The Magic of London – Sunday, June 14, 1998
It’s impossible to visit London and not be mesmerized by the magic of this city. As poets and writers have flocked here to write stories that are loved worldwide, we have all come to know London’s streets and spires, her clock towers and cathedrals, her palaces and cottages—owning them, in a way, as we own favorite authors and books.
We see fog anywhere else in the world, and we think of the fog described by Charles Dickens. We see snow gathering against a door, and we remember Dylan Thomas. Even many of our religious thoughts have best been captured by such writers as William Blake, when he wrote, “Where Mercy, Love, & Pity dwell, There God is dwelling too.”1
British writers have painted portraits of their faith, and that, in turn, has strengthened the faith of people around the world. They describe characters we seem to know. They express our same emotions in poems, and they pray for the same things we do.
From Shakespeare, we see ourselves stripped of pretense—fully honest. We learn how to better treat others, how to conquer our weaknesses, how to appreciate the glorious world God has created.
What a treasure of inspiration Great Britain has given us. How much richer we all are for the poignant thoughts scribbled down on a chilly London night, when the creamy glow of a streetlamp might have enabled a writer to collect his thoughts and save them for future generations.
How fitting that an English writer, William Wordsworth, penned these words about God’s plan for mankind:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.2
Indeed, they are words for all humanity—words which feel true, not only in our ears but in our hearts.
JONI HILTON
1William Blake, “The Divine Image,” from Songs of Innocence, 1798, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 2 (New York: Norton & Company), p. 49.
2William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” from Recollections of Early Childhood, ibid., p. 178.
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June 14, 1998
Broadcast Number 3,591