I enjoy the architecture of holy spaces: churches, abbeys, monasteries, temples of all types. Europe suits such a fancy, and lets me see a wide variety of structures meant to honor something – though what they honor is sometimes a bit off from the original goal. This week we are on holiday at Børnholm: Denmark’s only rocky island! (Sometimes the Danglish on signs can be quite amusing. My favorite so far is “Feminism Squats my Heart”…but I digress.) Børnholm has proven to be far more charming than its English tourism by-line. It’s a pretty leafy island in the Baltic Sea, with fine sandy beaches, clear water, and pretty woods through which to bike. In addition to home brewed brown ale (quite nice) and smoked herring (not so nice), Bornholm’s claim to fame includes several Rundekirks – round stone churches white washed to a gleaming brilliance. We were lucky enough to visit a couple of these unique bulwarks, which have served as a combination places-of-worship-cum-look-out-towers since the early 1100’s.

I was particularly struck by Nylars Kirke, the smallest and least significant of the bunch. It’s stolid bulk and cool interior is just the type of space that appeals to me – old, earth-rooted, and simple. I was compelled to touch things there. I ran my fingers along the rim of the grey stone of the baptismal fount, planted firm in the center of the building; placed my palms on the stout center column and felt the wisdom held in its age; ran my hands along the curving outer walls to feel the warmth of the sun-kissed wash and the underlying chill of the hewed stones.

These are the kind of places that speak of home to me—these simple rooms with history in their walls, with time poured into their mortar. It is in these nearly abandoned places, anchored deep in the unwinding days of time, where I my footing can be found.

One of the things I love to do when I travel is too look for what the Celts called “thin spaces”—places where the natural and the spiritual intersect. Most often these are places in nature—streams, wooded glades, or sacred stones. But being the city girl that I am, I often find these holy spots in unexpected urban places. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness journal entry I wrote while visiting two of London’s famous chapels: the ornate and royal Westminster Abbey, and the lesser known and a more austere White Chapel (aka St. John’s Chapel) at the Tower of London.

Walking into this famous cathedral I am immediately disappointed. The view from both the left and right is a jumble of overwrought memorials, each one trying to outshine the next. There are so many of them that at first, I think some have been moved from another part of the cathedral for restoration work. But no, this is the cobbled together result of centuries of hero worship—a marble bonfire of vanities.

This is not a cathedral, but a tomb. Not mosque, but mausoleum. A place of worship, perhaps, but what is one to worship here? Power it seems. Money. On our more optimistic days, perhaps we could say artistry is worshipped here, as the stone has given way to sculptor’s hands, as the tombs shift from warlords to writers.

There is a staff of dear men here, trying to hold back the encroachment of effigies. Men who don red robes and hold wine aloft, who offer candles and incense, and who insist on a minute of stillness at the top of each hour to send their prayers out on a loudspeaker amongst the tourists.

I am standing in the ornate Lady’s Chapel when the bell of my first hour here chimes. The high arched ceiling is an architectural wonder of pleats and patterns. The eye is overwhelmed by its intricacies. In this visually explosive place, I am surprised and grateful for the crowd’s quiet acquiescence to the hourly call to prayer. The room goes silent as a vicar prays for survivors of Burma’s’ flood and China’s earthquake. Tears come to me unexpectedly, and I look longingly at the altar piece – Mother Mary caring for her young—and wish that I could sink into this moment and hold a little space for the parents who are mourning losses today, for the children whose mothers are gone. But although the crowds is willingly stilled for sixty seconds, they are balanced like racers on the balls of their feet, ready to spring forward and consume more sites. The second he says the Amen, the flow of traffic proceeds again, drifting quickly past the Marian shrine, and on to the huge black-and-gilt memorial of King Henry that dwarfs the small white altar.

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Yesterday I sat in another White Chapel, this one at the infamous Tower of London. Compared to the Lady Chapel at Westminster, the White Chapel of the Tower is barren. No, not barren, but spare. There is symmetry here between the clean arches and the rough stone, and a purity of line. It is not ornate. The kings never stayed here long and all the furnishings had to be simple so they could be carried with the court on progress. There is only a simple altar with a central cross, rows of wooden seats, and a single center aisle. All of the beauty is held in the Roman arches, and the age of the stone.

It feels very thin in the chapel, surrounded by all of the uncarved stone. The only representational shape the small cross on the altar. Even though we are several flights up into the Tower, I am drawn to the earthiness here. The altar is roped off, but I come as close as I am able and stand in the heavy stillness. I feel my body align into a centering pose, and I ask to be shown something of this holy space. It comes at me in rush then: the weightiness of the decisions made in this place, so regal in its starkness. Pious rulers knelt here seeking guidance. Greedy rulers came as well, justifying their often vicious actions by naming them as God’s own.

People stream behind me as I feel the importance of the White Chapel. They are flowing through this space to see what lies on either side. The chapel is merely a hallway to most. The portion of the Tower where the White Chapel stands is flanked on either side by rooms full of weapons: colonnades ringed in flintlocks, cannons in every corner, a whole hall of armor with enormous codpieces designed to intimidate one’s foe. Warfare and trickery lay heavily in most of these spaces; bloodshed and sorrow have baptized so many of these rooms. Power misapplied and malingered. But here, in this still stone room, in this dim light, even amongst all these shadows, a un-distilled power resides—some kind of force I cannot quite name: God’s power perhaps, too often ignored, man’s too often honored, and the ongoing strength of stone and silence.

More on Westminster Abbey and looking for London’s thin spaces coming soon…

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