Monday, March 31, 2014



Nashotah House: 2777 Mission Road and the Ghosts of the Past, Present and Future

By the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
March 31, 2014

It was Charles Dickens, that Anglican author of the nineteenth century, who, in the opening words of A Tale of Two Cities, summed up what we all instinctively know to be true; namely, that our most transformative experiences always begin as case studies in extreme contrasts. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” said Dickens, and“it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.” Out of opposing forces, decline and angst – all of which cause something of an existential whirlwind or centrifuge – radical transformation is often born.

Looking back over my almost four year love affair with Nashotah House (first as a seminarian and now as the outgoing Associate Dean of Institutional Advancement), I have come to see Dickens more as a prophet than a literary figure. In fact, it is the transformation one of his most famous characters, Ebenezer Scrooge, that most often comes to my mind when I ponder what I witnessed at the House over the last three years. Once a declining, introspective and exhausted grump – "self-contained and solitary as an oyster," as Dickens describes him – with failing health and bitterness in his heart, Mr. Scrooge leaves the stage, in the end, truly transformed, exclaiming, "I am as light as a feather. I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy and I am as giddy as a drunken man!”

Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org

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