Prayers and Pizza!

July 27, 2007
Day 28

Prayers and Pizza in Southwark

Sorry for the slightly irreverent heading, but it does describe our activities last evening.

First we attended a brief service at the Southwark Cathedral, home of the Anglican Diocese in this area. The Cathedral lies on the South Bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge on a site occupied by a Church for over one thousand years. The main structure of today's church was built between 1220 and 1420. http://www.southwark.anglican.org/cathedral/

Today this lovely structure is crammed in, between office buildings, restaurants, pub, cobbled streets and even the initial ramp of the London Bridge. I would describe the ground-level, historic, structure (although best seen from the sidewalk of the bridge, some 20-ft above) as “hunkered-down” in the midst of all this mélange. However the upper levels, including the spires, windows and bell tower, reach into the sky, like the blooms on a flower searching for light and air!

I’m not much of an architect or cathedral expert, but found the inside of the cathedral to be altogether lovely and expansive—clearly the rival of much more celebrated churches we have seen. It only opens for church services and tours with appointment; so we took advantage of the service of readings to gain entrance.

I don’t think I can improve on the physical description of the web link above, but the service was simple, informal and quite calming. Only about a half-dozen people were present; so the reader invited us up into the choir area, if we wanted. We remained in the sanctuary hall with the beautiful stained-glass window before us and the fan-styled, stone roof high above.

The reader told the story of King Saul, when Samuel announced that he would loose his kingdom to another because he made a burned offering to keep the people happy. What a commentary on our world today! Also at the end, during the Lord’s Prayer, they used the phrase, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” What a beautiful and difficult way to say it.

At the close of the service, I lit a candle for my brother and for a friend who helped him. In the presence of this beautiful, peaceful cathedral, surrounded by so much anxiety and noise, it seemed like the thing to do.

By the way, the Londoners don’t say “South-wark” the way it is spelled. The best I can describe it is “sudth-erk” with the emphasis on the “sudth.” Go figure!

As far as the pizza part of my story is concerned, we tried a local pizza restaurant in the shadow of the cathedral. We had a great salad, some wine and shared a pizza (NOT NY style), but something crisp, aromatic and quite tasty.
##