Huggy Church

A couple of days ago we had a big funeral. Several things went wrong and the memory is so traumatic I'm not going to rehearse them, but they were things that were not fatally disruptive. The deceased lady was a parishioner and mother of a former churchwarden and had been ill a long time, surrounded and looked after by a large family of strong and contrasting opinions and carrying a lot of weight from the past: there was much emotion and I think everyone was simply glad it was done, and done as Priscilla would have wanted, and the things people wanted said, said. One of her grand-daughters present was a Goth girl of about 20. I told her there should be a rule there is at least one Goth at every church service. 

'Some churches are so grim and cold', one of the mourners told me after the service, 'this church feels like it's giving you a hug'. The very first time I ever came into the building, I certainly felt a warmth, and a quiet prayerfulness; I am not a big hugger or a very willing huggee and wouldn't have thought of it in those terms, but I think I'm glad someone else does. Below-pictured is Fr Thesis's church in London, and there's part of me that thinks it's what a church ought really to be like. This is just the Lady Chapel, too.

You can't imagine this church giving you a hug, but it does express the transcendent beauty of God, and in such a building God doesn't seem remote, I find, just different. Does he feel different in the surroundings of Swanvale Halt? Is the church distinct enough from the secular world around it to make it clear how holy and awesome the Lord is, and how he has come to raise us heavenward in heart and soul?

Part of the point of the Christian faith is that the Eternal stoops down to embrace us, to reach us in our fallenness. He does not simply wait for us to find him: he seeks us out. The quietness at the core of our church life we aspire to is enough, I hope, to point to his otherness, his eternity, even though we are humble and lowly and not at all grand, little Swanvale Halt. Sometimes sorrowing souls need a hug.