smile

 

I had my hair cut this morning. It takes me about twenty minutes to walk there, and twenty minutes to walk back.

I smiled at everyone I walked past on the street, and some stationary drivers. Some intentionally looked down or away, before I smiled, to avoid eye-contact with a stranger; but everyone who saw me smile, smiled back. That’s a human response; it says nothing about my lop-sided smile, or how comfortable or otherwise I may be in my own skin: such hang-ups are mine alone.

If I smile at someone approaching me, walking in the other direction—not because I know them, but simply in recognition of another human being going about their day, just as I am going about mine—and if they smile back in return—the smile continues after we have passed each other, eventually fading after about 20 seconds—and then immediately triggering a second smile, caused by the remembrance of the first, lasting perhaps another 10 seconds. Every time.

30 seconds is actually quite a long time. Certainly, as a physically active, ambulant man (even if I can’t walk in a straight line) who is just over six foot tall with the stride that you’d expect from that height, even at a leisurely pace I can cover some distance in that time. But regardless of how far apart we move—the other person and me, walking away from each other—30 seconds is long enough to have an impact on our outlook. Whatever nonsense we are carrying—whatever resentment at the behaviour of someone else, who is not present—whatever conversation we are rehearsing or grudge we are nursing in our mind—it is hard to maintain this in the face of the smile. The smile does a work of softening our heart, as rain softens sun-hardened ground.

And this is only half the story. What can I say about the other person, whose presence in the world—simply going about their own business—initiated my smile towards them? All other things being equal, they too will smile, and have a subsequent shorter smile recollecting the smile as soon as it fades. But a smile can have an even bigger impact. I smiled at one person this morning as we stood on either side of a pedestrian crossing point waiting for the break in the traffic, and they beamed and beamed as if I was the only person who had smiled at them that day. Which I might, or might not, have been. I have no way of telling. And that is the point. A smile could just save a life—that is not an exaggeration, it could literally make the difference between someone giving up on life and their keeping going—and you have no way of knowing. So—for love of God and neighbour—smile. You’ll be showing loving-kindness to yourself at the same time.

 

poise

 

Yesterday we saw a rise in temperature, and walking the path between the vicarage and the church early in the morning, I noticed that the path was covered with large droplets of water that were holding their shape. Retracing my route forty minutes later, I noticed that the water had held the shape of my footprints, the tread of my Dr Marten boot soles. Indeed, the water held the shape of my footprints all day and is still holding their shape the following day.

I don’t understand the physics, but I know that this has to do with viscosity, ‘a measure of a fluid’s rate-dependent resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighbouring portions relative to one another’ (Encyclopaedia Brittanica) and informally known as thickness. At the current temperature range, the water has a high enough viscosity to hold its shape. The SI units of viscosity are newton-seconds per square metre or pascal-seconds, sometimes expressed as poise (1 pascal-second = 10 poise). The poise of water between 5°C-10°C is 0.015-0.013 P.

Poise, as a unit of measurement, is named after the French physicist Jean Léonard Marie Poiseuille. But in English ‘poise’ means a graceful and elegant bearing in a person. And there is something elegant about holding oneself together under pressure. There is something graceful about making the world a more beautiful place by your presence. There can be something graceful and elegant about embracing a gradual change in the face of external forces or circumstances we cannot control. There is something graceful and elegant about bearing witness to the presence of another, passing through your presence in the world, to saying not only ‘I am here’ but also ‘They were here, too.’

There is poise to the viscosity of water, and as I walked the path between vicarage and church, or across the patio outside my back door, yesterday, I trod with reverence for the water, for my recently past self (careful not to break the edges of my earlier footprints) and for the forensic testimony of the interdependence of life. Poise is not a word often associated with a dyspraxic person, but the poise of the water invited me to pay attention to my own poise in the world.

Desire lines

 

We have most of our milk delivered to the doorstep in glass pint bottles, but at least once a week I top that up with milk bought at the petrol station on the intersection. The forecourt is designed for cars, with no provision made for pedestrians who come to the station to buy sweets, newspapers or tobacco products. And so, of course, pedestrians have made a desire line, albeit a very short one, that cuts between the public footpath and the petrol station forecourt at the rarely used automatic carwash on the corner of the site.

