Inside look at Gothic Revival
Many of you wanted to see the inside of Lancing College Chapel (from my previous post) — so here goes!
The chapel is very tall and narrow
With a lovely vaulted roof.
At the centre of the soaring pillars
Is the famous Rose Window,
Made out of more than 30,000 pieces of stained glass.
The hallway as you enter the chapel
Has a colourful roof
And a more modern stained glass window
That was dedicated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2007
In honour of a Bishop, who was a former Lancing College pupil.
I can’t let you go without showing you
The beautiful warm stone of the chapel
In the lovely green setting of the South Downs.
For more interiors, please visit: Our World.
Honey glow
In nature, light is the colour
And when the sun bursts through winter gloom
It makes everything glow —
Even the humble frosted bud
And the honeyed tree,
Shining like a star.
For more glowing stories, please visit: Our World Tuesday.
The light in the dark
Last Friday, December 13th, was a special day – the festival of Lucia.
Every year around Sweden, churches are full of music and light.
It’s a very special feeling when the lights are turned off
And the Lucia procession enters the church.
The children sing their heavenly songs,
Faces lit by candlelight only —
Spots of dancing hope in the mid-winter darkness.
As they leave the church, the sun has managed to rise
Casting its golden glow on people and building alike.
It’s a wonderful and metaphorical festival
Reminding us that no matter how vast the darkness,
We must shine our own light.
For more festive stories, please visit: Our World Tuesday.
The boy with the cart
Legend says that St. Cuthman was a poor shepherd, who was forced to beg from door to door when his father died.
As his mother was paralysed, he built a one-wheel cart to bring her with him. He set off to the east and eventually, the rope he used to pull the cart broke.
He built a church on that spot. Nowadays the church is known as St. Andrew’s and St. Cuthman and can be found in Steyning (that’s in West Sussex, England), where my sister lives.
Not much of the original church, dating back to the 8th century, survives.
But you can get a sense of the history and workmanship
From the arches – each one has a unique pattern on it.
The heavy wooden door looks ancient too.
Outside, graves that are hundreds of years old
Are now resting places for tree roots and branches —
And there is always time for contemplation of what life is all about
Between the vitality of youth
And the wisdom of the old.
(Still in England, so may not be able to visit you all.)
For more stories, please visit: Our World.
Poem to heaven
The first time I saw this white wooden church
I gasped in amazement at its beauty.
It started out as a simple chapel built in the 1700s —
And then in the mid-1800s, it was expanded
And the old clock tower replaced with a new one.
The white wooden planking,
The delicate leaded windows —
Such simple and exquisite beauty
Iced with snow and love.
The lovely and talented RED has interviewed me. So, if you want to know more about me or my photography tips, then please do visit her and say hi. You can find her at Amazing Australian Adventures.
For more wonders, please visit: Our World.
The pumpkin sky
Dawn unfurled its tender hand
To reveal a wondrous
Pumpkin sky.
For more great photos, please visit: Skywatch.
Of mist and rocks
At dawn, the old stone church across the lake bathes in golden light —
Amazing to think that 800 years ago, someone looked at a pile of rocks
And saw how they could be transformed into something so much greater than the sum of their parts.
And as the sun sets,
Don’t ask what the meaning of the birdsong or the setting sun is,
Just enjoy the beauty and let them be.
For more loveliness, please visit: Skywatch.
Two sides of love
I came across two abandoned bags on the worn steps of an old church
And stopped to wonder:
Is there anything quite as sad as loving someone who has stopped loving you?
Love lost somewhere between altar and reality,
Abandoned on church steps
Along with the rice, the scattered hopes, that once promised so much.
**********************************
I saw Love up close, there in the rice on the church steps,
Worn with feet eager for love.
Bride and groom departed;
Bags left there in haste.
No time for anything but each other.
Poem inspired by Sätra Brunn Church
Delicious church
December is a time of magical snowflakes, soft candlelight, sweet songs and even sweeter gingerbread…
The Swedes love gingerbread, but not gingerbread men with their eyes of icing sugar. No, they put together simple or elaborate houses made of gingerbread, stuck together with burnt sugar and topped with hard white icing. After New Year, they hold parties where they dance around the tree to say good-bye to it and then they break the gingerbread houses made so lovingly – and eat them.
We have a new bakery in town – with the most delightful display in the window. Our old church (nearly 1,000 years old in fact) has been immortalized in gingerbread and icing sugar!
What I love about this picture is that you can see the reflection of the actual physical church in the window.
I wish you all a delightfully sweet Christmas!
For more delicious posts, please visit: That’s My World!
Imagination can move rocks
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery
This is the Divine Temple, Hari Mandir, at the centre of the Golden Temple of Amritsar in India.
Who says what?