saturday evening wanderings

I'm feeling more than a little ridiculous right now. I planned to go hear a lecture tonight ("Amusing Ourselves to Death: Freedom for Youth from a Culture of Narcissism" by Marva Dawn of Regent College), and would be there now if I wasn't so very locationally-challenged. I found myself walking back and forth all over Wanchai, wondering "Have I really lived here most of my life?" Somehow I still managed to make it to my destination about 10 minutes early. But that's when I noticed locked doors and dark windows, quite the contrast to the busy church facility that I was picturing. See, I had walked myself over to the English-speaking Methodist church, when the actual locale of the talk was the [plain old] Methodist church. Both are in Wanchai, and the irony of the whole thing is that in my wanderings, I came in very close proximity to the correct church. I guess I could have walked myself back over to the right place -- being late wouldn't have been such a horrible thing --but I decided that I'd had my fill of walking for the day. So instead, I determined that I'd head in the direction of the home-bound bus, but was secretly hoping that I'd come across a coffee shop first. Consequently, I now find myself sitting in a Pacific Coffee, sipping a hot-chocolate (I already had a coffee this evening, and don't trust myself to have another).

I don't share this story in the hopes that you, dear reader, will feel pity for me. There are much worse things than coffee shops and warm chocolate beverages. And what makes me even less pitiable is that I have a book with me that I happen to be quite engrossed in at the moment: Bury the Chains: The British Stuggle to Abolish Slavery (if you click on that you'll find that for some reason the sub-heading is different on the American version). It's nice to be reading again -- for some reason it's been some months since I've been able to really get into a book. And this one is amazing (there's a reason it was a National Book Award finalist!). Very inspirational. I'd been interested in learning more about William Wilberforce, the British abolitionist, for while. And then on Thursday, after watching Amazing Grace , decided that I had to go to Page One immediately to find a book about him. I guess this book isn't exactly the Wilberforce biography I was looking for -- it's actually much better! It tells the stories of all of the key abolition figures, how they influenced each other and were finally able to bring about change. Anyway, I've still got a lot to read, so I'll save any further discussion of the book for a later post. Oh, and I guess I've been on this public computer for quite a while and should probably give someone else a turn...