Oxford Bound

"And yet steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Ages, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of us, to the ideal, to perfection -- to beauty in a word, which is only truth seen from another angle." -- Matthew Arnold

This quote, recorded in my journal 18 years ago during our nine-month sabbatical in Oxford, has been singing a siren song to me ever since. I don't remember the research and degree I completed there nearly two decades ago as much as I remember recapturing "... beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another angle." We hope for a taste of this again as we go tomorrow for six weeks there. We will connect with old friends, attend lectures and chapels, and most of all, listen to a fresh word from God.

We will stay in the village of Eynsham, just at the edge of Oxford, with a family connected to International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (InterVarsity worldwide).