dualism).

Jesus, the master storyteller, enjoined his followers to have eyes that see and ears that hear, so that they could understand, apply, and (above all?) enjoy the parables he told. Few people did. The Story-- a story that moves from being a tale to a parable -- is something that makes an imagination worth having. Imagination is not just fanciful musings; it is seeing life from its many different angles, seeing all of its objects displayed about us, so that we can enjoy what is here and now to be seen, but also to be held, tasted, and heard, even smelled.

What a joy to hold earth in our hands and give thanks to God! What a delight to be in the presence of incarnate love, enfleshed love, God-made-human, and how beautiful to be struck, thunderstruck, by the discovery of heaven made visible for the sheer enjoyment of it. That idea of incarnation for the sake of human thanksgiving is what draws me to the Christian, namely sacramental, tradition. Obviously, my experience of the world is shaped antecedently by that tradition, from teachings of family, baptism, worship, Scripture, eucharist, and service, which knew me long before I knew it. But whatever the chronological order of my formation, I give thanks to this human existence, this world, the people populating this planet whom I know as friends and encounter as strangers, and to God, the source of all wisdom and joy.  Also, a nod to Plato and Aristotle, of course. And thanks to the invisible mystery which has enfolded, cared for, and nurtured me to this place and time where I might behold glass, ceramic, and steel, and, thus, be grateful, grateful, grateful.

I am indeed wonderful, filled with wonder, to be. Just to be, here, now, me. Thank God almighty. 

Or, as Irenaeus put it, "The glory of God is the human fully alive...."