When I was younger and I first was attracted to genealogy and family stories, I kept searching for ancestors from some exotic locale. I was not at all excited about having most of my ancestry come from the United Kingdom. This seemed so boring. Boy was I wrong. As the years have passed, my love of all things British and Scottish has been unearthed and then has grown to be an enormous part of my personality and my focus. Then I was finally able to make the trip of my dreams and I learned that all of those genetic memory theories that I have been hatching and fostering for years had real validity and I was not travelling, I was returning home. I have been terribly homesick every day since I returned and the experiences that I had there brought me over and over again the realization that I had ancestors there who are still loving me and looking out for me from the other side.
Since I returned, I have been studying the history of this land and these peoples and it has been a fascinating journey. And right now I am studying the Anglo-Saxons and that early history of England. I am married to and my children are Egberts (Egbert is considered the first king of England) and so I wanted to learn more about those "barbaric" tribesmen who finally came together and began to form a kingdom. Boy was I wrong. These people were in no way barbarians. They were amazing and had an intellectual life that is rich and bountiful. And then I saw that they were also fiercely autonomous and proud and I am falling in love with these people. When Pope Gregory sent missionaries to this island, he felt strongly that God was telling him that these people would only accept Christianity if it was presented in their language, on their terms. He instructed St. Augustine of Canterbury that he could not convert these people like they had been converting people on the continent. They could not use only Latin. They had to use the native tongue. And this worked. The Anglo-Saxons were converted, but on their terms. With the use of existing pagan sites and dates of worship being utilized, not replaced, in the name of Christ. And these people changed the face of Christianity and brought a power and a strength and a sense of personal worship that had been lost, I think, since the time of Christ. I thought that I knew the power of men like Wycliffe and Tyndale, but I was wrong. The power of these men and this attitude was forged centuries before Wycliffe, with men like the Venerable Bede and Alfred the Great. And as I sit here studying tonight, I am positively soaring at the thought that I am descended from such a people. There are things that I miss about being young, but not being stupid and small-minded!
