Connected to history

Last summer, I returned to my hometown, Canterbury in England, to give my family a tour of where I grew up.

Growing up thousands of miles away in the American Midwest, my two girls (ages 13 and 15) rarely encounter history that can be counted in centuries, let alone millennia.

My hometown's recorded history dates back 2,000 years. The school I attended is the oldest continuously operating school in the world, having been founded in ​597​. ( I promise that is not a typo!)

The cafe I washed dishes for as a teen was housed in a 500-year-old building that would have been known to William Shakespeare (who visited to collaborate with Christopher Marlowe, an alumnus of my school) and Charles Dickens, who wrote David Copperfield in Canterbury.

History hangs so heavy in the air you breathe you can almost taste it, and dominating it all is the colossal ancient Cathedral, which is unavoidably visible from almost anywhere in the city.

Connected by history

Literally, all roads in Canterbury lead to the Cathedral. Inside its imposing walls, 80-foot pillars hold up a vaulted ceiling that subdues visitors' chatter to a faint murmur. History is literally stamped into the walls and floors with monuments and plaques of remembrance to the departed.

The tombs commemorating Kings, Princes, and noblemen surround the main Nave and Upper Quire, and amongst these is one tomb with five accessible "prayer alcoves" cut into the stone.

Large enough for kneeling supplicants and penitents to lean in fully, these alcoves were designed to allow private prayers to be audible to God, without being overheard by a neighbor a mere shoulder's width away.

As we knelt down and tried them out, we wondered how many thousands of prayers had been offered up by the desperate and the joyful over the centuries through wars, famines, plagues, births, marriages, and deliverances.

These alcoves are an indelible link between us today and all those thousands praying down through the centuries. We knelt where they knelt, placed our elbows in the same worn indents they left behind, and spoke into the stone just as they did. That mute stone seemed to store the secret anguish, longings, and rejoicings of every person who ever knelt there.

Incredibly, our prayers were offered up to and heard by the same eternal, immutable God. It's humbling and exciting to feel a very real sense of connection to God through sharing his presence with the faithful of the past.

Connected to God

This week, we copied Psalm 103. A Psalm actually written by David 3,000 years ago. This Psalm reached us because someone diligently copied it out for the first time, and then subsequent thousands continued to copy it faithfully time and time again through the years.

By copying Psalm 103 this week, we created a bond of connection to David, these anonymous thousands, and to God stretching back in one unbroken 3,000-year thread.

It's a wonderful thought and an incredible God-given gift to carry you into the weekend.