Reflections on Tintern abbey

During the past fall semester, instead of returning to Dartmouth and the forests of New Hampshire, I took up residence in bustling East London, studying at Queen Mary College, University of London, and traveling around Europe on the weekends. As part of my HELM covenant, I traveled to different European churches and wrote up reflections about my experiences. My first Christian structure outside of London was not a church in which I could attend a true service, however, but the remains of a medieval Welsh abbey.

The Tintern abbey ruins lay in the rolling green hills of southern Wales, next to the river Wye. Founded by Cistercian monks in 1131 AD during the reign of Henry I, the abbey lasted until Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries when he began the Church of England. Large windows that at one time may have held panes of colored glass now frame awe-inspiring views of the Welsh countryside. I may not have been able to attend a true church service at Tintern abbey, but I still consider the experience a religious one, perhaps one I cannot convey in words as well as I can with the many pictures I enthusiastically took of the entire area, trying to capture the feelings this graceful structure and its tranquil surroundings evoked with the lens of my camera.

Artists have also been inspired by the site, including the famous English painter J.M.W. Turner. In the poem "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern abbey," Wordsworth expressed the effect of the Welsh countryside much better than I ever could. After visiting Tintern myself, I could understand Wordsworth's attachment to this place. I copy an excerpt from the poem here that I think well describes the effect of the Tintern abbey area on visitors.

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration.