These five hundred words get harder to write each day; surely I cannot be running out of things to say already? The problem is that I have too much to say; so much I have been carrying unsaid which now fights to be the first story to be released.
What I am certain of is that today is the time that there be an end to all that: all the distraction from what I don’t want to know any more.
I choose to write. I choose to write as more than just an outlet for my angst or my latent creativity, I choose to write because I am a writer and writing is what I do. But if I am to write, to do writing, then I must stop doing what I am not being. I am a writer, writers write. I am not anything else, so I shall no longer do nor seek those other things.
Better than focussing upon what I am not is attending to what I am. I enjoy writing and I shall do that, and let everything else fall away: it doesn’t matter what it is it matters only what it isn’t.
I know what I want to write about, but I wonder if it all comes across as a little self indulgent. My first foray into publishing under my own name was not as well received as my extensive work under pseudonym; but then I wrote those stories under very different circumstances. I shall rewrite Malcolm’s story as suggested by one of my critics, and I shall write in a better frame of mind and for a better purpose.
I also know what I don’t want to write about, so I shall indeed stop researching such things.
“A memory is never finished as long as you are alive”; well that’s the case according to Sunset Boulevard’s Jesse. Maybe only God has the capacity to forget entirely upon request, but I can choose not to remember. I am struggling; not only with the 500 word challenge, but also to move my writing beyond where it was most comfortable in 2007 because I can see that it was heading into a dead-end. Today I am trying to write about not writing about what I no longer wish to write about: a circuitous argument if ever there was one: not a lost cause, but a foolish endeavour, as foolish as the original endeavour had been. I don’t want to drop out of life and the world, I have things I need to be doing, but I am struggling today with pressures from all sides.
How can I run the race and win the prize if I can’t even get onto the blocks? Sometimes the race is not to the swift but to the persistent, I shall put it all down to experience.
Wake me up inside, call my name and save me from the nightmare I’ve become.
It ends now.
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
The scent and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.
The first words in Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale bring the reader straight into the scene which later editions of the James Bond novels and films have made very familiar. I had never thought of a casino having a sweat beyond its scent, and I find casinos nauseating at any time of day: but there it is; the murkiness of low lighting, the cigarette smoke, the smell of fear, the pain of loss. Casino.
Several years ago I wrote a lesson for Year Six Literacy based around the beginnings and endings of stories; the first and last sentences in a novel. I have never read any of Ian Fleming’s novels, and I’ve not seen all of the Bond films yet, but this first sentence of this first novel is a fitting opening because all of Bond on scene is there. It is a great sentence.
I am beginning to see stylistic traits coming out in my own writing, in no way as characteristic as this first sentence of Fleming which indicates an entire genre in fourteen words, but still ways in which people might identify me as the writer behind anonymous or pseudonymous works. I wonder if these things will remain.
I have noticed that I like using semicolons and commas, separating out my sentence with loads of punctuation. Charles Dickens did this. I have noticed I use some Germanic forms of grammar, like the Australian I am. I didn’t notice this until it was pointed out to me; British English has a different word order. I want to be able to write well in both dialects, but I also want to be able to write correctly in each one and not confuse the two.
I am still seeking a beginning, even as I refine my style and my use of the English languages I still wonder about the genres in which I shall write. Ian Fleming was a journalist for The Sunday Times, and also wrote fiction. He was a man whose business was writing and words, mine is not. I have been many things in the past, and I have written as a part of all of those things, but writing has never been the main part of what it is I have done. Now it will be, indeed it will at times be the only thing I shall do. It is the piece which dictates the opening sentence, the first thing read is close to being the last thing written and I am confident to wait: but still I would like to begin on the middle.
Only Connect: I choose to adapt Forster’s famous words as only commence; because connection only follows commencement. If I provide a substance, relational connections may be made. It doesn’t matter what I write at this point, only that I write: but it is important that I write of myself and from myself, even when only starting out.
