Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:


"The religions have it wrong. God isn’t in holy books and churches. God’s out here where the sky feels like it goes on forever."

—Charles de Lint, Widdershins






( Illustrated version. )




Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

When we were in Bodmin we went to a restaurant called La Providence. It was a slow night and the chef, a native who'd gone to London and done the restaurant business there for several years before returning home, came out to talk with us. He suggested several places he thought we'd enjoy visiting. One place he mentioned was the Temple Church out on Bodmin Moor. Actually, the church is St. Catherine's at Temple, a small village, but everyone calls it the Temple Church. It was founded by the Knights Templar, abandoned in the Eighteenth Century, restored in the late 19th, and sits now in a small, green valley. We decided to visit it before leaving Cornwall for the cottage we'd rented in Somerset.

Of all the sweet little churches we visited on our trip, this was by far my favorite. So much love surrounded it, from the villagers who lovingly kept it up, to the peace of the churchyard. It's a tiny cruciform structure, but has lovely stained glass windows. They look plain from the outside but blaze with color inside the church—because they were designed not for folks to appreciate from outside, but to enhance worship on the inside.

It had no pews—just simple wooden chairs before the altar, and an ancient stone baptismal font crowded against one wall with a glorious stained glass window above. St. Francis? A saint with birds flying all around him and the words beneath, He prayeth well who loveth well/Both man and bird and beast.

So much spirit there, so much sense of something beyond the human occupants of the place, so much peace and quietude. Truly a place that renewed the spirit.

( The Temple Church )