Coventry Cathedral - Father Hilarious

I have a wilderness spirituality; my Christian faith finds expression in the empty places, where the still small voice of God speaks with the volume of all creation. So why would I be drawn to Coventry and to the Cathedral there? Once, on a pilgrimage, I travelled in the hospitality of others: exchanging the gospel for food and shelter. I retraced the footsteps of Celtic saints from Durham to Holy Island and onward to Iona. One day I hope to travel over the sea to Ireland, and engage with Irish roots of this Celtic Christian spirituality. I love the sense of feeling sea-spray on my face, my clothes whipped around by the wind, standing on a rocky shore experiencing the physical manifestation of an edge place.

In the meantime, I found Coventry Cathedral to have the feel of a massive sea-cave: the building is open at one end, albeit with a great glass structure both revealing and enclosing the inner space. I saw myself in this photograph: a tiny selfie in the centre surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, angels and saints etched onto the windows, while the crenellations of the past are reflected in sharp relief by the brightness of the sky.

As I entered, I found myself looking towards a dead-end of a cave, the back of the cave, sheltered from the wind and rain, where the sanctuary space is; the place where we can hide under the shadow of God’s wings safe from harm. The pillars seemed to me echos of the columns of sea carved rock, and the way the whole building plays a trick on the eyes feeling as though it tapers towards the inner most parts.

I loved the stained glass, which played with darkness and light by including the very walls of the building in shaping of the light. I found myself taking photographs, and reflecting on the practicalities of analogue film photography, the building and the interaction of all these with the light and colour I was trying to see through my lens.

While the building and sunlight were speaking to me of God’s still small voice, the artwork was in sharp contrast to this. Outside there is a super large sculpture of the supernatural violence between the Satan and Michael in which Michael eventually wins.

And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
‘Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Messiah,
for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,
who accuses them day and night before our God.
But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.
Rejoice then, you heavens
and those who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
for the devil has come down to you
with great wrath,
because he knows that his time is short!’

As I looked at the sculpture, my heart was moved for the defeated – and the look upon his face. Behind the sculpture of the defeated Devil there was the cross of Christ hanging against the sky. In this we have a different image of the battle between the Devil and God: one in which God allows God’s-self to die to defeat those powers that hate God’s creation (and all that dwells in it).

The two approaches seem to me to either fight evil on evil’s terms, or on love’s terms. In this sculpture Michael faces Satan on Satan’s terms; there is glory in winning and sorrow in defeat. However, what is suggested by the cross of Christ (in the background of the photograph), is that love faces evil in a different way: the self-sacrifice of love defeats evil through love not violence. In religious terms, God has died so that we might have life. The story is also a story of God’s love even for those who hate God – those epitomised by Satan’s hatred.

I find myself recoiling from the sculpture of Michael standing gloriously victorious over the fallen Satan, but I am drawn to the cross and the self-giving love of God. I wonder if it is okay to have sympathy for the Devil in the midst of rejecting the Devil and all evil. God will know. As I try to understand whether God has sympathy for Satan, I remember that our human tendency to binary thinking (yes or no, on or off, good or evil, darkness and light), are probably not the way God considers these things. God’s ways are higher than our ways, and God’s thoughts than our thoughts… so psalm 139 verse 12 comes to mind…

even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.