Desire lines, also known as desire paths, are those dirt tracks, worn away under foot, that cut across parks and vacant lots, or cut the corner off a bend in the official pathway. Footpaths and pavements are laid down by town planners on mapping boards, before being laid down in concrete flags or asphalt by workmen. Desire lines are public works of art, a dialogue between strangers that co-creates a more-liveable urban environment. Someone steps off the prescribed path and gives expression to another possibility. But the desire line depends on the person who comes next, the second and a third, who first notice the line that has been suggested, and then choose to take it themselves, rather than cut their own, rather than, collectively, to trample the ground so that in time the whole space is worn to earth. Desire lines say, ‘This is the Way: walk in it!’ and those whose own desire is awakened stop in the tracks, turn off the broad path that leads to some form of mass destruction (or, loss of some quality of life) and follow on the narrow path on which a fuller experience of being alive is to be found.

Today, I went to fetch some milk, and I discovered that someone has erected the most enormous communications mast on the public footpath ... right in front of the desire line.

As if to say, ‘This unofficial path is barred. You must connect with your neighbour in this virtual (and of course monetised) way. By order of the Pax Romana.’

This desire line must be one of the shortest that exists. And yet each time I step on it, I am aware that I am connected to my neighbours, even on trips to the petrol station forecourt when I do not meet anyone on the way. I am co-creating physical space. There is something almost magical about that scrappy corner of scrub, the almost abandoned carwash, blue light reflected on rain-slick tarmac when it rains at night. It puts a smile on my face that I take all the way to the cashier as I present my two quarts of milk to be scanned and paid for.

But it has never felt better than today, stepping behind the communication mast and disregarding its injunction.

heart, shaped

 

Walking home from town, I passed by two horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) trees. Three small boys were searching the grass below for conkers, accompanied by two women. One of the boys ran up to me, squealing with delight, “There’s so many conkers! They’re everywhere!” Watched over by trustworthy grown-ups, he (rightly) had no fear of a total stranger. Acknowledging the women with friendly greeting, I joined in with his delight—“I know! They’re amazing, aren’t they?”—picking up three conkers and offering them to him, before choosing one to hold on to. Its white scar, from where the seed is connected to its protective casing, was heart-shaped.

There is beauty everywhere.

 

Dog dirt days

 

There’s an enormous pile on dog dirt on the cycle path, that must have been left by a large dog, a Mastiff perhaps. It has been lying there for several days, slowly drying out, cracking open. As I passed by today, a shimmer of fat flies were at work on the carcass, jewel-like in the sun, flashing bright emerald. At my approach, the cloud dispersed; returning soon, I’m certain.

Flies, like rats, who also deal with waste, get bad press. ‘Spreaders of disease,’ we feel uneasy about them. Yet the flies were only doing exactly as they were commissioned to do by their Creator, work dignified by a bejewelled uniform. If anyone was at fault, it is the owner of the dog. Flies breaking down waste, spiders containing the fly population. There’s a delicate but ever-so-strong web of connection, of interdependency, that holds all living things together. Each has their place and purpose. The human, alone, forgets theirs.

 

Derailed

 

Sometimes, a fallen leaf is all it takes to stop you in your tracks.

Everyday beauty on the cycle path.

(It is a shame about the fly-tipping, done by those who fail to notice beauty, and so are unable to cherish it.)

 

On putting on the habit

 

I am a creature of habit.

Most days, I say Morning Prayer. On Fridays, I do not pray, in any formal sense, for prayer is the work of God, and Friday is my day of rest from work. Six days a week, I am reminded that my voice, however small, makes a difference in the world; and one day each week, I am reminded that nothing in this world depends on me, that should I die before this day is out, the world would carry on without me, just as it did before me.

Most every day, I receive the gift of the presence of Jesus, in bread (and sometimes, wine). Some days, with formal liturgy, prayers that echo through the ages; other days, with a simple blessing offered by a grateful heart. Often, I receive the presence of Jesus in bread that is spread with butter and marmalade, because the Bible says that God’s Word is like honey, but that is only because people had not yet learnt how to make marmalade. Afterwards, they did—thanks be to God!

