Looking Backward, Moving Forward

Yesterday, I did something uncharacteristic. Stepping away from the familiar bustle of London, I wandered into Rotherhithe. In the churchyard of St. Mary’s, I encountered a statue that made me stop in awe.

- BY INVITATION Preeti Shenoy

Carved from weathered sandstone, set upon a plinth shaped like a ship’s prow, stood the statue of Christopher Jones, captain of the Mayflower, the ship that carried English Pilgrims to America in 1620. It’s a voyage every American schoolchild learns about. He’s rendered as St. Christopher, the patron saint of travellers, carrying an infant.

What struck me was the tension in that stone. Jones’s face is furrowed, etched with worry, his gaze fixed backward toward England, the Old World he’s leaving behind. The infant in his arms gazes forward with blissful hope, looking towards America. The captain bears the weight of departure; the child embodies the lightness of arrival.