Even though we were still visiting the very old (Salisbury Cathedral) and the ancient (Stonehenge) today, I made myself focus on the present. It can be easy to forget, when you're in the haze of travel, that where you're visiting is full of people going about normal life. Since I've spent a lot of my life in or around cities that are major tourist destinations, I should know better, but I fall prey to this sometimes too. Stonehenge is in an agricultural area, surrounded by fields of barley and wheat and cow and sheep pastures. As we drove past, we could see farmers at work. Since it's been a dry, warm year the combines were already peeking out to harvest the wheat.
Salisbury Cathedral is the striking home of one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta, an early declaration of civil rights for citizens that lives on as the partial inspiration for the British Bill of Rights of 1688, the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776, and the United Nations Charter of Human Rights of 1948. (I really got chills being that close to a original copy of what is one of the most important works in legal history.) It is still a working Anglican church, as is Westminster Abbey. It's nearly impossible for me to imagine one of these magnificent works of art being the place I go for Sunday services, but Salisbury clearly has an active set of parishioners, as evidenced by these works by local children, organized by a local artist:
Salisbury Cathedral also contains a number of 20th and 21st century works, made all the more striking because of the medieval setting.
lynn ... gorgeous pictures!
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