Some days, two or three times a week, I go running.

I do the laundry.

I pause each late afternoon, to cook a meal for my family.

Most things that I do, I find ways to encourage and enable other people to do, too.

Except the laundry. The laundry is my cross to bear, on which I am daily put to death by my children’s refusal to put their dirty clothes in the laundry basket at the end of each day, as any god-fearing person should. And only Jesus can help bear the weight of my cross.

That’s about it. The rest of my time is held, open, and used in a variety of irregular ways, such as the funeral I took today, or visiting the housebound as I did yesterday, or being available to those who need to unburden themselves of anything, except laundry, as happens often enough.

I am a creature of habit.

 

Kindness

 

I have a watch that it gives me a great deal of pleasure to wear. I bought it on a trip to America when Jo was pregnant with Susie, so I must have had it for about twenty-one years now; and a few days ago, the leather glue that holds the buckle gave out, and the watch fell apart, sliding off my wrist.

There is an amazing businessman here in England called Sir John Timpson. He owns a chain of over 2000 little stores where you can go to get keys cut or shoes repaired. They work with ex-offenders, offering 10% of their posts to people coming out of prison; and are generally considered to be a good employer. Along with his wife, who died a few years back, John Timpson fostered 90 children; and he remains involved in supporting charities working for child welfare.

I took my watch along to the local Timpson branch, to ask if they could repair it. The man who works there did, taking a stubby brush and painting the leather with glue, and blowing on it until it turned tacky, before pressing the leather together again.

It was a small job, using hardly any materials and taking only a few minutes’ time. But it meant a lot to me, a very great deal. I asked if I could give him anything for it, and he refused any payment.

That matters. It matters that there are people who are willing to do something, however seemingly small—small things often having great impact, as today—free of charge. It matters that people should not expect this—for, had I done so, it would not have been freely given—and that when we are given such a gift, we should find a way to honour the one who gave it—again, not out of duty, not paying a debt in order to be freed from generosity, but freely, so that the economy of grace is held together, not by leather glue but by the glue of kindness.

As long as it takes

 

This morning when I got up at my usual 6.15 a.m. my teenage son was already awake. This is unusual. Normally, he remains in bed until lunchtime. But in an attempt (whether wise, or other-wise) to re-set his broken body clock, he had stayed up all night. And now he decided to make pancakes for breakfast.

He is a good cook, but a slow one. And so, on the offer of pancakes, I passed on my habitual bowl of cereal and waited. And waited. And a little after 8.00 a.m. I sat down to a substantial plate of pancakes. (Too late for Jo, who has to set off on her commute to work by 8.00 a.m.)

My son’s gift to me today was not only—not even primarily—pancakes, but, rather, the invitation to rediscover what children know and have squeezed out of them: that things take as long as they take.

I’m not saying we can ignore the clock. I have agreed to take a funeral at 12.15 p.m. today, and I cannot turn up at 2.00 p.m. and say, “Hey, I’m here now, that’s just how long it took.” Moreover, there is genuine benefit in regular rhythms—the very thing my son is trying to re-set and re-establish with his sleep. Be that as it may, we do violence to ourselves, to the essence of our very being, and to the personhood of others, when we try to conform the world to a divided- and divided-up diary schedule. This must happen at such an hour, and be done by such a time. This church community must look different in this and this and that ways within such and such a timescale.

What God is up to in the world takes place in God’s sweet time. It takes as long as it takes. It is gift. Perhaps not the gift we want, but something even better than we could ask for or imagine.

 

Let me listen

Listening to the musicality of the street corner where I live:

 

The rumble roar of rubber over tarmac
as the cars pass by,
keeping time at 30, maybe 35,
miles per hour

Here comes the rattle of a lorry,
ting, ting, ting, with
every turning of the wheels as
they jolt along uneven surface

Over the surface,
can you hear the sound of
birdsong?

And the clicking of the claws
of the paws of the wolfhound
walked along the street
by an owner whose thick grey hair
matches its coat
as they keep step in time

Under the surface,
can you hear the sound of
birdsong
sound of birdsong?

