Whatsoever |
Whatsoever |
SIX PAINTINGS
FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
A STORY She carried her metal pail full of water along the stone hard corridor. She had been washing the floor in the vestry : the choir boys had been too boisterous on Sunday and knocked over the bottle of wine. She thought that she would go the extra mile and wash down the steps up to the chapter house. It was an odd thing to do as they were so uneven and strange. The dirty water pooled in the worn down depressions and took an extra squeeze of the old cloth to mop them up. She ran her hands along the curve, each step different, each one laid to make the way for the community to rise up into the vaulted hall above. She had only been up to the top twice before. Once was to clean when the man who usually did it was sick. And once was very late at night when she was packing up her things to go home and thought she heard a noise above her. That time she was very scared: it was dark and the small torch she had found had only a weak light. She only dared to get as far as the bend in the stair case and call out ‘anyone there’. No reply came, of course, so she went back down and home and was relieved when there was no sign of any break-in or mischief the next day.
She had begun to realise that her job meant that she very rarely looked up. So much of what she had to do was at floor, or at the very best waist height. Dusting chairs, mopping and brushing in corners, checking that the displays and vessels for the services were in the right place. It was hard work and her back was getting more troublesome. She realised that the best way to ease the pain of her aching muscles was to stand up and arch her back and look upwards every half hour or so. And despite the discomfort and the ominous clicking of vertebrae it was a revelation. She put her hands on the back of her hips and looked up into the high vaulting of the great church and it was as if she was seeing things for the first time. She now understood why these soaring columns and high graceful arches were so helpful in a place of worship. They were tall enough to reach the heavens, carrying up the prayers of the centuries into the high reaches of the arches. And the gentle enclosure, way up there, felt open yet protective. When she looked up in the low crypt, it felt different. Here the arches were much lower and the columns thick and rooted into the ground. These arches were doing hard work, almost like her work: hunch backed and thick legged, strong, supporting untold weight above. There were deep dark shadows and rough hewn blocks but all clearly laid down carefully, with precision, so that nothing would slip. The trees that grew outside the church were like that: thick deep roots supporting soaring trunk and branches. And where several trees were growing close together the tops met to make arches, a natural enclosed space where the light rain would not penetrate and underneath gentle small plants could find shelter to grow.
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WhatsoeverThe posts are 'postcards' on my journey through faith and art. The name 'Whatsoever' comes from Philippians 4:8 in the Bible : Categories
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