Walking

King's College Chapel

I was told that Cambridge is a walkable city. It’s true. I spent the afternoon doing just that. After recovering from my initial journey, I ventured out from the secure enclosures of Ridley Hall into the hustle and bustle of this storied university town.

Every turn confronts you with history. 

Clare College – founded 1326. Corpus Christi College – founded 1352. Emmanuel College – founded 1584. Gonville & Caius College – founded 1348. Jesus College – founded 1496. Magdalene College – founded 1428. Pembroke College – founded 1347. St. John’s College – founded 1511. Christ’s College - founded 1505. Trinity College – founded 1546. And of course, the crown jewel for anyone so enamored of high church musical traditions as I – King’s College – founded 1441. Not to say anything of any of the other colleges founded after the mid-sixteenth century!

Architectural wonders. Stonework. Stained glass. Cobblestone walkways. It is almost too much to take in. What is even more difficult to comprehend is that this is real. It is not Disney or Pixar. Real people have traversed these same walkways for almost seven hundred years. 

How many scholars? How many debates along the way? How many friendships formed – or lost? How much blood shed over which doctrine was true? Over whether the Bible should be translated into the common language? Over whose authority was greater – prince or bishop? How much faith was found – or lost? How many cures discovered? How many treaties negotiated?

What was (is) learned in places like this echoes through centuries of human experience. Walking these streets brings a sudden sense of connectedness – a sense that what we do today matters now – and well into the future. In God’s eyes, we each matter. Each of us has a part to play – no matter how large or small. Suddenly it dawns on you: it all matters, really.