London - 12 Feb 06

12 Feb, Sunday

I wrote the following before and during the organ recital at St. Paul’s tonight:

Quiet. Echoes of footsteps. The red glow of the choir stall lamps. Black and white marble floors. Ornate. Holy. Peaceful. The glow of the gold leaf. The inability to tell when the dome above me stops rising toward the heavens it was built to reach. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel: the men that are depicted in mosaics around the bottom of the dome. They are angled toward the floor. There are so many statues and busts of children and babies in this place. I would like to see a list of the people who have worshipped here. You look or walk in a direction of a corner of the church and you never quite reach it because it is too vast, or you are simply stopped in your tracks by an elaborate anything that has evaded your gaze until now. To think that the previous cathedral that stood here before the Great Fire of London was bigger is baffling.

Later on...I did attend the service after the organ recital. It was a little different because it was informal. There was no choir to lead the hymns. I have to go to an evensong service next week for a choir. That will be more worshipful. I also found Holy Trinity at Brompton, but they didn’t have any evening services, which I was surprised by. I will have to make it there by 11:15 on a Sunday to worship there. I will definitely make it soon I think. Maybe a service there in the morning and an evensong at St. Paul’s later that day.

This next week is a busy one with the Globe visit, the London Eye, and a trip to Cambridge. Just like this last week I will find myself in awe again of all that I am getting to do here. I am being spoiled. I love it.

I need to clarify that the Holy Trinity church I found was not the one I was looking for. I was looking for Holy Trinity Brompton in Knightsbridge, London. I found Holy Trinity Church in Chelsea. When I got there and it was all locked up I was a bit confused. I didn’t know what to expect, but to find out they didn’t have an evening service was surprising. Eventually I found HTB and went to a service there. I thought the service was going to be geared more toward the young adult, but it was more family based. I made note of the evening service, but never got around to going to it. I regret that.

By the way, HTB has an amazing website. Click on the link I included and take a look. They podcast messages too. HTB is the home church of the Alpha course that you may, or may not be familiar with. Alpha is sort of big.