That’s my corner

 

 

Tool of the trade

 

This coming weekend marks the eleventh anniversary of my being a priest in the Church of England.

There are, I suppose, various tools of my trade.

The cloak I wear at gravesides. Always borrowed from the church I am serving, not my own; our lives are borrowed, and will be reclaimed from us when we depart.

The home communion set I will use this week for the first time in over a Covid year. A gift to me when I moved on from a previous congregation.

But perhaps the most significant tool of my trade is, in fact, in no way specific to being a priest at all. Deep though that goes, I run deeper, and wider, than the priestly things I do. My pen is the tool that most gives expression to who I am—even though I write electronically as well as in ink—the human activity I do, in a priestly way, rather than priestly activity per se.

And perhaps this is true of many of us. That we are more than specialised selves, but make our mark, our contribution, with common goods.

A year ago today, I wrote a Facebook post, on the need to topple idols, that was shared over 100 times. In another space, I am closing in on 2,500 posts here on my blog, kairos : kisses. In a sense, the numbers aren’t important, other than pointing to my lifelong love with words. Here’s to the next chapter.

What tool of the trade most expresses who you are?

 

Painted

 

While I mow the lawns to the front and side of the vicarage, the bank immediately behind us is too steep for me. And right now, it is a riot of yellow and orange, pink and white. Beautiful.

 

Shoes

They say, if you want to understand someone, you first need to walk a mile in their shoes.

For the second time in a week, my shoes were soaked-through by rain yesterday. So, today, I have put on a spare pair, that were handed-down to me by my father. They had been bought for him as a gift, as I recall, but he didn't get on with them.

They are slightly too big for me (perhaps for him, too; perhaps that is why he passed them on?) and so I am always and slightly awkwardly aware of them. And while I don’t expect to understand my dad any better, for walking into town in them later this morning, I shall be prompted to think of him.

And of my late father-in-law, whose beautiful rug, passed on to us many years ago, is underneath my feet.

Rain, reign, rein

God walked on the unruly waters, and they cowered before him. On rain-slick streets I walk on water tamed, my steps displacing a film of wet still possessing just enough surface-tension to hold my footprints for a moment in my wake. To hallow, and to hound, my passing-by: “Here walks one of the human-kind, creatures with God-given authority to rule over the earth; will this one exercise their rule for good or ill, or abdicate all responsibility?”

You only notice, if at all, after the rain.

Grace, part 2

Every so often, the pavement is also stained by dark red berries. This, too, is grace. Fallen on concrete, they will never seed the next generation. Crushed, twice daily, under the feet of oblivious schoolgirls, they do not even serve for food for birds. These fruit are fruitless — except, their blood cries from the ground, “there is more than enough, abundantly more-than!”

Grace insists that there is always some part of our lives that is not productive, that serves no other economy, except that of grace. Call it a tithe, if you will; though it is a tithe we receive, not offer up. I bristle at the very thought that grace should insist on anything. It sounds so lacking in grace, the ego, wriggling, insists. But grace is all-or-nothing. You cannot have ‘some grace’. And so, I fall from grace, again and again; only to be graciously lifted up once more. Only to discover that grace does not only give me its tithe, it gives me all I have.

This is what the seeds scattered on the pavement tell me. Oh, my ears!

Grace, part 1

I leave the house for the first time in two days. Walking along the street, my eyes are drawn to every green tendril and tiny, perfect leaf that has pushed its way up through cracks in the concrete slabs — stained by the foulings of every neighbourhood dog; scarred by the memory of countless spat-out wads of gum; scattered with cubes of glass from a smashed-in car window, the car itself long since moved on...

Life, against all the odds. This is grace.

Light, praying

This morning I was interrupted twice while at Morning Prayer. Ordinarily I might respond, “I’ll be with you after Morning Prayer,” and, perhaps, “Would you like to join me?” But today both interruptions were things that needed to be dealt with in the moment; and dealt with by me. So, after the second interruption, I gave up, and left the praying to the light falling through the window.

How can light pray? Well, if Isaiah can speak of the mountains and hills bursting into songs of praise, then I think I can speak of sunlight praying.

