Let the light shine in

 Tim Woodcock writes: One of the things I miss most about conventional, in-person church is the stained glass windows at 2^nd Pres. Yes, the people, the music, the sermons, too. All that can be experienced in a modified form online.

But not spending time among the glow of the stained glass has affected me more acutely than I would have guessed. During the last two Sundays I found myself in the sanctuary for the first time in more than a year, hanging out on the sidelines rather than fully participating in the service, because Freya was doing a “Minute for Mission” one week and Katy was the liturgist the following week. Knowing that I would be at loose end, I had brought a sketchpad with me and spent some time communing with the images on the east side of the sanctuary (see below).

While the significance of 2PC’s windows can recounted, as it is on the church’s website, here I’m only trying to get down some impressionistic feelings about them. Some  idiosyncratic highlights:

• The super-charged intensity of the blues and purples in Christ the King image at the front of the church as the sun aligns behind it.
• The potent metaphor of the image of an ever-insistent Jesus, frozen in time and knocking at the door, asking to be let in, on the western side of the sanctuary.
• The shifting light of glowing haloes becoming more or less and radiant over time, even within one church service.

Yet primarily I am drawn to the quiet reflective quality of certain windows, easily overlooked details, and the simple elegance of good design. There is one tiny piece at eye level that I always like to check out -  the small praying figure that is featured in the header for this blog, which is near the side door that connects the sectary to Niccolls Hall. It is merely a compelling but minor detail in a larger panel focused on the four gospels.

If I’m honest the more rococo windows don’t especially speak to me, and yet there is something awe-inspiring when you get close up to appreciate the virtuosic craftsmanship of them. For instance, the heavily draped figures created with a daring technique of using uniquely textured and patterned swathes of glass to represent clothing. It is must be an inch thick in places and incredibly heavy and awkward to maneuver.

The church is starting to come back to life as pandemic-induced period of under-use. When I think of absence of life in the physical space of a Second Pres (or indeed any church), I remain haunted by a melancholy thought. It’s a reworking of the famous question that if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? (I’d always assumed this was a Zen koan, but it turns out it is a question posed by the Enlightenment philosophers of the 17th century). So here’s my adapted question: If the sun casts a glorious light through a stained glass window and no one is there to see it, does it still happen?

I think so, but I’d like be sure. It’s good to be there sometimes to find out.