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The Holy Grail: The Platypus Reads Part LXVIII


And like to coins, some true, some light, but every one of you stamped with the image of the King.
-Tennyson, The Holy Grail

There are experiences that "stamp" a person for life.  Whatever they may be, these events are so life-altering that they set those who experience them apart from the rest of humanity.  No matter what your character, appearance, or circumstances are, something about you is different from those who haven't been "stamped."  Conversely, no matter how unalike you may be, you have a bond with anyone who has had experienced the same.  They know. They've been there.  They "get it."

Discussing Tennyson's Idylls of the King with my students has led me to coin a new term: "Round Table experience."  These are periods of profound communal interaction that dramatically shape our character for good or ill.  It's those moments when you feel part of something bigger than yourself; when you enter into fellowship at a deeper level than what you've normally experienced.  My first "Round Table experience" was with my high school friends in Connecticut.  I had a similar experience in college.  Watching my students draw together as a class this year has been my first chance to see a "Round Table experience" from the outside.

Like the Round Table iteslf, all of these experiences come to an end.  The Fellowship is inevitably broken, and we are left like Bedivere with "new faces, other minds."  Still, the marks left on our souls endure, and the memory drives us on in search of new communities, new fellowships.  The old order may change, yielding place to new, but Christ is still King, and the music that built Camelot can never be silenced.

On my finger I wear a silver ring that bears the words "Bonum, Veritas, Pulcher."  Of those that wear it, some good there are, and some bad, but all stamped, all marked, with the same image.
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