The vocation of light is to illuminate, to shine in darkness. At times, the light falls diffuse through the window; and when it does so, the white-painted walls reflect it back, uniformly. But at other times, it shines with focused intention, and dances across the darkened wall, in patterns of delight. And that, at least it seems to me, is how light prays; how that which is created responds to its Creator.

At times, we find it hard to pray, perhaps due to interruptions, or distractions, or ill-health. Like light, we can still fulfil our vocation—the purpose we were made for—in such times; even if we are unconscious of doing so. At other times, we can articulate prayer, with or without words. To do so is good, and makes a difference to the world, not least in and through the one who prays. But when we can’t, we are not abandoned. Jesus prays for us, the Holy Spirit prays within us—and all creation prays around us, even the light.

Bearing Fruit

In the garden this morning I am shown again that there can be no fruitfulness without dying to self, without being prised-apart by the hands of a loving Creator.

We live in a society that demands of us that we resist aging – and so deny ourselves the opportunity of fruitfulness, of investing in others. It is not because our culture is superficial that we prize eternal youth. It is because we prize eternal youth that we have become superficial.

How can we possibly submit to those hands, to that process, unless our eyes are opened to a bigger Story than our Self?

The invitation to enter into communion with

the ripe Spirit, who gives life to the world;

the pierced and wounded Son;

the undefended Father, burst open by love.

(The seed pods of the Iris open out revealing three chambers, a Trinitarian crown of glory.)

“Until we walk with despair, and still have hope, we will not know that our hope was not just hope in ourselves, in our successes, in our power to make a difference, in our image of what perfection should be. We need hope from a much deeper Source. We need a hope larger than ourselves.” Richard Rohr

“When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more, when they touch my mind), when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly waken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and, above all that last moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed me; grant that I may understand that it is you (provided only that my faith is strong enough) who is painfully parting the fibres of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself.” Teilhard de Chardin

Nunc Dimittis (The Song of Simeon)

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:

your word has been fulfilled.

My own eyes have seen the salvation

which you have prepared in the sight of every people;

A light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.

God Is A Desperate Housewife

I love parables. They are a truly amazing art form, a genre of story-telling that not only invites interaction from the audience – as all good story-telling does – but actually requires of the listener that she reads between the lines in order for the story to be told.  In this way the person telling the parable is freed to say things so outrageous, they would never get away with saying them directly.

Jesus came to show us what God is like. Some people, who devoutly held to their image of God, didn’t like what they saw. On one occasion when they expressed their disapproval, Jesus responded by telling three parables (Luke 15). The purpose of his words is consistent with the purpose of his actions: to reveal what God is like. Reading between the lines, one of them went like this:

Your image of God – the One who created the heavens and the earth; who led his people out of slavery in Egypt; who dwells in unapproachable light – is incomplete unless you are able to imagine him as a fearful woman.

This woman has a husband, and therefore she wears the outward cultural sign of having a husband, a coin headdress. This headdress has the minimum number of coins; and not only the minimum number but also coins of the smallest value. Her husband is either a poor man, or he does not value his wife…perhaps as the story unfolds we will discover more…

One morning as she goes to put her headdress on, she sees that one of the coins is missing. With only ten coins, there is nowhere for the absence to hide. And the woman goes into desperation. Her husband is not poor, he is harsh. He will not reassure her, and help her to search for the coin. He will assume that she has used it as money, publically embarrassing him. Or that she has been careless, not valuing his reputation. Or that it has been taken as a token by a lover, humiliating him before the entire town. He is a suspicious and violent man, and, unless she finds the coin before he returns, she is in very deep trouble. He will concoct trumped-up charges to divorce her, and send her away. She will lose everything (however pitiful her ‘everything’ might be). And so she turns the whole house up-side-down. Looks everywhere.

When she finds the coin, she is utterly relieved. Calling her neighbours, her confidants, together, they share in her joy. All looked to be lost, but has been saved.

In the same way that this desperate housewife celebrates, so the company of heaven celebrates over a sinner who repents. An incredible release of emotion.

In the same way? The woman does not rejoice because a sinner has repented. It is the celebration that is compared, not the cause for celebration, nor even the actions of the woman in searching for her coin, or her motive.

