On Saturday morning I decided to visit the old cathedral in Coventry, a place I have loved since childhood. There is something about its defiance and vulnerability that has always struck me, and the various statues of reconciliation are beautiful and meaningful. I took time to walk to the stone altar - I recalled it being barred by railings but there was no sign of them - and felt the charred timber of the beam-cross against my hands. I imagined the various priests and bishops who had stood there, looking out at the congregation.
Then I moved on to pay homage at the grave/memorial of the person who might or might not have been a distant relative of mine, Bishop Neville Gorton (the connection is disputed among my rellies and I haven't a clue of the truth). To my horror, right next to his memorial stone was the very ugly entrance to a museum of wartime stuff from which 1940's music emerged at high volume, and two guides or stewards laughed and joked as they awaited customers. In a second the preciousness fractured... I was affronted on behalf of my maybe relative and in that instant something changed irrevocably.
It's still a lovely place, and the statuary is no less beautiful but the sounds of piped 1940's music and gales of laughter, for me, changed everything.
And here's the thing I've been puzzling over since: I have no high theology of place and have no problem with multi-functional buildings, indeed I am very much for church premises being employed effectively. I found myself wondering what Bishop Neville might have made of it - would he have minded? Would I mind if it was my final resting place? In the end I deduced it was less the 'what' than the 'why'. Why is there a museum in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral? What is its purpose? If it is to educate and to challenge the fear and hate that lead to violence then it's OK. But if it is to provide income, no matter how well intentioned, then I'm not so sure.
So, plenty to think about - the dangers of inadvertently trampling others' precious memories, the challenges of motive and the appropriate use of places of worship. And perhaps it is this last where the nub lies - the old Cathedral, so far as I can ascertain, is still officially a place of worship, or at least a place of stillness, not a tourist attraction to generate revenue through entertainment.
My memories are not what they were, but it remains a place I love, and which in its wounded beauty still has stories to tell to those who can hear the quiet whisper beyond commercialism's roar.
Comments
I used Coventry Cathedral in my own reflections on sacred space earlier this decade. It was handy, as my office at the City Council used to overlook the ruins, so I sometimes prayed there during my lunchtime. And because I've known it from my childhood and my early days as a practising Christian, so it had all those associations too.
The old cathedral has all the character of a public square, with pigeons, courting couples, lunchtime workers eating their sandwiches and half-term school kids cheekily shouting to all of them from the top of the tower. My father has a photograph of the rubble that he took the day after the bombing. I've even used it as a fire evacuation point with 200 other council officials, while the fire brigade investigated who'd burned the toast this time! As a worship space it was rough and unpolished.
For all that, or perhaps because of it, I found it easier to do business with God there rather than in the carefully presented shrine to 1950s art that the new cathedral became for me.
No criticism intended to Graham Sutherland or John Piper - or to the cathedral staff who take their educational and pastoral role within the city very seriously. That's just my experience of it at a very particular stage of my spiritual journey.
Fo me at that time, the public square was a sacred space because that character was bound up with all its other associations and uses. But I'd be interested to see how I felt about a museum of the war if I went back now. Perhaps primary school curricula and educational trips have something to do with it?
Hi Andy,
that's a really helpful perspective. I find myself wondering why what you describe sounds an 'OK' use of the space whilst the museum rattled me. Maybe it is about the sense of the museum being artifiical whereas courting couples, laughing children and even evacuated council officials have a feel of authentic city life?
Or maybe it because on that day I was seeking the embrace of the familiar and it wasn't to be found.
I happen to love the new cathedral but retain a soft spot for the old. Part of my struggle is the sacrifice of almost all cathedrals at the altar of mammon - my abiding memory being someone in a cassock selling tickets to enter the tower of one cathedral. But that's just me... or is it?
I felt the same as Andy on the one occasion I have been there - a scared public place - I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't like all churches to be like that - a place where people feel comfortable to be whatever their faith or lack, a place that welcomes and accepts them for who they are and makes no demands but is available should they want to avail themselves of its sacredness.
I won't pay to go into cathedrals - I always go for evensong which I enjoy when done only occasionally and generally you can wander round afterwards.