Several years ago I wrote a lesson for Year Six Literacy based around the beginnings and endings of stories; the first and last sentences in a novel. I have never read any of Ian Fleming’s novels, and I’ve not seen all of the Bond films yet, but this first sentence of this first novel is a fitting opening because all of Bond on scene is there. It is a great sentence.
I am beginning to see stylistic traits coming out in my own writing, in no way as characteristic as this first sentence of Fleming which indicates an entire genre in fourteen words, but still ways in which people might identify me as the writer behind anonymous or pseudonymous works. I wonder if these things will remain.
I have noticed that I like using semicolons and commas, separating out my sentence with loads of punctuation. Charles Dickens did this. I have noticed I use some Germanic forms of grammar, like the Australian I am. I didn’t notice this until it was pointed out to me; British English has a different word order. I want to be able to write well in both dialects, but I also want to be able to write correctly in each one and not confuse the two.
I am still seeking a beginning, even as I refine my style and my use of the English languages I still wonder about the genres in which I shall write. Ian Fleming was a journalist for The Sunday Times, and also wrote fiction. He was a man whose business was writing and words, mine is not. I have been many things in the past, and I have written as a part of all of those things, but writing has never been the main part of what it is I have done. Now it will be, indeed it will at times be the only thing I shall do. It is the piece which dictates the opening sentence, the first thing read is close to being the last thing written and I am confident to wait: but still I would like to begin on the middle.
Only Connect: I choose to adapt Forster’s famous words as only commence; because connection only follows commencement. If I provide a substance, relational connections may be made. It doesn’t matter what I write at this point, only that I write: but it is important that I write of myself and from myself, even when only starting out.
Stop seeking what it is that you should be giving
There was a fable once told about a tiger which was lame, and was fed by hyenas that brought it meat which they found in their daily scavenging. A man who heard this story decided that that sounded like the way he wanted to live his life: and almost starved to death. The moral of the story is that we are meant to be like the hyenas, not the tiger.
In my world I see the truth in the direction to stop seeking what I should be giving; because I am poor in many ways. At various times I have wanted friendship, partnership, praise and recognition. I have wanted help but have been left to do it alone, even in the midst of a great crowd. I wonder now whether others have felt the same things at the same time, perhaps they were waiting for me to notice their need and then act to meet it with them.
This continues to be a dog eat dog world: I wonder whether selflessness has a place in the running of our society or whether those who seeks to be hyenas will end up starving, or as food for the tigers. Scripture is clear in describing servanthood as the preferred lifestyle for Christians; it is the model of Christ. If he could do it, then I should be able to since the same spirit (Spirit) lives in me, but why do I always feel like it’s give give give and then when people see I’m a giver they ask for more? How do I give so much assistance yet never find the help I need, when I need it? Can I truly find if I never seek? No.
The answer is to be the answer, not to deny my requirements but to find them in dialogue. Loneliness is not defeated by selfishness but by community, and community occurs in shared experience, in bearing one another’s burdens. Many feel the way I do; these are the characteristics of my generation. Therefore it should be easy to have my needs met; by meeting the needs of others I am blessed by their response. I make friends by being a friend; but I also earn praise by offering it, and am acclaimed by being personable and therefore becoming known to many.
What then shall I give? Attention for starters, but of the right form. I’ll offer friendship and conversation, and spend time with those who feel overlooked and marginalised. I shall offer partnership; in financial form but also through prayer and follow up with those who I wish to become like, or those who wish to become like me, both as mentor and mentoree. This is the simplest, most important way; I want partners and I have heard it said many times that that is the best way to move on in life: to spend time with those already heading in the direction I desire.
In my world I see the truth in the direction to stop seeking what I should be giving; because I am poor in many ways. At various times I have wanted friendship, partnership, praise and recognition. I have wanted help but have been left to do it alone, even in the midst of a great crowd. I wonder now whether others have felt the same things at the same time, perhaps they were waiting for me to notice their need and then act to meet it with them.
