Black Friday and a Flashback

I was privileged to go on a 6 1/2 hour shopping trip with my sister-in-law, Olivia, today.  We bought this stuff:

And today's flashback features...Westminster Abbey.

We were greeted by this sign at the door:

Pickpockets were actually my biggest fear about being in London.  I read in a guidebook that you needed to be aware of them in the city, and it just made me nervous.  I was afraid we would appear to be a couple of easy-target tourists.  Thankfully, we had no trouble with pickpockets outside of Westminster Abbey or any other place.

There were some pretty strict rules about photography and filming inside the abbey, so I don't have much for you to see from the inside.  KJ did turn on the video camera nonchalantly at a couple of points.  He couldn't pass up Henry V's tomb.  We were able to take a few pictures once we'd passed through the gift shop.  I think my favorite part of Westminster Abbey was seeing William Wilberforce and William Pitt buried beside each other.  It seemed very sweet to me.  The inside was magnificent and awe-inspiring.  If only I had more pictures.

This is looking out across a courtyard near the exit.

It was quite a lovely courtyard.

I want to record for my own benefit the little things that happened at all the places we visited, but my words feel repetitive and not good enough.  It was...let's see...thought-provoking perhaps (?), to stand in a place so old where so many events, both good and bad, had taken place.  It is amazing to comprehend that you stand in the place where kings and queens have been crowned and laid in state after their death.  KJ and I have been reading A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens, and we just read this weekend that Oliver Cromwell, along with others, was actually taken from his grave in Westminster Abbey once Charles II came back into power.  There were some really horrible things done to it, and we have been grateful more than once to live in the place and time that we live.  

It has been very interesting to see how the events of the Protestant Reformation and the Bible being put in the hands and language of the people made a difference in the culture there, though.  Dickens didn't mention that specifically, but the early history of England is extremely violent with all kinds of savagery going on, and as I was reading Wednesday night it hit me that the people and the history seemed a lot more civilized all of a sudden.  And when we thought back we realized that the Reformation had taken place in the last 100 years, and the preaching of men like John Bunyan and John Owen filled pulpits.  The Word of God is a powerful thing.