Home

William F. Buckley was asked once what was his favorite journey. He answered simply, "Home."

And so it is with me. I made it back to Dallas late yesterday afternoon after a long flight from Heathrow. Julie and the kids were happy to see me, and I returned the sentiment most heartily. There's nothing like my own family, my own home, my own dog, my own food, my own place in the world. I don't know that I have ever felt it quite as acutely, and I am sure this is because I'm getting older. I used to be so restless and filled with wanderlust, but that has drained away. Without quite willing it, I have become rooted, grounded. I think it's a good thing, but whether you approve or disapprove, it just is. As disappointed as I was to have to cancel my pilgrimage to the abbey at Chevetogne because of my shingles (which didn't materialize in the end, thanks to acupuncture and Henry McGrath's medicinal Chinese herbs), I realized about midweek that I was secretly happy, because I needed to be at home, at rest, with my family.

(DFW airport sure doesn't make it easy on you getting back into the country, though. It took an hour to clear passport control and customs -- much longer than it took to do the same at London Heathrow, which is a bigger airport. I knew for sure I was back in America when, standing in line at passport control, I saw a mess of American teenage travelers, all smacking their gum with open mouths. Is it only American teenagers who chew gum this way, opening and closing their mouths like that? They look perfectly ridiculous.)

I knew for sure I was back in Texas when I was hit by a blast of heat and humidity as soon as I stepped outside the terminal. What a glorious respite from the Texas climate Cambridge was! Even so, I returned to find Julie's vegetable garden going crazy. We'll have figs within two weeks, and we're already getting a few tomatoes. Today I'm going to go to the grocery store and lay in a big supply of tomatoes and cucumbers, and eat lots and lots of them in the days to come. Need to get that rich British food out of my system. On my last night in Cambridge, a friend and I repaired once again to Loch Fyne restaurant for a farewell meal. Had Scottish oysters and Scottish smoked salmon, which I could eat every day. Most of the food I had over the last two weeks, though, was rather more buttery and saucy.

On the final afternoon of this first leg of the Cambridge fellowship, I went over to the library at the Needham Research Institute, which focuses on the study of Chinese medicine, technology and science, and spent the afternoon researching my project on Chinese medicine. It was a gold mine. I will begin my formal reading for my project tomorrow, and because of my afternoon at NRI, I feel as if I'm getting off to a great start. Over the next few weeks, I'll be blogging a lot about what I'm learning in my reading, and I think you'll find the posts here being less about news events and more about ideas that occur to me from my reading about religion, culture and health. Don't be alarmed -- we'll be back to the more conventional blogging in August. I simply have to be disciplined about staying focused on my work.

It's also the case that I've learned from these past two weeks in Cambridge that I need to make some serious changes in my life. The shingles scare really sobered me up. It made me realize how stressed out I am, and how I undermine my own health by the way I live. As I mentioned last week, the acupuncturist said that I am severely depleted of yin. In Western terms, that means I have no restfulness in my, and my mind and body are imbalanced. This is why I very nearly had shingles. I know that it's true. I find that my mind is constantly racing here and there, and that I don't know how to sit still and be still. So I'm going to spend the next few weeks seeking to regain balance. I'm going to keep my news and blog reading on the low side. I'm going to eat much more sensibly, and wean myself from coffee (this will be hard) and rich foods. I'm going to get back into an exercise routine. Most important of all, I will establish a prayer rule, and stick to it -- especially meditative, hesychastic prayer. My mind and my body are starving for these things, and if I keep going like I'm doing now, I'm going to make myself sick. It's a pity that it took being in a calming, beautiful place like Cambridge to make me realize that, but I'm grateful for the insight, and now I need to act on it.

On Friday afternoon, I left the Needham library and walked back across the river to attend Evensong at King's College Chapel. It was very heaven, and I'm not exaggerating. To hear the famed choir singing the evening Anglican prayers, and the Magnificat, was transporting. What a glorious legacy English Christianity has given to the world. I nearly came to tears once or twice, and felt my heart swelling with love for this country, England, and these people. Evensong at King's was perhaps the finest send-off from Cambridge I can imagine. I would like to have a video of it to offer you as a video postcard, but filming wasn't permitted inside the chapel. I offer you something that's still pretty great: a short film of King's College taken from a footbridge over the Cam, shot by me as I made my way to Evensong in the chapel, which you can see in the background. The punters, the gentle river, the birds singing, the green, green grass of the backs, and those awe-inspiring buildings -- this is a summer afternoon in Cambridge, England, one of God's favored places, I'm certain, and certainly one of mine.