Another opposite, yet mutually true set of truths I have experienced while visiting these four (now five) English cathedrals is the contrast between the mortal and the immortal.
When you glance at or walk into a cathedral one's eyes are immediately drawn up toward what is, metaphorically speaking, the heavens. A holy quiet is intuitively ushered into one's body and spirit. Walk into St Paul's Cathedral, with its marble floors, and one can't help but be self-conscious of the steps he or she makes. There is metaphor there for sure. And words. Words seem so small in places like these. I can hardly imagine what trepidation a preacher must feel as the steps to the elevated pulpit are ascended. Who would dare to even speak a sound in such a place as this? "The LORD is in heaven, and we are on earth; so let your words be few," the wisdom writer says. Even better, let them be none.
"The LORD is in His Holy Temple
Let all the earth keep silence before Him."
Or, as we sang during last Sunday's worship service at St Paul's:
"Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And fear and trembling stand . . ."
Perhaps this conscious sense of my own mortal flesh has been most evident to me within the medieval sandstone walls of Canterbury Cathedral. Here, amidst stones hewn prior to Henry IV, one really gets it -- how small the part we have been cast in such a long drama.
You see this especially at the focal center, just beyond the choir (or as it is spelled in Canterbury "quire"). There sits the throne of the archbishop, beautifully carved from what looks to be oak and couched in red cushion. And large, very large -- a symbol not so much of the largeness of the men who have set here or their character, but of the office and the task, greater than one man could ever live up to. As former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, has said, "It is physically impossible to fill this throne, which shouldn't surprising because it's spiritually impossible."
And then, as if to underscore the whole thing, sits just adjacent from the archbishop's seat a stunning, if a bit chilling, sarcophagus of one of the long-deceased archbishops. Atop is a beautiful image of the archbishop fully festooned in all his ecclesiastical regalia and surrounded by miniature saints and angels, praying over and tending his tomb. Then the credentials. "Here lies Henri Chiceli, Doctor of Laws and Chancellor of England, Henri V's Archbishop."
But then, beneath that image is another, even more striking -- disturbing even in its depiction of a naked and emancipated body. "Born a pauper, I was raised up to be Archbishop; Now I am laid low to be food for worms." Then the real kicker, just to make the whole point as personal as possible: "Here is my tomb; look into your mirror."
"What is man?" Dust we are; and to dust we shall return. And long after our mortal bodies have returned to dust (thanks in part to those worms), the stones of cathedrals will still stand, and our grandchildren's grandchildren will have there turn to be born and rise up to whatever they will be.
And so these cathedrals are a reminder to look up to the heavens in humility and behold our part in the play, and to be mindful of our steps and graceful with our script as we make our way across the stage.
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