On entering a cathedral
Watched a programme on BBC4 last night about Wells Cathedral, a building I know and admire a lot. It's one of those superb structures that have a terrific ambience you feel as soon as you walk inside. Not all cathedrals have it: Canterbury almost has a negative ambience, a depressing space that seems to be dragged down by its own bloody history. Others, like Salisbury, have it in spades, though Wells is probably my favourite. It's not a pretty building from the outside, with its great over-ornamented front face and stocky tower, but inside, it's a very different story. There, it's a graceful space, beautifully proportioned, with lovely columns and arches and splendid tasteful ceilings. The interior is also dominated by the prominent scissor arches added later to support the central tower, which was sinking and in danger of collapse. These now give the cathedral a very different look, a face almost, surveying the congregation. Add the superb Chapter House, with its fabulous echo, accessed by a wide stone staircase, with steps eroded by nearly a thousand years of human feet, and Wells is a building showing its antiquity, but wearing it well.
The TV programme naturally made great play of the role the cathedral plays in the spiritual life of the Christian congregation that uses it regularly. That didn't interest me much at all, since I'm very much an atheist. So what am I doing hanging round, appreciating religious spaces like a cathedral? Simply put, I look on the creation of buildings like Wells Cathedral as a triumph of human will and ingenuity. Sure, the creators were driven by religion, by an urge to create a awe-inspiring space in which worshippers would feel like they were in the presence of God. The end result, though, is a magnificent building anyone can appreciate, whatever their personal beliefs are. For me, to walk into a grand structure like Wells is to be uplifted.
I get the same feeling of awe and uplift when I am out in the open on a clear night, with no light pollution to dim the stars. It was the stars, both actual in the immensity I could see above me, and in their use as settings for the science fiction I read avidly, that gradually led me to both question and then abandon the faith I had been brought up in. I had too many questions that couldn't be answered by an institution relying on a two thousand year old set of precepts. I realised by the end of my teens that the human race couldn't have the great significance the religious-minded insisted on, that there was no Creator looking out for us. We were on our own, an insignificance organic smear on a dust mote in a universe of unimaginable immensity, and we had to take our own destiny seriously, or we would not have a future at all. Nothing in the last fifty years has budged me from that belief, but just occasionally a visit to a place like Wells shows me what can be done when men really put their shoulders to the wheel and work with a grand project in mind.
The TV programme naturally made great play of the role the cathedral plays in the spiritual life of the Christian congregation that uses it regularly. That didn't interest me much at all, since I'm very much an atheist. So what am I doing hanging round, appreciating religious spaces like a cathedral? Simply put, I look on the creation of buildings like Wells Cathedral as a triumph of human will and ingenuity. Sure, the creators were driven by religion, by an urge to create a awe-inspiring space in which worshippers would feel like they were in the presence of God. The end result, though, is a magnificent building anyone can appreciate, whatever their personal beliefs are. For me, to walk into a grand structure like Wells is to be uplifted.
I get the same feeling of awe and uplift when I am out in the open on a clear night, with no light pollution to dim the stars. It was the stars, both actual in the immensity I could see above me, and in their use as settings for the science fiction I read avidly, that gradually led me to both question and then abandon the faith I had been brought up in. I had too many questions that couldn't be answered by an institution relying on a two thousand year old set of precepts. I realised by the end of my teens that the human race couldn't have the great significance the religious-minded insisted on, that there was no Creator looking out for us. We were on our own, an insignificance organic smear on a dust mote in a universe of unimaginable immensity, and we had to take our own destiny seriously, or we would not have a future at all. Nothing in the last fifty years has budged me from that belief, but just occasionally a visit to a place like Wells shows me what can be done when men really put their shoulders to the wheel and work with a grand project in mind.