This continues to be a dog eat dog world: I wonder whether selflessness has a place in the running of our society or whether those who seeks to be hyenas will end up starving, or as food for the tigers. Scripture is clear in describing servanthood as the preferred lifestyle for Christians; it is the model of Christ. If he could do it, then I should be able to since the same spirit (Spirit) lives in me, but why do I always feel like it’s give give give and then when people see I’m a giver they ask for more? How do I give so much assistance yet never find the help I need, when I need it? Can I truly find if I never seek? No.
The answer is to be the answer, not to deny my requirements but to find them in dialogue. Loneliness is not defeated by selfishness but by community, and community occurs in shared experience, in bearing one another’s burdens. Many feel the way I do; these are the characteristics of my generation. Therefore it should be easy to have my needs met; by meeting the needs of others I am blessed by their response. I make friends by being a friend; but I also earn praise by offering it, and am acclaimed by being personable and therefore becoming known to many.
What then shall I give? Attention for starters, but of the right form. I’ll offer friendship and conversation, and spend time with those who feel overlooked and marginalised. I shall offer partnership; in financial form but also through prayer and follow up with those who I wish to become like, or those who wish to become like me, both as mentor and mentoree. This is the simplest, most important way; I want partners and I have heard it said many times that that is the best way to move on in life: to spend time with those already heading in the direction I desire.
Mission is not about crossing the sea but about seeing the cross.
When Jesus sent out the twelve, and the others who were with them, he sent them first to Jerusalem; it was only after their home town was saturated with the gospel that they were to go on to Judea, Samaria, and finally towards the Ends of the Earth. Even when Paul took the gospel into Asia and then Europe he always began at home in the sense that he went first to the synagogue. It is among the people of our own kind that we have the greatest credibility, and the greatest success rate. We don’t have to learn the language, or the culture, we don’t even have to learn technique; we just have to share the story of how God saved a wretch like me to others who are a lot like me.
Evangelism has been described as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. Our countrymen have similar needs to our own, particularly in their expression of the need for salvation. All people need Christ’s saving grace, salvation to become the likeness of Christ, but it is the people next door who need salvation from the same stuff we do: materialism, pressure to perform, the issues of postmodern, and twenty-first century British life.
Before I returned to England from Australia in 2002 I completed a unit on World Christianity and Missions at Bible school, during which I identified an unreached people group which met all the criteria of the curriculum: that group was the antipodean community of London. Here was a group which did not have an indigenous church, indeed it seemed to me it did not have a single missionary focussed upon them as distinct from the wider London community. Aussies and Kiwis (and Saffas) in London are not Londoners, but neither are they really Aussies or Kiwis (or Saffas) like the ones at home. This group has a general demographic; under 28 years of age, unmarried, nomadic workers and travellers, open-minded, easygoing. Not like their countrymen who stayed at home, and not like the natives of Great Britain around them; these are a culture apart. Who will minister to them? Quite simply it needs to be those who are like them, not the English or the churches of England; not the Australian or New Zealander coming from “home”, not even the English returning from “gap year”; the London Crowd need to hear the timeless gospel from the Church within the London Crowd itself. But is there such a Church?
There is a people coming: Hillsong Church London, whilst not specifically a mission to the antipodeans is indeed reaching them, and is an indigenous church of same. The London Antipodeans are a reached people-group, the southern crowd run this church, and minister out of it for the benefit of the kingdom of God in all Europe, especially that within the M25.
By focussing on their own doorstep they are reaching the world.
Evangelism has been described as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. Our countrymen have similar needs to our own, particularly in their expression of the need for salvation. All people need Christ’s saving grace, salvation to become the likeness of Christ, but it is the people next door who need salvation from the same stuff we do: materialism, pressure to perform, the issues of postmodern, and twenty-first century British life.
