Should Church Roofs be Made of Glass?
To God belongs the enduring wholeness and wholesomeness of everything; a vast existence. God makes a home in each loving person (John 14:23) and this is why we pray and how we all become equal. There is then no place for the inequality of tyranny, race or power, no need for male domination or reactive feminism and no superiority of the rich or talented over the poor, jobless, sick, deformed or dead.
The symbol of God is light and this is why some people find a sense of God in the visual beauty of the sky. In his book ‘The Meaning of Blue’ Luke Bell OSB, who is a Benedictine monk at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight, points out that blue is the colour you get when you look through the atmosphere towards the sunlight. This is why Mary, the mother of Jesus, appears in paintings dressed in blue, because she looks towards the light which is God. So when I look at the sky, which is blue, beautiful and vast, I am reminded of what is behind it, creating and maintaining it, the vast existence of God.
A Vast Existence
Give me a view of the Norfolk sky,
That lovely blue,
Where shapes of cotton wool drift by;
A vast existence.
Give me a view of the Norfolk sky,
In an age of dysfunctional thought,
Where clouds make shapes like animal faces,
Changing, drifting, merging, lifting;
A vast existence.
Give me a view of the Norfolk sky,
When I am stressed or hurt,
Where sunny clouds will shine like pearls,
And rays beam down through cloudy curls;
A vast existence.
Millennia past evolved our minds,
Viewing the heavens high,
Perhaps it’s why I feel depressed,
When buildings hide the sky.
Give me a view of the clear night sky,
That Norfolk sky,
That vast existence,
Where countless stars vault rustling trees
Or the yellow moon shimmers on rippling seas,
A silent sky;
An awesome sky;
A vast existence.
Give me a view of the Norfolk sky,
That high sky,
That vast existence.
No me, no lack,
No world, no work,
And no distress;
A sense of God;
A vast existence.
There is no judgment given,
There are no violent acts;
In looking up at beauty,
From the grief of imprisoning facts.
For God is the only
Vast existence.
Peter Coates, Secretary of Churches Together in King’s Lynn.