I'm traveling on a BritRail Pass. They did some official stamping of it in London...lots of rubber stamps and lots of careful writing on it. But after that, nobody seems to care of look very closely. At one place the gates were closed, I questioned an official and they directed me to the opening, no one looked at my pass. On the train, the conductor never looked at the dates on my Pass...he just smiled and said, "carry on!" The ride was great and it was so very kind of the system to inform us that the train would "split" and go two directions and to make certain that we, the passenger was on "the correct set of cars." This announcement was on a loop, like an endless rotation of Nat King Cole songs which I experienced at my hotel last time in London. There was no way to miss the fact that the train was going to "split" but hearing it announced constantly from London to Canterbury made me want to confess to any number of horrible crimes just to have them stop the announcement.
First sight of Canterbury when I got off the train was the Cathedral across the way. The town is touristy and someone said that lots of French tourists were here. I figured the French had enough cathedrals in their own country but no, they are coming across the channel to view the home of the world wide Anglican Church.
Jet Lag and Hunger are the order of the day, since I had arrived just a few hours earlier in London. That hotel is owned by a bunch of Spaniards from Malaga. I told them that I had been in Malaga a couple years ago. They were delighted and asked what I enjoyed most about their city. I mentioned one thing (through my fog of Jet Lag) and they said, but that is "in Seville." "Oh, I meant" and I mentioned another thing we visited in Malaga, to which they said, "that is in Granada." By then I was flustered and generalized with, "I'll bet you guys are big fans of football...which are you....fans of Real Madrid or Barcelona." (As a guy....I knew I was on safe ground with sports....and I knew the Spaniards were totally nuts for their Spanish football teams.)
But when I mentioned Madrild and Barcelona they both looked at me and said,
"Ah, we hate football! We love Motocross!"
I said, "Just give me a room." I had totally struck out with impressing the Spaniards.
So in Canterbury. I strolled down the lane and there was a pub...."The Bishops Finger"
It appeared as if the Bishop was wagging a reproving finger at his flock and that seemed a good place for me to eat. BLT and a 7 Up and I'm ready for my hotel and the Cathedral.
I'm at the Pilgrims Hotel. In centuries past, the faithful would take a pilgrimage to Canterbury, site of the great Cathedral and place of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket the Archbishop many centuries ago. Chaucer wrote of the journey and the telling of tales in "Canterbury Tales" and the result is that I want to visit, French tourists want to visit and half of the town makes reference to the Cathedral and its heritage through the sacred pilgrimage of tourism.
The beauty of the Cathedral is that it is was built in the 1300's. That is also to its detriment. At first glance the place looks all of its 800 years of age.
It costs about $30,000 a DAY to maintain the building. I'll remember that the next time we have to pay $350 to clean our church gutters after winter. But to their credit. They have tuck-pointed a lot of the outside. Other areas are under scaffold for upkeep and the huge stained glass main window is under repair for the cost of $5 million. That's a lot of Pilgrims donations.
But, the inside was one of the best I've seen. And I've seen quite a few.
You can see the grooves in the bottom left of this photo. The candle marks the spot of the crypt...which was destroyed by Henry the VIII. Those Henry's couldn't seem to get enough of destroying poor Thomas. Henry the II murdered him...Henry the VIII destroyed his bones and the pilgrimage centerpiece. His bones were ground up and scattered and distributed to other cathedrals around. The Middle Ages church had strange notions about bones and relics. Anyway, there is one tiny piece of one finger of Thomas buried someone in the Cathedral.
Light and dramatic architecture make this a stunning sight from every angle.
Look at the detail...the above photo is of the CEILING! Heck it is so high that nobody in the 14th Century had good enough eyesight to see its detail. So I figure it was created so tourists and high powered camera lenses in the 21st century could document their talent and dedication to God through their artwork.
I walked and walked. They were having an Ascension Day Service in the early evening so they were about to close the crypt and Choir and Trinity Chapel. My first move was to visit the site of the murder of Thomas Becket. Which took place in the site called the "Martyrdom." I mentioned to the guide that it was rather creepy that Thomas was murdered in a place called the Martyrdom. As Archbishop I would have avoided that spot like the plague. The guide pointed out that the room was not called the Martyrdom until AFTER Thomas was killed. Which is why he's the guide. The guide also mentioned that the Puritans of another century wanted just to tear down the cathedral but instead they went to America. I neglected to tell him that I was a minister in the lineage of the Puritans who wanted to tear this magnificent cathedral down and thus put him out of a job.
So Thomas was killed by the king's men who later claimed they misunderstood the king who uttered, "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" Besides not understanding the word "turbulent" the four knights later claimed they were just "following orders" and the King claimed he did not really mean to have Thomas murdered but was just exasperated and the knights "misunderstood."
Such an excuses as "we were just following orders" and "I was misunderstood" as we all know, were never again used in history to justify violence. In any case, it was tragic for Thomas but great for tourism and a pilgrimage to this great cathedral was a the plan of the faithful down through the ages. Thomas body was put in a crypt and the faithful would come and visit for centuries, their knees wearing grooves in the marble floors.
I told the guide that I had been to a church in India where they too had a piece of the finger of Thomas and it too was sacred and buried in the church. The guide smiled and said that THAT was Thomas the Disciple and THIS was Thomas the Archbishop. If I were a churchman named Thomas today, I would be watching my back. But they both were named Thomas and both dead and both had finger parts enshrined in churches as centerpieces for the sacred. What are the odds?
After hearing the tale of Thomas and his martyrdom and scattering of his bones, The idea that I had just had a BLT for lunch at "The Bishop's Finger" did not sit so well with me.
Peace, Bob
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