Before I returned to England from Australia in 2002 I completed a unit on World Christianity and Missions at Bible school, during which I identified an unreached people group which met all the criteria of the curriculum: that group was the antipodean community of London. Here was a group which did not have an indigenous church, indeed it seemed to me it did not have a single missionary focussed upon them as distinct from the wider London community. Aussies and Kiwis (and Saffas) in London are not Londoners, but neither are they really Aussies or Kiwis (or Saffas) like the ones at home. This group has a general demographic; under 28 years of age, unmarried, nomadic workers and travellers, open-minded, easygoing. Not like their countrymen who stayed at home, and not like the natives of Great Britain around them; these are a culture apart. Who will minister to them? Quite simply it needs to be those who are like them, not the English or the churches of England; not the Australian or New Zealander coming from “home”, not even the English returning from “gap year”; the London Crowd need to hear the timeless gospel from the Church within the London Crowd itself. But is there such a Church?
There is a people coming: Hillsong Church London, whilst not specifically a mission to the antipodeans is indeed reaching them, and is an indigenous church of same. The London Antipodeans are a reached people-group, the southern crowd run this church, and minister out of it for the benefit of the kingdom of God in all Europe, especially that within the M25.
By focussing on their own doorstep they are reaching the world.
Where to begin?
I have been writing all my life, and have had people telling me for ten years that I am to be known for my writing; but it is only in the last few months that I have come to believe this press and to understand that I can actually write enough to embark upon writing as a career. My question is now one of context: so I can write and I shall write, but what of?
I want to write about prayer and intercession, but I wonder whether that is old news now. I want to write of my journey with God, but I wonder if that is self indulgent: after all Paul never wrote about Arabia rather he used Arabia to write about the cross. I want to write short stories, and long ones, to write skilfully for the sake of writing, in ways I have done briefly and in the Past, but this is not where I want to make my mark. I want to write about the gospel and culture, the behaviour of developing minds and lives in our new century and the effect that the timeless gospel should have upon them if given a fair hearing. I want to write comments upon the news, to write columns and articles, sermons to be read rather than spoken aloud: to speak by my writing rather than my lecturing. I want to write in paragraphs, in dialogues like the ancient philosophers, like an interviewer: scripts for my own performance.
I want to write what comes from God, be it Christian teaching, or just for enjoyment’s sake: a creative God using me as a fountain for His creativity in words. I know the words will come, I need to be listening and practicing both my writing and my faith: it is all about Him but it first comes to me, then through me. God’s highest priority for me is that I become like Christ, transformed into the likeness of His son; out of that comes the writing and the teaching, not before. I am a son first, an oracle second. I want to write out of my heart, out of the wellsprings of life: first then I must invest into my heart the time to make it clean, (by Christ alone, not me), and the time to make it wise.
I shall begin by reading, and then shall write from that.
There is no chicken and the egg here, because my writing comes from my reading, but my reading comes from the writing of others. I shall read what I want to write, (now to find such things). I shall write what I have already read, (can I remember)? I shall read them again: histories, hagiographies, biographies, opinions; stories in many forms. And I shall read books of language, books to perfect my craft, books to help me to write well in English English. And I shall read books and coursework to help me find publication.
I want to write about prayer and intercession, but I wonder whether that is old news now. I want to write of my journey with God, but I wonder if that is self indulgent: after all Paul never wrote about Arabia rather he used Arabia to write about the cross. I want to write short stories, and long ones, to write skilfully for the sake of writing, in ways I have done briefly and in the Past, but this is not where I want to make my mark. I want to write about the gospel and culture, the behaviour of developing minds and lives in our new century and the effect that the timeless gospel should have upon them if given a fair hearing. I want to write comments upon the news, to write columns and articles, sermons to be read rather than spoken aloud: to speak by my writing rather than my lecturing. I want to write in paragraphs, in dialogues like the ancient philosophers, like an interviewer: scripts for my own performance.
I want to write what comes from God, be it Christian teaching, or just for enjoyment’s sake: a creative God using me as a fountain for His creativity in words. I know the words will come, I need to be listening and practicing both my writing and my faith: it is all about Him but it first comes to me, then through me. God’s highest priority for me is that I become like Christ, transformed into the likeness of His son; out of that comes the writing and the teaching, not before. I am a son first, an oracle second. I want to write out of my heart, out of the wellsprings of life: first then I must invest into my heart the time to make it clean, (by Christ alone, not me), and the time to make it wise.
