Yesterday I went to Coventry Cathedral for the Fresh Expressions' Pilgrimage Day, for exploring what emerging church and fresh expressions can grow from the Anglo-Catholic traditions within the CofE. It was an amazing experience.
The picture above is the best I could find to give you a sense of the interior of the cathedral, although it doesn't really give you any sense of how it was set out and used for the event yesterday. Its an amazing space and the organisers had created a worship area in the round (in the space just beyond the gaggle of tourists in this photo) with 2 or 3 screens along both sides and a large screen separating the choir stalls (and therefore the high altar) from the body of the church. This meant that when you were taking part in the Eucharist worship, watching images, bible verses and prayers projected onto the screens, you felt enclosed with all the space above you. Sue Wallace of Transcendence in York was among the people putting the Eucharist service together and they did a wonderful job.
The whole space, and I mean literally the whole cathedral, was filled with incense. (They had the equivalent of a nightclub smoke machine as well as many bowls of incense in the middle of the worship area). Incense is used to symbolise the rising of prayers to heaven, but for me yesterday the sensation of being so enveloped in the clouds of scent and smoke was very similar to times I've had when I've been filled with the Holy Spirit - it was truly a place of connection with God, through a style of worship completely unfamiliar to me up until a few months ago.
Along the sides of the cathedral there were stations for creative meditation and prayer. Moot, MayBe, Visions, Feig and Contemplative Fire were some of the contributors and I was really blessed (literally!) by the MayBe station in particular.
I know that the things I thought about and reflected on will need to filter through my mind for a while, so more at a later stage maybe. But in the meantime, what a great experience.
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