Wednesday 3 November 2010

I shall take a building

Visiting lots of churches, walking around a corner and finding another church made me think about this passage.

"So how am I to present Him - this invisible all pervasive catalyst? How am I to suggest to my reader... The extraordinary fact that for much of recorded time most people have been prepared to believe in the presidency over all things of an indefinable unassageable power?
I shall take a building. A building shaped like a cross, furnished neither for habitation nor defence. I shall multiply this building by a thousand, by ten thousand, by a hundred thousand. It may be as small as a single room; it may soar far into the sky. It may be old or it may be new; it may be plain or it may be rich; it may be stone or it may be of wood or it may be of brick or mud. This building is in the heart of cities and it is in the wild places of earth. It is on islands and in deserts and up on mountains. It is in Provence and Suffolk and Tuscany and Alsace and in Vermont and Bolicia and The Lebanon. The walls and furnishings ofthis building tell stories; they talk of kings and queens and angels and devils; they instruct and they threaten. They are intended to uplift and to terrify. They are an argument made manifest." Penelope Lively Moon Tigee

2 comments:

  1. I love your quotes, what wonderful words. Always amazing to think about the stories that walls could tell, and I suspect church walls have more tales than most.

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  2. Love old churches - love your quote. Where I live, the city has a church for each day of the year - that's a lot.

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