The House of Beasts & Vines

The House of Beasts & Vines

Share this post

The House of Beasts & Vines
The House of Beasts & Vines
Coming From Here

Coming From Here

Seeking a Liturgy of the Wild, (Part 41)

Martin Shaw's avatar
Martin Shaw
Mar 16, 2025
∙ Paid
133

Share this post

The House of Beasts & Vines
The House of Beasts & Vines
Coming From Here
39
11
Share

Greetings friends, in the latest from Jawbone we’re delving into the stories of St Kieran and St Brendan. And then we’re on pilgrimage with St Petroc on Dartmoor…


Wisdom Sits In Places

“What if the world is not as tame as I’m inclined to think it is?”
Rowan Williams

No one with eyes can say they aren’t beautiful, the endless empty churches of Britain.

Filled with characterful twists and turns and idiosyncratic visual touches, they are testament to centuries of parish care. And it’s a love that didn’t all arrive at once; the rood screen is Victorian, the carvings at the end of the pew are more recent, the font possibly Anglo-Saxon. Although to moderns it may all qualify as ‘old’, it actually reveals a centuries’ long gradient of practical, devotional attention. It’s come in waves, ebbs and flows, the creation of these wonderful places. It’s a generational affair. I’m scribbling these words down (a phrase Ted Hughes loved) in a discreet far pew – loitering at the back with the bells from the 1500’s – at the church of St Petroc in the Dartmoor village of Lydford.

I wish you could catch the scent of the air. Fresh but incense heavy, all at the same time.

We don’t need another essay today bemoaning the state of modern Christianity in England. Because, rather against the odds, what I’m feeling as I sit – alone as always in such places – is hope. Faith maybe. Granted it maybe not freighted with statistics but it is liberally daubed with beauty, and we know how I feel about beauty. These places are pungent with gorgeousness. Just as they are. If you’ve read me before you will have heard me use phrases like The Great Rite of Renewal – which is effectively acknowledging from a mythological perspective the initiatory need for collapse to allow something ‘worth its salt’ to re-emerge. We’re decades into this now, other readers may claim centuries. Sometimes things have to fall apart.

I’d urge us to look beyond the surface of what seems like a kamikaze dive into complete irrelevance and the notion these churches could still be places of seeing afresh. Please – lord have mercy – just as they are. We don’t need more electronics. But they need to be met by something similarly valiant and alert in us. Knackered, doom-laden and jaded won’t cut it in such a temple.

This post is for paid subscribers

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Martin Shaw
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share