Magazine letter October 2022
I write this on Friday 16th September, I give the date because our thoughts this week, a week of mourning for our late Queen Elizabeth II, can’t help but be dominated by Her Majesty’s death and the response to it.
The queue of people waiting to walk pass her body, lying in state at Westminster Hall, has now reached 10 miles and is some 11 hours long. I am drawn to compare the scene to that of medieval pilgrims and their journey to venerate their chosen saint. That is not to say that the Queen was a saint, she would have been horrified by the thought of that epithet. But listening to some of the mourners talk of their experience to the ever-ready TV interviewers, they speak of a feeling of awe and unnatural stillness in the Hall, of great reverence and even wonder. They all say that it is almost impossible to put into words, but to see the effect their act of respect has had on them one can’t but be impressed, some are tearful, some are quiet, all are deeply affected.
They also speak of the pleasure of sharing the walking and waiting with complete strangers. The act of being in the same place for the same reason drew them together and established a bond of fellow feeling and friendship. They shared stories and the reasons why they had made the journey to London, they talked and even laughed together. I can’t help but think of Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and the joy and fun the pilgrims had on their journey to Canterbury and the shrine of Thomas Becket. Watching the lying in state and listening to the people who took the trouble to go to Westminster Hall we can perhaps understand the experience of pilgrimage and the reason why they went, both the journey and the arrival.
In end, whether it is the coffin of a much loved queen or the relics of a revered saint, it is what we invest in the moment, and the sharing of that moment with those of like mind, that brings the numinous experience of otherness, of even holiness – of awe and wonder. What we hold to be holy (even if we don’t use the word), is holy to us, and the experience of holiness can transform our lives – sometimes for just an hour, sometimes for a lifetime.
But you don’t have to go to a lying in state to experience the numinous, the holy, there are places that are much nearer that some of us regard as holy.
William
- Don’t forget our Second Saturday Lunch has started again, in the Reeves Hall, Martins Field, Compton – to share food can also be a special experience of fellowship and friendship.