Bristol Faire

Saturday we walked into the past, 1574 and Queen Elizabeth is on the throne. England is at peace and once a year the locals gather together to celebrate Faire day in the Bristol shire. Unknown to Dale and me this time in England is as unabashedly brazen as today is coarse in its entertainment. Walking through the gates of Bristol Renaissance Faire and leaving the twenty first century was a shock and lesson. Little did we know the culture awaiting us. We passed through the day as strangers in a strange land. As well as the performers, most of the faire goers came in the costume of the day. This was a living fantasy life for many.
Women flaunted their bodies in the peasant dress of the time. Men enjoyed looking evil or coarse. The lowness of the flesh was exalted. The queen and her court presented themselves as courtly without the coarseness of the lower folk. Sir Robert Dudley spent about a half hour conversing with Dale and myself while the queen was enjoying a royal repast with a Lord and Lady. He pointed out all the royal folks, who they were, their position in court and the royal intrigue of the time. Robert Dudley, as you know loved the Queen and hoped to one day wed her. He would not have known the outcome, but we do and his life of adultery and intrigue was not rewarded as he desired. Life was about power and position, politics much the same as today. Ethics were no different then, than today.
I felt as if transported through a small portion of hell. Small children were there and I wanted to save them from this nourishment of death. The common folk frolicked and convorted, the entertained was coarse and jokes about body parts deemed hilarious. We were not able to stay at any of the shows except the Jousting. I felt sad as this was just a small microcosm of life today and since the beginning.

It was a rainy morning and we walked through plenty of mud and small puddles. When I got home I had to wipe clean my shoes as they were spattered with dried mud. Underneath the mud they were clean and white, but I couldn’t get all the mud off.
The Lord is so precious, always tenderly hugging me to Himself. Always, He draws me closer and closer to the comfort and safety of His care. I see His glory everywhere and in all things. The Faire was the world and it’s complete evil lost state. The people lost, looking for comfort in the only way they knew. Satan had completely ravished many of them, but many simply did not know their state and spun in circles of decadent living trying to dull the ache of their empty hearts. The Lord said to me, we live in this world but we are not of it. We are cleansed pure white forever and ever, but the things of the world spatter us trying to take hold and trick us into thinking we are not totally cleansed and removed from it’s evil. The laughter, food and drink is to make the evil enticing and desirable. God is mocked and perversion is made the idol. The empty soul has nothing else to nourish it.
And my Lord said, look my little ones are among the lost wandering souls. Go and bring them to me. Love me and love my children that is all I ask of you. Love me and love my children.