church 14 September 2009
I hear from a lovely young friend and fan of JAM AND JERUSALEM (hi katie) that the beautiful church in North Tawton has been horribly vandalised. I am appalled on a number of levels – it really is a lovely place of worship (and for those of you who don’t know it check out the series cos it is central) AND it is hard to compute that such a horrible thing could happen in that lovely town. I’m sure it ain’t perfect but my experience of it is that it is a gentle place where all are welcome and safe. For what it’s worth, that church is where the poet laureate Ted Hughes was given his send off and where Seamas Heaney read Dylan Thomas’s DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT for him, as requested. Why would anyone bother to wreck a wondrous place? I am not a religious woman, in as much as practising a Faith, but I have often found churches places of solace and some sanctuary, no matter what tradition they might represent – and surely we must at least show respect to each other’s beliefs and places of worship, elsewise has history taught us nothing? I know, I know, it hasn’t much but even if, exponentially, things improve a little with each generation we can surely have hope…
