Finding God in a Holy Place by Chris Cook

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This is an excellent book about the wonderful place that is Durham Cathedral. Yet it is not just about Durham Cathedral, the approach to encountering a place as holy is transferable, to other Cathedrals, to Churches large and small, indeed to any place which you choose to stop and seek an encounter.

Durham Cathedral is a familiar place to me, I was not just a student in Durham but also a regular worshipper at the Cathedral. It was at the Cathedral, mainly via Choral Evensong, that I established for myself the habit of regular worship. I am sure that this familiarity adds to the richness of the encounter I have with this book, for as Chris Cook draws different themes out of the various spaces of the Cathedral, I have a vivid memory of those spaces. However I do not think that familiarity with Durham is essential to make this book “useful”.

Durham is used as a case study, but most of the ideas are not tied to it as such. The first two chapters, “Finding a Holy Place” and “Finding God in a Holy Place”, are a “generic” introduction, and then the following chapters move through various spaces within the Cathedral. The reflections on some of the spaces are more transferable, for example those in the Nave can without any effort be read across to similar spaces elsewhere, but others perhaps need a little more work. For example, Cook gives a chapter over to the Feretory, the space around the tomb of St Cuthbert. While other Cathedrals have the remains of shrines, and some, such as St Alban's, are more complete that Cuthbert's, the space of the Feretory has a very particular character. It is a small and intimate room, a quality intensified by its setting within the vastness of the Cathedral. There will be equivalent spaces elsewhere but you may need to think a little harder in order to see the connection.

I particularly liked the reflections on the Galilee Chapel, it is my favourite part of the Cathedral, it has a character that it unlike the rest of the building – its columns are light and delicate in contrast to the solid and steadfast ones of the nave. It has the feel of spaces of the east – perhaps Orthodox, perhaps even a mosque, perhaps a contested space of Andalusia. As Cook writes “The Galilee Chapel is an ambiguous and paradoxical place.” It is usually fairly empty, overlooked by tourists. There is no one overriding focus to the Chapel, the different spaces within in interact. It is the place of Bebe's tomb, great scholar but also at times a little creative with the truth, a good storyteller, I think a afternoon spend in the sun shine listening to him spin a yarn would pass very quickly by.

The one aspect of the reflections which I didn't perhaps share was Cook's thoughts on the statue of Van Mildert, the last of the Prince Bishops, the founder of Durham University, and most importantly the namesake of my beloved college. I understand Cook's reaction to the cold marble of the statue, but I couldn't pass by without going and touching Van Mildert's shoe – the statue is raised so as you reach out the shoe is just at patting height - knowing Mildert was there in the Cathedral was a token of belonging. I think I found the same later in Lincoln, working and living at Bishop Grosseteste College (now University), there was a special nod of recognition when passing the Bishop's tomb, tucked away in the corner of a transept.

This is a delight of a book, I definitely enjoyed revisiting Durham in my mind, but always there are many good techniques for enriching my approach to other places that I visit.

And tango makes three by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, and Henry Cole

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According to "the internet" this is 2014's 3^rd most complained about book in US Libraries – which I naturally took as a higher recommendation that any amount of Booker Prizes etc...

It is a sweet little, true, story of two gay Penguins in a New York Zoo, who successfully hatch a spare egg they are given look after by the keepers.

Penguins are naturally cute and therefore I don't think the illustrator Henry Cole had to work too hard to provide an endearing set of images.

The story is told simply, I don't think it labours a “gay agenda”, but clearly sharing this story acts to normalise same-sex relationships – and if normalising such relationships makes you uncomfortable you are probably going to find yourself complaining to the library authorities.

Section 28 may feel like a distance memory, but I suspect many a school would still not stock this book, as dealing with complaints would not be “worth” the aggravation and risk of headlines in the local paper.

Goodbye Pink Room by Jane Grayshon

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The abuse of children is a raw wound in our society, and there is an increasing honesty about its true pervasiveness.

A few years ago attention was focused on the Catholic Church, and while it takes nothing from the Church's very real failings, we are now ever more aware that as an institution it was far from alone.

