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taking it all for granted

Do you know I was surprised yesterday, and that in itself is surprising. Although the ‘new me’ is not quite such a know-it-all as she once was, I do have an irritating tendency to be ‘right’ quite a lot of the time, (written with tongue firmly in cheek I would like to point out, as the written medium dosen’t always show the inference). Anyway, I was surprised. We (hubby and I) were on a short sojourn to Canterbury. As my brother in law lives there we had been several times before, however said b-i-l was about to jet off an a ski trip so after a quick cuppa we had a few hours to spare. So having never been we decided to visit the cathedral. Which was interesting. very. actually it really was, that wasn’t said with the tongue in cheek…
Thanks to my sometimes rather dull parents (tongue in cheek again, in case you were wondering…) I spent much of my childhood hols visiting old churches. In fact not just hols, as my parents are bell ringers, so a lot of weekends were spent wandering round random church yards bored out of my head as they were in the tower ringing. I did discover a love of tombstones though (will discuss that another time..). ANYWAY… Gosh I do digress sometimes -I am like that when talking too, you can never shut me up…

So, anyway, yesterday I wasn’t expecting much of the cathedral, except a nice old building (I do appreciate good architecture so I don’t say this lightly). And I have to admit, having bought the guidebook and spent 5 mins wandering up the nave I wasn’t all that impressed, although it was quite early and the light coming through the windows was just lovely, very poetic.

I was just wondering to myself ‘ well this is all lovely and a great touristy thing to visit, but what about GOD?! I don’t feel much Holy Spirit around here…’ So I was rather surprised when a few things just jumped out at me. Firstly the site of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. In reading the guidebook (Best 4quid spent for a while..) I read the gory truth about his martydom – quite staggering – this was a truly ‘good’ guy, in the real sense. I was really quite moved by this. And subsequently was moved to tears by a small area for prayer devoted to martyrs and those persecuted for their faith. To just think that there are so many people in the world today who are still persecuted for their faith. We are so lucky, we don’t even realise. I guess the worst a middle class Christian like me can expect would be the odd negative comment from a friend or aquaintance. But to be tortured for one’s beliefs? Or being thrown in prison? Or attacked? To have to leave ones own country? And I worry about what my friends will think? I don’t wish to sound pious or dare I say it ‘preachy’, but really. my worries are so insignificant. I really felt conusmed by this in the cathedral yesterday, in fact I blubbed my way around the rest of the visit. Really must get a grip on myself, I will soon be able to list all the churches where I have been moved to tears…
So all in all a good visit, although the tears very quickly became laughter when we passed by the shop at the end, which as all good cathedrals has a range of tourist tat (not a Christian book in sight), the highlight of which was oversized lollypops bearing, I can only assume, the cathedral logo, have to say I didn’t look all that closely, I was so amused by them just being there…

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