I shall begin by reading, and then shall write from that.
There is no chicken and the egg here, because my writing comes from my reading, but my reading comes from the writing of others. I shall read what I want to write, (now to find such things). I shall write what I have already read, (can I remember)? I shall read them again: histories, hagiographies, biographies, opinions; stories in many forms. And I shall read books of language, books to perfect my craft, books to help me to write well in English English. And I shall read books and coursework to help me find publication.
God Speaks
God speaks to us in the way we are listening: He throws the ball that we are prepared to catch. If I expect God to chasten me with misadventure then I will hear through disasters. If I expect God to speak through His Word graphe and rhema, then I will hear through them. If I don’t expect God to speak then I will not hear anything at all.
I am working through how I expect God to speak to me.
In the past I have heard Him speak in a quiet, internal voice, and in a gripping in my chest while I pray. Sometimes things do ‘pop’ out at me when I am reading my Bible, but just as often it happens with other books, or even films that I am watching. Events on the television, (especially the news), will sometimes grip my chest as well: then I begin to pray and the answer is unfolded in our dialogue. All of these are valid, but now I want to know if there are other ways in which God can speak: ways in which He would prefer to speak to me.
• Will He speak to me through my own writing? He has in the past, so perhaps he shall again.
• Will He speak to me through directing my reading, rather than awakening my interest when I come across a pertinent section of text, will I now be directed to entire books which will minster to my needs and purposes? Why not; I have a few books beside me now which I would like to read in the hope that God will reveal stuff to me.
• Will He speak to me through my new and developing friendships? I have always been a solitary person, but now I see the need to get more involved with community, to make friends I can trust to speak into my life as well as to just spend time with. I’d love for that to be the case too, I need to develop godly and trustworthy relationships if I am ever to communicate with the world at large, and get married.
Whatever His means, or His message, I know God will continue to speak to me as a son of His. Regardless of my being a writer I am first a Christian and I know God will speak to me for me and then, (and oftentimes quite separately) speak to me to speak through me, but first will be my sonship. The quote is true: Don’t read for writing Damien, read for learning. Read to impact your own life and not only to teach others. I have not been reading recently, too busy with work and other things, although I have been watching films. Now I want to return to books, and to do so properly: not just something before bedtime but research as an investment in my own future.
I shall make the time to read and to write professionally.
I am working through how I expect God to speak to me.
In the past I have heard Him speak in a quiet, internal voice, and in a gripping in my chest while I pray. Sometimes things do ‘pop’ out at me when I am reading my Bible, but just as often it happens with other books, or even films that I am watching. Events on the television, (especially the news), will sometimes grip my chest as well: then I begin to pray and the answer is unfolded in our dialogue. All of these are valid, but now I want to know if there are other ways in which God can speak: ways in which He would prefer to speak to me.
• Will He speak to me through my own writing? He has in the past, so perhaps he shall again.
• Will He speak to me through directing my reading, rather than awakening my interest when I come across a pertinent section of text, will I now be directed to entire books which will minster to my needs and purposes? Why not; I have a few books beside me now which I would like to read in the hope that God will reveal stuff to me.
• Will He speak to me through my new and developing friendships? I have always been a solitary person, but now I see the need to get more involved with community, to make friends I can trust to speak into my life as well as to just spend time with. I’d love for that to be the case too, I need to develop godly and trustworthy relationships if I am ever to communicate with the world at large, and get married.
Whatever His means, or His message, I know God will continue to speak to me as a son of His. Regardless of my being a writer I am first a Christian and I know God will speak to me for me and then, (and oftentimes quite separately) speak to me to speak through me, but first will be my sonship. The quote is true: Don’t read for writing Damien, read for learning. Read to impact your own life and not only to teach others. I have not been reading recently, too busy with work and other things, although I have been watching films. Now I want to return to books, and to do so properly: not just something before bedtime but research as an investment in my own future.
