It's a Big Church, Ve-ry Big Church, It's a Big Church We're In-n...

One of the highlights of York was its cathedral, the York Minster. We were quite distracted by it. On our way to somewhere else we went to walk past it but then spent about 1/2 hour just looking at one side of it and kept discovering things about it. Apart from anything, we were dumbstruck at its sheer size. We tried valiantly to capture a sense of its size on camera, but it is impossible to do it justice. It just goes on and on and when you get a sense of its height, you look at its width and are similarly confounded. Apparently they set out to build a big cathedral, and you can tell they must have got the mission statement right, because they got a big cathedral. Even Carlton Draught would be impressed.


What is amazing is that we were engrossed, and we've seen highrises. This is a cathedral that was built when many people lived in small one room homes (in which that one room included even the kitchen). It must have been immense to their eyes. In a time when houses didn't have glass, the cathedral has the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world.



The sheer size is a political statement - it is a testimony to the Archbishop of York's desire to be seen to be able to 'play with the big guys' and have his building bigger than the Archbishop of Canterbury's (Canterbury and York are first and second in the Church of England food chain). But it's also a theological statement. For medievals, this really was the house of God in some sense. And the sheer, over-the-top size impresses on you that God is A Big Deal. (The fact that it also impresses on you that his servant, the Archbishop is A Big Deal, we'll charitably put down to a fringe benefit). But this building took centuries of construction to make a point about the importance and glory of God. (Whether that's a good way to go about trying to make that point,we'll leave to one side. Let's not ruin the moment.)



As if the sheer size isn't enough, the building is covered with intricate artwork. Small gargoyles, a patterning under one of the door frames which details some of the key events of Genesis until about chapter 21, larger statues of people: the designs are carefully and beautifully executed. These we found mesmerising. There we stood: straining to see them, trying to work out what they are, getting very excited when we worked out what something must be because of the symbolism - we were two very engrossed colonials. You'd think we'd never seen a 148 metre long medieval cathedral with three 60m tall towers before!



The next day we came back and did the 'tour' inside. We found the inside still more dazzling. Of particular interest were the sculptures of the kings of England which sat under the organ. Clearly these were done after the kings were dead or those doing the sculptures would have found that kings do not (on the whole) appreciate candid shots or sculptures of themselves. Unless these kings were particularly relaxed about how cranky or clueless they looked, which frankly I find hard to believe (you'll need to click on the picture to see what I mean...).



So much more could be said! The corridors of tombs were fascinating and will get their own post; the ceiling was extraordinary in its height and decoration. We discovered that the cathedral was built on the site of an old Roman fort, and was actually the culmination of a series of cathedrals, the first built by the Saxons, then the Normans until finally the medievals built the finished product, taking a cool 300 years to finish it. (Obviously the mission statement didn't include a clause about timeliness).



But the thing that struck me as we walked through this and glutted ourselves on its beauty was that it was essentially a large open space. A remarkable large open space with an extraordinary ceiling, but at the end of the day it is a place for people to come together and hear what God has to say to them and talk to him in prayer. This is hard to miss, because although the cathedral is decorated all along its outside and inside walls, although the ceilings are awe-inspiring and there are all kinds of interesting memorials or tombs along the walls of other parts of it, apart from chairs there is nothing in the building. It's essentially empty. If you were a thief and inclined to steal things, there would be little to steal. Sure, there are some ceremonial cups and a few platters and candlesticks you might pilfer. But on the whole the only thing to steal would be some chairs (unless you were particularly enterprising and climbed the walls to steal a few gargoyles, but where you would sell these remains uncertain. I suppose you could be eccentric and collect them, a kind of mediaeval equivalent of pinching gnomes from people's gardens...).




For all its majesty, the cathedral reinforced for me that Christianity is all about relationships that you can't see: a relationship with Jesus and our relationships with each other. And going to church is about nurturing those relationships, so all you need is an open space, the roof is optional though handy for places like England where it rains a lot, and chairs are useful.

We were suitably impressed by York Minster, being colonials and all. And reminded again that there isn't much furniture in churches for a good reason. JMB

Please note: This blog does not in any way endorse theft from cathedrals, nor the pilfering of garden gnomes.

The Sign Upon The Stair

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would go away.
Hugh Means

On the weekend just gone, we caught the train up to York and explored it for a couple of days. It’s part of our small program to Take Advantage Of A Situation We Never Imagined We’d Ever Have, (finding ourselves in Europe, or indeed, outside Australia at all). A program that will take on a new level of logistical sophistication, we suspect, once the Baddelim clan increases by 50% - hence a certain keenness to try and get one or two trips in between now and D Day.

York was amazing, as some later entries will try and impress upon you.

However.

Our arrival proved to be the equivalent of an extended hands-on tutorial concerning the English approach to street signs.

We arrived around 5:30pm. We had the address, located in Bootham Crescent. Remember that. It is going to be important.

We had a map, and had located Bootham on it - a nice large street not far from the city centre. It was about a thirty minute walk there, so we skipped the cab and went for the exercise option.

That was possibly a mistake.

We proceeded to walk through York and try and find the street. That took some time, because as Watching the English had warned us, street signs aren’t always clearly marked out in England. Having found the road we thought we needed, we looked for the number of our street. It wasn’t there. The numbers went up close to it, jumped passed it, and then reset back to one again.

That didn’t phase us. Watching the English had a whole section of the book just dedicated to the English approach to street signs, numbering systems on streets and the fact that English people generally don’t like having their number being all that visible (if present at all). It also didn’t phase us when Bootham became a different street. Watching the English had prepared us for that too. Apparently it’s quite the done thing in England to change the name of a street constantly. We just looked around and cast our net in wider and wider circles.

We were phased, however, when, in our attempts to find the elusive street number in Bootham, we discovered two more streets each called Bootham. One was Bootham Lane and the other was Bootham Terrace. That was when we realised that we were on Bootham Street. Our street, as I’m sure you will remember, was Bootham Crescent. No relation to Bootham Street at all, really.

Watching the English hadn’t warned us about this. I suppose it wasn’t really trying to give an exhaustive guide to English street naming protocols, so we can’t blame it. I do feel that someone should have warned us that the English will merrily have multiple streets all with the same name. Perhaps it’s just the social welfare mentality in me.

We discovered no less than six Bootham Pick-The-Synonym-For-Street/s either by stumbling over them or (in increasing desperation) finding them on our map. But no Bootham Crescent.

In the end I followed the clues from our trusty (albeit now demonstrably non-exhaustive) guide to surviving here and went to the one place where I was sure the rules on social interaction would permit me to ask where Bootham Crescent was. The local pub.

It turned out that we had (of course) passed Bootham Crescent early on in our journey, only ten minutes after we had discovered the existence of a plethora of Boothams. It had been the only street that we weren’t able to find a street sign for, and so passed on by.

At seven pm, one and half hours after arriving in York, we finally stumbled (quite literally) into our B & B in Bootham Crescent.

The next morning we discovered that there was a street sign indicating that this was Bootham Crescent.

It was attached to the side of the corner store. It faced Bootham Crescent (and so faced away from us as we walked towards it). It was six meters off the ground. (You may need to click on the image for an enlarged version).



The only way we could have seen this sign is if we had developed a sudden urge to crane our necks behind us and above us simultaneously as we passed the street. For anything like the purpose of a sign I would take for granted—like informing someone what the street was in time for them to take action—it was completely useless.

The other day, upon the corner store
We met the sign that wasn’t there.
It was there every day we were in York.
I wish it would go away.
And if it hadn’t been six meters off the ground, I probably would have burned it. MDB