I remember a Boys’ Brigade camp on the Isle of Wight when the canvas walls of the marquee came down and we were in the presence of a golden sunset. I remember gazing up into the dome of St Sophia in Istanbul and being stunned by its enduring majesty. We are all familiar with those breath-taking moments when perhaps for just a moment all that is humdrum is swallowed up in awe.
Beauty is something that cannot be banished. The Muslim renunciation of images is balanced by the beauty of Arabic script. Christianity declares itself in its attachment to its spacious wonders in stone. Its towers, spires and craftwork make worship-buildings landmarks for those with eyes to see its beauty.
Not that it takes stone or pigment to contain beauty and aspiration. There is a beauty in a life. This was recognised by Shakespeare’s Iago. He may have spoken of Cassio with a malicious intent when he said: ‘He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.’ But he was recognising a virtue that was apparent not only to him but to others. Presumably this is an accolade that most of us would wish to receive.
Beauty is an uneasy companion with faith. Unsullied loveliness is not the authentic background of the human condition. Yeats’s ‘terrible beauty’ is one example. The Maker who spread out the heavens as the Psalmist puts it in Psalm 69.1 is also the Maker who set us in a natural world red in tooth and claw. But beauty outbids horror. We see, as even Iago did, that goodness can win over the most stubborn opponent.
WONDROUS HEXHAM
Those of us who have the misfortune to live south of Hexham (i.e. 99 per cent of us) are sadly unaware of what we are missing. With a history of enemy action, raids, dissolution and rebuilds, Hexham Abbey is famed not only for its Saxon crypt and its transepts (enough to make a visitor gasp, as Henry Thorold put it). Its choirs have travelled Europe and recorded CDs. It has recently acquired its Big Story, a refurbished complex of a medieval monastic refectory with a café, gift shop and display area featuring state-of-the-art touch screens and models. Nobody visiting the abbey website will fail to be tempted to drop everything and make his way north to discover one of the gems that the North has to offer alongside Hadrian’s Wall and the A69. The Rector is David Glover.
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