So here, for a change, something beautiful and holy and not utterly self-absorbed. Yesterday Buzzfloyd took a couple of pictures of the east window in the sanctuary at Pett Chapel, just as they were beginning morning worship. Her sister Alice (who is part our household here) designed and made the window.
It's not always easy to capture the colours when the sun's streaming through, but I think Buzz did well.
Conceptually it blends the twin locations in which our life is rooted — our place on earth and our place in the unfolding gospel of our lives.
Pett is in a country village just up the hill from the sea at Pett Level. So the window shows the pointy sails of little boats, the water's edge and the sandy shore, the rolling hills of Sussex — if you look at it one way. But (if you look at it another way) it also shows the outpouring of the Spirit, streams of grace flowing down to us from the cross, the gold of Christ's kingly glory, the shards of his pain and his blood shed for us.
The shapes are sufficiently abstract that they don't obtrude too assertively into one's own prayers with prescriptive ideas. It is just beautiful and uplifting, the colours well-chosen to work with eastern light (you need different tones for a west or south window).
We used to have one made of blocks of clear greenish glass, which were okay but a bit industrial; then a few years ago the chapel council commissioned Alice to design a window that would speak of the countryside, the sea, and the love of God. In the east end of the chapel in the sanctuary, it illuminates and illustrates our eucharists, speaking of the Christ's shed blood and outpoured Spirit in the context of our everyday lives. I really love that window.
14 comments:
Gorgeous - thanks for sharing!
DMW
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Yes I also love that window x
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Wow, it looks really good. And, it is so nice to hear about the all of the thought that went into the design, impressive.
Bean
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simply lovely - contemplative but not distracting (as some stained glass windows can be.)
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Absolutely lovely!!
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I hope to see that window in person someday. :) In the meantime, I am blessed to enjoy Alice's work in my own bedroom, many times a day. May God bless and inspire and delight and guide her, all the days of her life. xoxo
Yes, yes! Come and see it! And I will take you to see her huge stained glass panels wrapping round the conservatory at the hospice. God likes inspiring Alice — she is always very co-operative. xx
This is so beautiful! Thank you for sharing her work with us all.
My mind is tucking this in next to my memory of a little church we visited on the coast of rural Baja Mexico on our year at sea. We sailed in and were immediately welcomed into the life of the village. We spent Holy Week there and went to the local church, where each beautiful stained glass window represented a moment from Jesus' life by the sea–Jesus walking on the water, Jesus calling the fishermen, Jesus calming the waves.
I couldn't understand much of what was said that day, but I sat in the light coming through all that blue-green glass and let the thread of the sea tie us all together, these fishermen, the God of the water, and me.
Thanks for prompting the memory.
Jesus and the sea — how lovely! A favourite picture for me is this Yongsung Kim's picture "The Hand of God" (you'll have to Google it, I can't add photos here).
When I was a child, the stained glass windows in our church were a deep part of the experience of worship for me.
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