TheLionRampant.net

We’re just away in Inverness and Skye for a week. More when we return.

I shall be gainfully employed — imagine that, actually getting an academic job! Yes, I did get the job as an MA-level Instructor of English at Providence. Come August 30th, you will all be required to address me as Professor Hales. Just kidding. But I shall wear a suit and heels so that no one, including the president (of the college)’s wife (yes I’m referring to a real-life event that happened on Saturday), thinks I’m a prospective student. Ouch.

In another AMAZING NEWS, the college is paying for our airfare and moving expenses. I’m just amazed and so very, very thankful.

I shall be teaching English composition, remedial composition and a Communications class on Speaking and Writing in the fall. Should be fun!

Today, I’m back to windy and blustery Scotland and am dutifully in my office — unfortunately, however, it’s already midday. More to follow.

I’m leaving the flat tomorrow morning around 5 am for a 6.30 flight back to California. I have my final interview at Providence Christian College on Saturday morning. And I’ll even get to be with my dad for Father’s Day on Sunday. I’ll be back — and no doubt jet-lagged — on Tuesday afternoon. Have a lovely few days!

[cross-posted from Intellectuelle]

In an interesting review essay called, ‘God of the Latte’, Lauren Winner looks at two books which:

ask what a spirituality of suburbia, a spirituality for people who drive mini-vans and tend manicured lawns (or pay someone else to tend them), might look like.

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I found such an idea fascinating and am looking forward to getting to read these books. In another review article, Jason Biersma writes about Eric Jacobsen’s Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith, thus:

He delicately but firmly makes the case that the New Urbanism movement, with its advocacy of public spaces and variety in neighborhoods, is of urgent importance to the Church and needs its support.

Biersma continues:

Jacobsen anticipates the question of why Christians should care about sidewalks when we’re supposed to worry about salvation. To begin with, the characteristics of our urban environments determine how we are able to spread the gospel; it’s easier to reach out to pedestrians in public places than to car-bound citizens cruising from their gated community to a Costco.

The ministry of Christ thrived, Jacobsen says, on “incidental contact”—such as the healing of the woman who bumped into Christ in a crowd and touched his robe. Today Christ couldn’t stride alongside the two men on the road to Emmaus—he would have to materialize in the backseat of their SUV while they sped along the interstate. More subtly, shared public space shapes how we learn the virtues of civility, hospitality, and authenticity—and lack of the former tends to translate into a lack of the latter.

However, it isn’t as if the city provides the answers while the suburbs are looked down upon as Biersma personally reflects:

The city can, in fact, be a lonely place, as my wife and I have discovered upon moving to our downtown Chicago high-rise. We were eager to leave behind the provincialism of our hometown and gratify the kind of cosmopolitanism Isaiah’s urban vision arouses. But we underestimated the anonymity of the city—the fact that people come here to mind their own business and hope others follow suit. It’s not just SUVs and strip malls that keep people from interacting.

In short, I’m wondering if what our readers think of the city mouse versus the country mouse; what Christianity looks like in the suburbs and in the cities and how the gospel is applicable to both.

Does living out the gospel in each place look different? How do we go about being counter-cultural wherever we are placed?

Every year since coming to Edinburgh, I’ve been an initial reader of a huge stack of biographies for the James Tait Black memorial prize in biography (and fiction). I’ve had some boring stuff to trudge through. But this year, I was rewarded. Turns out that one of the books in my stack, Sue Prideaux’s Edvard Munch: Behind ‘The Scream’, that I nominated is winning the prize!!

Go see for yourself here.

Amazing!

Current temperature at 2 pm: 72 F (22 C) (Ashley commentary: Bet you didn’t think it could be so nice, huh?)

Sunrise: 4:30 am (Ashley commentary: this makes waking up at 7 am very easy)

Sunset: 9:53 pm (Ashley commentary: and then it stays light for at least another 40 minutes)

(I will miss the long days in Edinburgh.)

Some pictures can now be found here.