I shall make the time to read and to write professionally.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Assignment Three
Hello.
I am so terrible at getting my assignments in for my writing course, I think calling this blog Damien Writes was a declaration of hope rather than a statement of fact.
Here is something I wrote for Hillsong Church London's magazine Abrupt, which they didn't publish (or even acknowledge), but it fits as suitable for my assignment. I must admit I find it easy to write, but hard to think like someone looking for a publishing deal, hence the delay in getting stuff submitted to Manchester.
I hope you like this,
Damien.
Daytrips from London.
There is life beyond the M25, and it is indeed life as you know it. Minus the crowds, minus the traffic; minus “mind the gap” there is a world of England that can be reached within an hour’s travelling on a local train. Some people from Hillsong Church London even live out here.
ROCHESTER-UPON-MEDWAY.
Rochester is one of two cathedral cities in the county of Kent, the other being the better known (but far more crowded and therefore less interesting) city of Canterbury. Rochester is the quintessential English city with its Norman Cathedral (still in use) and Castle (ruined, so not in use); yet also with a history beyond that which dates back from before the Romans until after the turn of the twenty-first century. In spite of this its greatest claim to fame is that it was the home city and chief inspiration of one Charles Dickens. (It is also the home town of Kelly Brook if you are interested in such things.)
Rochester is served by a British Rail station close to the centre of town, and is connected to both London Charing Cross and (a better option) London Victoria. The neighbouring town Chatham is host to the Dickens Experience, think Disneyland with chimneysweeps, and the Chatham Maritime which was once the Royal Navy’s premier ship-building port. Both towns are also easily accessible by road from London via the M25/A2(M).
ST ALBANS.
A Roman city, now a cathedral city, with more of the history of England than you can poke a stick at St Albans is less than thirty minutes by train from London. It is also home to two Hillsong Church London connect groups.
The Roman city of Verulamium was established within ten years of the arrival of the Roman occupying force, and was built upon the site of a town founded in 10AD which had been capital of the Celtic Catuvellaunii tribe. In 209AD legend has it that Alban, a merchant/civil servant of the town, helped to hide a Christian priest who was attempting to escape persecution. The priest converted Alban to Christianity, and was assisted to escape when Alban and the priest (known as Amphibalus, but that’s probably a fake name) swapped clothes. When the ruse was discovered Alban was offered the chance to make a token sacrifice to the local goddess, the Roman equivalent of an on-the-spot fine. Alban declined, stating somewhat heroically, “I am Alban and I worship the true and living God”. He was summarily tried and found guilty of treason, and was taken beyond the walls of Verulamium to a cemetery half way up the hill behind the town where he was beheaded. In so doing he became the first British person to suffer Christian martyrdom. In the decades and centuries following Alban was made a saint and the site of his death became a pilgrimage hotspot culminating in the establishment of an Abbey, St Alban’s, which later gave its name to the town which sprang up beside it to cater to the pilgrim crowd. Since mediaeval St Albans was built around the abbey, rather than on the old Roman city, the site of Verulamium is now a rather attractive city park with some above ground ruins beside a swan infested lake, and three nearby “ye olde quainte” style pubs.
For those of you who are interested in more recent History, St Albans was the site of two battles (including the very first) in the Wars of the Roses, the first conflict ever to be fought using flowers instead of arrows. (Ban the bulb!) It also saw action in the English Civil War during the 1640s when Oliver Cromwell himself visited and stayed in the Fighting Cocks, which claims to be England’s oldest pub.
St Albans is served by two British Rail stations, St Albans City (from St Pancras and London Bridge via the old Thameslink) and St Albans Abbey (from Euston or Milton Keynes, change at Watford Junction) and can be reached by road from Junction 6 on the M1. It has the necessary “Hillsong mix” for doing life (Nandos, Starbucks, Wagamama, and Pizza Express are all present); but if you want my two pence worth then Verulamium is a park that deserves a picnic.
