I completed the reading of the first book of the Bible - Genesis. Joseph has now died and has asked that his bones be taken back to the land that God swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. God renamed Jacob with the name Israel. Joseph tells his brothers that God will come to you to take you back to the land of our ancestors.
Until the Gutenberg Bible was printed using moveable metal type in the mid 1450s in Mainz, Germany, the word of God was hand-copied by scribes. My grandfather could recite chapters of the Bible learned in his childhood at school in Upper Clatford. The school room still exists as part of that Church and when we visited it was awesome to have been in a place that my grandfather had talked about from his childhood. The font was especially interesting as my grandfather was baptized (as well as his eleven siblings) and recorded in the parish registers which I have on Fiche purchased from the Winchester Archives.
It is fascinating to have stood in the footsteps of my great grandparents in All Saints Church back in 2008 and I am forever grateful to my now deceased cousin Ivan Kent for making that possible (they were our mutual great grandparents). We had corresponded for over twenty years when I first met him at the train station in Dorchester, Dorset. Edward and I had flown to Heathrow from Canada and then caught the train to Dorchester at Victoria Station all on that same day of arrival. Edward could barely walk as his back bothered him after this first flight and I wondered if we should just go back home to be honest. But I hauled the two suitcases on the Underground and we just moved slowly. We had plenty of time to get to the Train Station. I slept for hours on the plane but Edward did not. I first planned to go in 2001 after my eldest daughter and I returned from our trip to Rome, Italy and London, England. Each year during the winter we would talk about going to England and Edward would think about it and say yes he wanted to do that but then change his mind when it came to actually booking the flight.
Finally in early 2008 when I had just retired I said I really would like to go to meet my cousin and Ivan is fine with that and will meet me at the train in Dorchester. I think it maybe overwhelmed Edward that I was actually going and he decided to make the trip with me. He wanted to see Europe and the places where his ancestors lived he just didn't want to fly over the Atlantic Ocean. So we booked the flights and prepared for the trip which included a tour of England, Scotland and Wales after spending a few days in Weymouth, Dorset where I found a lovely place to stay close to Ivan and his wife Pat. It was my first knowledge of Voltaren and that worked like a charm to solve Edward's back problem after a few days. He loved it in England, Scotland and Wales both our tours with Ivan and Pat and our bus trip around the Island. Boarding the plane to go home the tenseness returned to him and the stewardess noted his anxiety and asked if she could help him and then offered a glass of gingerale. Extremely tense all the way home and as we passed over Newfoundland at the north and Labrador he relaxed; he was home. Sore back returned on the trip and the doctor said it was nerves; no back problem showed up but no xrays were taken.
Six months later I was absolutely amazed when he said to me, on a coffee break as we were both working away on items dealing with our family histories most days, "when are we taking our next tour of Europe." I had said absolutely nothing about our travels these six months other than responding to his request that I make a Powerpoint file of all the pictures from our trip which I did quite early on. We then developed the plan for the next trip which would see us for five days (going to Kew most of that time although lots of walking in London itself) in London and then a couple of weeks in Europe touring France, Belgium Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and back into France. No problems flying at all actually and as we sat in the airport in France awaiting our flight back to Montreal he talked about our next trip. Amazing really and as I slowly lost interest in all traveling Edward just could not get enough of all that traveling. I enjoyed seeing everything but we were seeing mostly Europe and the areas where his families had lived before emigrating to the American colonies from the early 1600s on.
Genesis was always a book of the Bible that has so many visuals in my mind from Sunday School days. Re-reading it again and again stirred the imagination and brought God clearly into focus at the beginning of time for me. Now at 80 plus years of age I remember still that young child in my mind thinking about God and all that He has done for this world that I live in. Enjoying the trees and the flowers, the birds and the animals all around me now as an aged adult.
Thank you God for all your gifts to mankind.
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