on buildings dead and alive

I've been in a lot of churches these last two weeks. More churches than I've been in the last two years and, probably, in the last ten years. 

Par for the course, I guess, when on a trip like this. Churches seem to be better maintained, better cared for, than most other types of buildings.

Perhaps it's because more love and care goes into these buildings than others. 

Perhaps that's because these tributes to God, to kings, to saints, and to saints who were kings and queens, are built to stand until the ends of time.

There was a church I saw from the window of my train to Stirling. It stands on the cliffs on the northeast coast of England somewhere near Berwick-upon-Tweed where the waves batter the earth, making Santa Cruz seem like a children's playground.

The church is but a shell of itself. The roof is gone, as are most of the walls, the pillars and stone beams all that remains of this church, standing alone, facing the sea that beats its cliff; time the only thing standing between now and the day it tumbles into the water below.

Seeing these churches, St. Mary's Chapel at Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles Cathedral a little way down the Royal Mile, St. David's in Glasgow, the mammoth cathedral (styled a chapel) started by Henry VI and finished by Henry VIII at King's College and St. Bene't's in Cambridge - seeing them as a sightseer, paying the entrance fee, gazing at the ceilings, looking at the paintings, the statues to dead saints, it's easy to forget that these houses of God were, at one time, filled with the hopes and prayers of worshipers.

I never imagined, when I woke yesterday morning, that I would be going to church.

My plan for the day was to go to the Tower of London where I hoped to recapture some of the thrill I'd felt on my first visit there as a 12-year old. I saw the foot guards, the place where Anne Boleyn was executed, the crowns of several kings and queen's, the ravens, that gigantic diamond the Queen Mother had in her crown.

It was fun. It was entertaining but, I confess, after two weeks here, I'm growing tired of museums. I'm especially disinterested in replicas of the way things might have been. But, I tell myself, as I stare at relics of the past, this trip is about the present. It's about where I am right now and I'll do myself no favours by rushing ahead.

So I press on, going to the places and the sights I listed out for myself that I wanted to see. And that meant walking from the Tower to St. Paul's Cathedral along Great Tower Street, past lanes Mincing and Seething, onto Eastcheap, then Cannon Street, eventually to St. Paul's Churchyard.

Up the steps, past the Occupy London protest, in the door, pulling out my wallet only, instead of being asked for the entrance fee I was asked if I would be attending the full service, was handed an Order of Mass, and was ushered to a seat in front of the altar.

Yesterday was All Soul's Day. I arrived at one of the greatest churches in the world expecting a museum. I found a house of worship.

Sung Requiem Eucharist

The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

Messe de Requiem - Duruflé

with the City of London Sinfonia

A danger on this trip, this round-the-world trip, is that it will be too easy to overuse the phrase "once in a lifetime." "Once in a lifetime" to justify an unnecessary expense. "Once in a lifetime" to confer greater significance on an pedestrian experience. And yet, to be in this grand building, this architectural phenomenon, as it is being used for the purpose for which it was built. To hear the organ, the choir, the orchestra, the prayers of the faithful. To offer the sign of peace to the people around me and to feel the temperature in the building plummet as the worshipers left, I can think of no better experience to which this phrase should be applied.