I am so terrible at getting my assignments in for my writing course, I think calling this blog Damien Writes was a declaration of hope rather than a statement of fact.
Here is something I wrote for Hillsong Church London's magazine Abrupt, which they didn't publish (or even acknowledge), but it fits as suitable for my assignment. I must admit I find it easy to write, but hard to think like someone looking for a publishing deal, hence the delay in getting stuff submitted to Manchester.
I hope you like this,
Damien.
Daytrips from London.
There is life beyond the M25, and it is indeed life as you know it. Minus the crowds, minus the traffic; minus “mind the gap” there is a world of England that can be reached within an hour’s travelling on a local train. Some people from Hillsong Church London even live out here.
ROCHESTER-UPON-MEDWAY.
Rochester is one of two cathedral cities in the county of Kent, the other being the better known (but far more crowded and therefore less interesting) city of Canterbury. Rochester is the quintessential English city with its Norman Cathedral (still in use) and Castle (ruined, so not in use); yet also with a history beyond that which dates back from before the Romans until after the turn of the twenty-first century. In spite of this its greatest claim to fame is that it was the home city and chief inspiration of one Charles Dickens. (It is also the home town of Kelly Brook if you are interested in such things.)
Rochester is served by a British Rail station close to the centre of town, and is connected to both London Charing Cross and (a better option) London Victoria. The neighbouring town Chatham is host to the Dickens Experience, think Disneyland with chimneysweeps, and the Chatham Maritime which was once the Royal Navy’s premier ship-building port. Both towns are also easily accessible by road from London via the M25/A2(M).
ST ALBANS.
A Roman city, now a cathedral city, with more of the history of England than you can poke a stick at St Albans is less than thirty minutes by train from London. It is also home to two Hillsong Church London connect groups.
The Roman city of Verulamium was established within ten years of the arrival of the Roman occupying force, and was built upon the site of a town founded in 10AD which had been capital of the Celtic Catuvellaunii tribe. In 209AD legend has it that Alban, a merchant/civil servant of the town, helped to hide a Christian priest who was attempting to escape persecution. The priest converted Alban to Christianity, and was assisted to escape when Alban and the priest (known as Amphibalus, but that’s probably a fake name) swapped clothes. When the ruse was discovered Alban was offered the chance to make a token sacrifice to the local goddess, the Roman equivalent of an on-the-spot fine. Alban declined, stating somewhat heroically, “I am Alban and I worship the true and living God”. He was summarily tried and found guilty of treason, and was taken beyond the walls of Verulamium to a cemetery half way up the hill behind the town where he was beheaded. In so doing he became the first British person to suffer Christian martyrdom. In the decades and centuries following Alban was made a saint and the site of his death became a pilgrimage hotspot culminating in the establishment of an Abbey, St Alban’s, which later gave its name to the town which sprang up beside it to cater to the pilgrim crowd. Since mediaeval St Albans was built around the abbey, rather than on the old Roman city, the site of Verulamium is now a rather attractive city park with some above ground ruins beside a swan infested lake, and three nearby “ye olde quainte” style pubs.
For those of you who are interested in more recent History, St Albans was the site of two battles (including the very first) in the Wars of the Roses, the first conflict ever to be fought using flowers instead of arrows. (Ban the bulb!) It also saw action in the English Civil War during the 1640s when Oliver Cromwell himself visited and stayed in the Fighting Cocks, which claims to be England’s oldest pub.
St Albans is served by two British Rail stations, St Albans City (from St Pancras and London Bridge via the old Thameslink) and St Albans Abbey (from Euston or Milton Keynes, change at Watford Junction) and can be reached by road from Junction 6 on the M1. It has the necessary “Hillsong mix” for doing life (Nandos, Starbucks, Wagamama, and Pizza Express are all present); but if you want my two pence worth then Verulamium is a park that deserves a picnic.
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