Walking on Graves

Over three thousand bodies: that’s what I heard the tour guide say.  “Wherever you go, you’re stepping on someone,” he laughed.  In my mind flashed an x-ray of Westminster Abbey and the grounds around it: I saw hundreds of tourists bustling around like ants inside a giant tomb, with layer upon layer of skeletons.  

So many layers.  To be completely honest, at Westminster Abbey, I was completely overwhelmed and overstimulated.  Architecture layered on statue, on monument, on burial ground.  Organ music layered on a boy’s choir, on audio guides, on the shuffle of tourist’s feet.  History, art, and culture rushed at me in full tidal force, and yet, in the midst of this confusion, I was supposed to see this as a church.

I am used to spiritual spaces being connected with solitude and serenity.  It was a bit jarring, then, to stand on top of the final resting place of General Hargraves (of whom I know nothing), to watch people light candles in front of an icon, and to listen to a audio recording about the Cathedral’s nave—all the while knowing that Westminster is a place of worship.  

The layers of complexity were uncomfortable for me.  I couldn’t tell you if the chapels were more dedicated to God or to specific people.  I felt both included by their open invitations (the audio tour told me I was free to make an appointment to meet with someone from the church) and excluded by the bars which held back the tourists; comforted by Biblical quotes and intimidated by the wealth.  Was it more of a display or a functional space? When the loudspeaker stopped us for a moment of silence and prayer, it felt forced. The security guards wore religious robes over their professional, public-safety uniform.  And during the evensong, I wanted to kneel, but could not for too many backpacks and for all the chairs.

I will say this, though: the overwhelming sense of history gave me the sense that church happens, truly, among a “great cloud of witnesses.”  The witnesses, both dead and alive, gathered here together.  Christianity spans throughout time and across all aspects of life, and it is beautiful to see the vastness of this vision expressed in one space.  It should be overwhelming.  I like that at Westminster the spiritual is not compartmentalized, but the “sacred” is throughout everything (politics, nationalism, literature, even tourism).  And, as we, all these tourists, participated in the evensong, it seemed appropriate that all of the statues looked on, and the three thousand dead could hear.