At the end of a Quaker meeting, we ended up chatting about our varied denominational background. Most were Church of England, one is a liberal baptist and I'm a catholic. It had been a while since I got to reminisce about this background, but when I did I felt quite sad. I realised that the tone of my faith had changed and that I was leaving stuff behind.
I was leaving behind the happy memories of squeezing Church between piano lessons and ballet every Wednesday. Moving away from a whole lot of traditions tacked onto church culture by the countryside I grew up in. I loved every instant. It will always where I'm from. But from my current vantage point my own culture feels slightly odd.
One of the things I like most about Europe is hopping from a country to another, spending some time in each and tuning in to the tone which Christianity has taken there. I never really cared whether we were being particularly true to the hebraic meaning of the Bible. We were not first century jews. We were the European churches, grown here over the centuries, flourishing into hundreds of different expressions. We were the churches God loves.
This picture was taken at St. Peter in Chains Church in Rome by Michael Du Bruiel. I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing it here.
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