Visiting a major Cathedral on a religous holiday
It's heading for 36 degrees on a sunny day and it's a religious holiday. Drifting with the crowds we end up at the Cathedral.
A mix of locals and tourists (some to gawk and some to pay their respects).
A local lady of black hair and black eyes wears a royal blue tight fitting dress with red high heels. She clatters across the marble. A dip and a quick cross and kiss at each church station.
The young woman walking in front of us down the cobblestone lane with a confidence hard to believe. Wearing black boots with deadly stiletto heels, ragged jeans low slung enough to establish her BMI from the overhang. But she didn't stumble once.
Ascending the bell tower is via a series of ramps instead of stairs. The ramps follow the internal side of the outside wall. The incline is significant. A digital counter keeps score of how many are entering to attempt the ascent. I take a pew with Grace. Some entrants reappear rather quickly, some reappear without the person they entered with. Some are on the brink of breakdown. Others glowing with pride or exhaustion. The digital counter doesn't count how many got to the top.
When we enter some people are reassessing the climb from the second ramp, others try a quick assault and are passed half way up others are the slow and steady type and yet others have faith they will make it and are crossing themselves as they go.
The mix of people adds to the experience. Where once telephoto lens where an atonomical indicator now it seems it's the accessory you need when you have a gut large enough to rest it on.
In the end people appear to take different things from the visit. Some are obviously greatly comforted by their faith and the Cathedral. For others it's another monument demonstrating progress of engineering thinking. For me it becomes something to contemplate; why so big and overpowering? What did people who were illiterate, poor with no prospect of not being poor, make of such grandeur, pomp and ceremony? Why did the church feel the mosque had to be so completely crushed by the cathedral (some of the symbolism around the mosque entrance is childish)? Did the muslim faith at the time have anything to do with the fundamentalism we are seeing around the world now?
A bunch of faiths manage to live side by side for a few centuries and then don't. What conditions are needed for enough acceptance of other faiths to be able to co-exist. Or maybe it was an uneasy peace all that time?
A mix of locals and tourists (some to gawk and some to pay their respects).
A local lady of black hair and black eyes wears a royal blue tight fitting dress with red high heels. She clatters across the marble. A dip and a quick cross and kiss at each church station.
The young woman walking in front of us down the cobblestone lane with a confidence hard to believe. Wearing black boots with deadly stiletto heels, ragged jeans low slung enough to establish her BMI from the overhang. But she didn't stumble once.
When we enter some people are reassessing the climb from the second ramp, others try a quick assault and are passed half way up others are the slow and steady type and yet others have faith they will make it and are crossing themselves as they go.
The mix of people adds to the experience. Where once telephoto lens where an atonomical indicator now it seems it's the accessory you need when you have a gut large enough to rest it on.
Comments
Post a Comment