We left Sunday morning for the bus station and hopped aboard CityLink with the Urminskys to get to Glasgow International Airport for our flight to Prague. The girls sat together and brainstormed while the guys gave mean looks to the man who’d been quite rude when he saw Ashley’s American passport. After disembarking, we found the Airport Transport bus pretty easily and walked the long way to where we were staying, missing the lady who had come to meet us in the city centre. We got settled into our respective flats and walked towards Wencelas Square. We ate dinner at Jizerka (we’ll have a few posts of the plate of meat the guys had) and thoroughly enjoyed the potato dumplings, wine/beer, and good company. We then walked by the National Theatre and along the Vltava River and saw the Charles Bridge and Castle area all lit up at night. Gorgeous.

Monday, we had breakfast at the fun but pricy Obecni Dum, an Art Noveau building designed by Alphons Mucha. We walked over Charles Bridge to the Castle area and went up to the Strahov Monastery (but it was closed) and so we opted for lunch at the monastery brewery. We then proceeded to see the St Vitus Cathedral and Tower, the Old Palace and Golden Lane (where Kafka lived). We stopped for drinks and a snack by the Castle and then walked through the gardens. We then walked back towards where we were staying, in Old Town, and through the Jewish Quarter and finally settled on dinner in an upscale pizzeria with huge black lampshades and blue lighting. We continued on our Scrabble streak and played and laughed till 2 am.

Tuesday we slept in and started with lunch at Cafe Slavia, across the street from the National Theatre. The weather was a bit cold and rainy but we opted for a walk anyway to a modern art gallery, Veletrzni Palac; the building was rather institutional, but we enjoyed our rather quick ramble through the spacious floors. I think both David and Bryce liked a painting called “Reader of Dostoyevsky” while I liked the artist’s cubist rendition of “Salome”. At this point, Ashley was tired of walking, so Neyir and Ashley walked back to Wencelas Square for a pick-me-up at a fancy teahouse where we got to sit on Asian-style pillows and sip our specialty teas with baba gounosh and hummus; the guys opted for a pub instead. We had another bout of Scrabble and dinner at an Italian restaurant off of Old Town Square with Pavel, the pastor who is brothers with Mirek, our friend from our church in Edinburgh. Pavel left to go get some sleep as his wife has just had a baby, and we went to Ungelt Jazz Club. Fabulous music and we even attempted to try absinthe.

Wednesday we walked around until settling on Ebel coffee house for breakfast; the place was colourful and ecclectic and the portions perfect for a substantial morning meal. We then spent the morning/afternoon in the Jewish Quarter. We bought a ticket for 6 sites: a few of which were synagogues in various styles which told the story of Prague’s Jews and one (Pinkas Synagogue), which had all the names painted on the walls of the Czech Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. We moved on to the Old Jewish Cemetery, a cemetery where all the graves are piled on top of one another and the headstones from the 10th century falling over. We had lunch at the Franz Kafka cafe which was slightly disappointing and proceeded to the Hevelska Market where we bought a small print to take home. We spent the afternoon at the Mucha Museum and all came home with some prints to hang. This intimate museum was fabulous and a highlight for all of us, I think. En route to home, we took some funny pictures and decided on eating closer to home for David and Neyir’s last night. We found a small Czech restaurant and had our usual big and wonderful meals complete with alcohol for under 1000 Kc (about $40) for the 4 of us. We then walked around the city at night and had drinks in Old Town Square (with some exceptionally annoying young Americans next to us, unfortunately).

Thursday morning David and Neyir left to go back to Edinburgh and we slept in. We ate at Metamorphis in Ungelt and did a walking tour of Old Town Square and did a bit of shopping. We walked to both sides of the Charles Bridge for some pictures and walked back up to the monastery, which was open and saw the Strahov Library with some exceptionally old volumes, a painted ceiling and an extinct dodo bird. We had snacks at the monastery brewery and walked to Petrin Hill — a gorgeous bit of natural seclusion amidst the city. We climbed to the top of Petrin Tower (which is modelled off of the Eiffel Tower, although at 1/5 of the size) and had some lovely views of the city. We then walked quite far in order to see the Dancing House, a building by Frank Gehry. We opted for ice cream at a place our tourbook said was the best Italian ice cream in town; it was packed and quite good. We had dinner at a pub in the New Town and then went back to Ungelt Jazz and Blues Club for another few hours of some good music.

It was a fabulous trip; we saw a lot, enjoyed walking around the city and being with good friends. Pictures to follow in another post!