But nor was, or is, abuse confined to institutions – much, perhaps most, abuse takes place in the context of the family. And it is one such story that this book recounts.

The author's preface clearly wrestles with the issue of telling a “true story”. I have reflected a few times before about this of struggle or interplay around what we mean by “true”. But what is clear reading this story is its authenticity, and that power overrides any question about whether any particular detail is “factually accurate”.

You are taken on a journey with Rose, a dark and lonely journey, once I started to read I found it difficult to put the book down, it felt like an act of disrespect – knowing it is the turning away, the failing to see, that creates the space for abuse, so the book demands that you are attentive to it, to Rose's story.

It is a deeply painful read, in part because there is a cruel inevitability to the events, it is very hard to see a moment when an alternative action would have avoided the outcome.

I think we need to be honest about the limitations of many of our current strategies to counter potential abuse – that is not to say those strategies should be abandoned. We do however need to ensure that we continue to have honest, and uncomfortable, conversations, that we never tell ourselves “it can't happen here”, because such complacency is an open door.

Chris Gollon: Humanity in Art by Tamsin Pickeral

out of print but available via Amazon Market place

It was through his Stations of the Cross that I first encountered the art of Chris Gollon, powerfully accompanied with reflections by Sara Maitland – which I considered briefly earlier in this blog

And so it was fascinating to explore the wider context of Gollon's art, and gain an understanding of the ways in which the Stations express both continuity with, and, yet also, stand apart from, his other work.

Gollon, as a “contemporary” artist, is unusual in being a figurative painter – in many ways in the context of the contemporary art sense I think this is a subversive identity.

The power of his work comes often comes from the distortion of the human figure, and yet in the midst of the distortion humanity remains intensely visible. Many of the images are far from comfortable to view, and yet there is something about them that captivates, you often feel that your gaze if transgressive and yet you can not bring yourself to look away.

Pickeral's text provides just enough of a framework to help you see the evolution of Gollon's work, some hints about the context and content often allows you to enter more fully into the work, but to be honest for the most part the work speaks for itself well enough that these guiding words are inessential.

Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War by Jerry White

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The centenary of the First World War is clearly prompting a flood of new books, each trying to find a fresh angle on those events, and I am sure the White would be unapologetic for joining that bandwagon.

The “Home Front” is well remembered in the Second World War, seen in particular through London's experience of the Blitz, indeed I would think for many the first images that would come to mind on mention of that War would be scenes of the Blitz. Events on the “Home Front” during the First World War are relatively speaking overlooked – in part due to being overshadowed by the similar but more intense events of the Second war, but also because for the First World War it is the “memory” of the trenches that is the defining one.

So what do we learn from White of the experiences of Londoners during the First World War?

First we learn of the intense divide within society, between the ruling elite and the working classes – and the essential fear the ruling class had of the masses – it is a Dickensian picture. Many less than helpful decisions can be “explained” by this dynamic which sought to control and pacify the supposedly brutish and uncivilised masses. The restrictions of the consumption of alcohol being just one example – how much of our continuing poor relationship with alcohol was born in these years, you had to drink fast because the pub was shutting soon?

The second, and perhaps closely linked to the first, is that the War forced a rapid increase in the involvement of “the Sate” in the organisation of society. It is now that the structures that would become the “Welfare State”, and allow the large scale nationalisation of industry, during and after the Second World War were born. But that birth was a painful and faltering one. The laissez faire approach that had dominated Victorian Britain is forced, often kicking and screaming, into retreat.

We also learn that despite some of the weaknesses in the measures adopted the War was actually, generally, a time of social improvement – mainly as a simple result of the reduced supply of labour, which acted to force the wages of the lowest rungs of society upwards, but also, and more significantly, gave these people greater consistency / security in employment. While these gains were not universally maintained in the post-war years, due to demobilisation and then the depression, there is a feeling that the very worst excesses of “Dickensian” poverty were permanently banished from London during the War.

While this is not a book of earth shattering revelations it is well written and insightful, and it tells a much bigger story about the evolution of British society than simply a tale of the war years.