That is a scandalous image of God. Jesus takes an older image of God as faithful husband to an unfaithful people and turns it on its head, painting God as the vulnerable wife of a harsh husband.

Who is this harsh husband? The devout, observant Pharisees and teachers of the law so suspicious of Jesus.

Who, in the parable, needs to repent? It is not the woman, who has done nothing wrong. It is not the coin – oh, come on! we all know it is the coin! The coin is a prop, conjuring the woman’s predicament. No, the person who needs to repent is the husband. And within the parable, that does not take place. That repentance is not the reason for the woman’s celebration. Heaven’s celebration is like hers, but greater. Will heaven get to celebrate today, or not? How will the listeners respond to the story they have helped to tell?

Hmmm…That’s an interesting reading ‘between the lines,’ but we all know that the one in need of repentance is represented by the coin. Is there any evidence to support the idea that the one who needs to repent is a husband who doesn’t even appear in the parable, other than as the original audience?

Yes, I believe that there is. We don’t know whether any of the first listeners repented or not; and it is likely that some became even more entrenched in their hardness. But I believe there is a concrete example of just such a repentance, and that we need look no further than the Epistle paired with this Gospel passage in the Lectionary (Sunday 15 September). Writing to his son-in-the-faith, Paul says:

“I thank Jesus Christ our Lord who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord Jesus was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:12-17)

A Pharisee, harsh – and unaware of it – repents, and joins the heavenly party.

If our presentation of God is incomplete without the image of her as desperate housewife, in what way does our theology need to change?

If Jesus is of the view that the devout are at least capable of acting, quite unawares, as harsh husband to God, in what ways does our self-awareness need to change? Where do we need to repent?

In what ways does this parable challenge our view of women, and men? Of marriage – let me be clear: in no way does being able to identify God with an abused wife give rise to a religious justification for requiring wives to put up with abuse, any more than identifying Jesus with those who suffer torture and execution should give rise to a religious justification for such abuses of a fellow human being – and family; of the Church?

Furrows

On Thursday I attended a Quiet Day held at St Peter’s, facilitated by Revd Sue Calveley. Sue had been on the clergy team at St Peter’s prior to my arrival. The day was a mix of corporate worship, led reflections, and plenty of space to ourselves.

In the morning, we took the account of Elijah calling Elisha to follow him as our starting-point. When Elijah finds Elisha, Elisha is ploughing a field. He is overseeing the last of twelve pairs of oxen. In other words, eleven other teams are ploughing in front of him. To plough a furrow is sometimes used as a metaphor for life. We plough the field given us. Will we plough a straight furrow, or a crooked one? Will the earth be good, or will we need to stop to deal with stones? Will we plough the same ground long enough to become familiar with it – with its particularities and peculiarities – to love it and to make the soil good? Do we plough on our own, or, looking up, do we see those who have ploughed before us? Do we recognise the role of those who have gone before us, or who go alongside us? Before Elisha walks away into his calling, he asks first to acknowledge and honour those others, serving up a feast in an act that simultaneously severs himself from them and ties their stories together. In the morning we were given space to reflect on those who have been a blessing to us; and in the afternoon, space to reflect on ourselves as gift from God, firstly to ourselves – for we can only come to God as ourselves – but also for the world.

To further help me go deeper, I took photographs of furrows, or grooves, in various media around the church: wood, stone, glass, tile. Many were intentional, of course; and it is not possible to live life well by accident, without intention. But other furrows were the result of wear-and-tear, or indirect action, or even accident. Some were begun and then cut short, abandoned. Some were deep; while others barely scratched the surface, only noticeable when the light falls on them. Some went with the grain, others across or against the grain. Some had become filled with dirt, neglected; others inlaid with gold paint, beautified. Some cut across the field of names of the men of the parish who died in the First and Second World Wars. Almost all bore testimony to people who had shaped this space, either through their workmanship or through their loving repetitive doing life in this place: people who came before me.

And while the space would not have been created without the intentional carvings, neither would it be what it is without the unintentional ones: not a blueprint for a church building, an idea, a fine theory; but an actual church building, with its faults and flaws, that has become a special place, where people discover and rediscover that they are loved by God…