Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 October 2008 10:03:01
As regular readers will know I love the Tate Modern and just being able to wander around in the vast space exploring. I am rapidly falling in love with another vast space though, Durham Cathedral. Last night there was what was meant to be a candle lit procession up to the Cathedral, but ended up being alot of people with candle holders with tea lights that had blown out in them. Once we got up to the cathedral we were welcomed and told it was "our cathedral" whether we were of any faith or none and then we were encouraged to go exploring, having had our tea lights re-lit.
I have to say it was amazing, just wandering around in the space seeing the shadows and encountering the art, (including a miners banner, highly decorated clock, beautiful tapestry, pictures and wall paintings aswell as the breathtaking architecture). At the end of the time there was just a v.short time of worship, which you could choose to engage in or not as you felt fit. It is was one of those times when I really felt I understood what Holy Space was.
Additionally I couldn't help contrasting it with my experiences of Canterbury Cathedral. Here there is no enterance fee and the people are encouraged to regard it as belonging to them (and God obviously), people are encouraged to explore and engage with the place as both a piece of history and a place of worship. The "tourist" aspect and "worship" aspect are intertwined here in many ways, there seems to be an unspoken expectation that people will encounter God somehow even if they don't recognise it as such and even if they have only come in to do the looking around thing. This is so different to Canterbury where to encounter that idea of Holy Space I always felt you had to escape downstairs to the crypt or go outside onto the grass.