Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

On Travel and Copenhagen

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The Carlsberg Glyptotek (Art Museum)

Saint Augustine. The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.


Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. Terry Pratchett
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot
We’ve been in Denmark for a week, and in Copenhagen for 3 days. Since we haven’t bought a return ferry ticket (we drove to Copenhagen from Oxford!!), we are not sure when we’re returning. Thinking in terms of another 3 days here in Copenhagen, one perhaps in Germany, one in Holland. All depends on energy level—and how much we are going to like each other, after being together 24/7 in a camper van for 10 days now!!
Of course, our girls are now 17 and 13, and very adventurous, and well able to do some cooking and shopping and keep things clean and tidy.
                                            * * *
Copenhagen, by the way, is a jewel of a city. Its architecture is vaguely Russian or Baltic, amazing viridian domes and towers.
We wandered the Botanical Gardens and posed besides Andersen’s Little Mermaid, Den Lille Havfrau in Copenhagen Harbour. Spent a day with Impressionists and Rodin at the Jacobsen Art Gallery, and a day in Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, the oldest amusement park in Europe. Beautiful landscaping. A lovely aquarium with fish flying through the water like birds, all together in one huge room-sized tank. Enjoyed shopping in Ilium, a Danish Design store, full of beautiful ingenious things which you wonder (falsely!!) how you ever lived without.

Had a traditional Danish lunch in a traditional restaurant, a sort of smorgasbord–pickled herring, herring in a kind of sweet chutney sauce, preserved salmon, smoked salmon, fried fish, meatballs, pork dumplings, roast pork, chicken salad etc. Enjoyed some, was dubious about some offerings!! But the desserts, rum balls, and all manner of chocolate are decadent and spectacular!!

Copenhagen is a beautiful and elegant capital, surrounded by beaches. I love its domes, towers, and clock towers all in gilt or viridian. Scandinavian churches apparently have roosters instead of crosses on their steeples!!

* * *
Our major purchase this year was a camper van. I love travel, and look forward to the break and adventure after the intense school terms with both girls in an academic hothouse school. So we have been going to Europe over school holidays, 5 to 6 times a year, sometimes.
The costs of travel are 1) Airfare 2) Hotel 3) Rental Car 4) Restaurants 5) Entry fees to museums and attractions 6 Highly optional) Shopping.
We figured out that by buying the motor home, we would no longer have to spend on the first four, but instead have picnic lunches or dinners, and buffet style camp breakfasts, eating out only enough to get a flavour of the cuisine. So far, so good—though Scandinavia is generally breathtakingly expensive, we’ve managed to keep costs down by bringing our own kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom with us!!
There is nothing more relaxing than camping by a lake or the beach, listening to the sounds of birds, and stepping out into nature in the mornings. I really love this way of travel.
Also, there are many things I do not want to sacrifice when I travel. If I sacrifice prayer or scripture, I soon feel depressed and weary, and so I do not. I do not sacrifice blogging, because it’s healthy for me to process experience in writing, and the quiet hour or so is sanity-saving. I get my exercise by roaming strange cities, and try to get some reading done too.
So I enjoy travelling in my own camper because it is relatively inexpensive, and so I do not feel I have to see everything quickly, but can take things slowly, and enjoy myself slowly, staying in a place until I’ve had enough of it. (The first thing we do in a new country is buy Mobile Broadband, so we can keep our family business running on the hoof!)
      * * *
I would love to find a way to monetize my love of travel, so that it could pay for itself. One day, when life is slower, I am sure I will. At the moment, I find the stimulation so refreshing that in many ways, I feel like a new person when I return, full of enthusiasm again.
The old routines which had become stale are sweet again. I cannot wait to return to my routine of prayer—Bible study—blogging—writing—exercise—gardening and, on my return, feel privileged to lead such a life, even though just two weeks before I felt jaded, and wanted a break.
I sometimes wonder if I am not a “real writer.” The romance of writing has faded me for me a bit, and I cannot take a long period, say 60-90 days, of going up to my study and writing every day. I like to break it up with the adventure and excitement of travel.
But “real” or not, writing is the only work which really interests me, and so I will continue in my “unreal” way, with frequent breaks.

Haderslev Cathedral, Jutland, Denmark: a photoblog

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(Guest post by Roy Mathias)

Our first stop in Denmark was Haderslev — a medieval town in Jutland, the peninsula connecting Germany and Denmark.    The first thing that strikes you is the whiteness of the interior:

in contrast to the red brick exterior

As you enter the cathedral, you see this large replica of of a ship, reminding you of the importance of the sea.

The carved pulpit, with what appears to be a baptismal font in the foreground.

A close up of the figures on the pulpit — apostles and mermaids!

The organ with a row of Old Testament prophets:

An unusual painting. When viewed from the front or left one sees the crucifixion

however, if you squeeze against the wall to the right one sees the risen Christ.

We had a picnic and walk near the cathedral.   In Denmark you are never far from a body of water.  Irene near in front of the lake, with the cathedral and town in the background.

The top of another nearby church, with, yes, a rooster on top!

Public spaces in Denmark are an opportunity for sculpture–usually stone or metal.  This one is a the stump of a tree that was already growing in the park carved into a mass of animals.

Another lake by the roadside where we had lunch the next day on the island of Funen (Fyn in Danish).  Note the floating bird houses.  We saw numerous coots with young, as well as cormorants and ducks.

In Denmark on our summer holiday

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  I will try to keep up my blog, as I enjoy thinking and writing—but… regular service will be irregular!
After much debate, we bought a motorhome. Or, rather, Roy bought it. When it came to it, I couldn’t bring myself to go car-shopping, and Roy has quite successfully bought all our previous cars and mini-vans, so he bought this, and we got a professional to check it out.
We love it, and far prefer the adventure of motor home travel to regular hotel and rental car travel. You can keep going till you find an idyllic spot. In Norway (where there is a law called allemansreit) Switzerland, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand etc. motor-home camping or wild, free camping is legal in wild areas, in the mountains, by rivers, or by the sea.
We’ve been renting motor homes for over ten years, and some of our favourite travel experiences have been camping in the Alps, doing our washing up in streams; camping on beaches in Ireland; facing fjords and waterfalls and the tarns of the Hardangervida plateau in Norway, or the vast inland lakes Vannern and Vattern in Sweden. To step out into sheer beauty, but still have a good night’s sleep with books, a laptop, and creature comforts is the best of both worlds for me. Our new (to us) motor home has a kitchen, a shower, a loo, huge picture windows, and a little family sitting area. Love it.
                                             * * *
I love Scandinavia in summer. We flew to Norway and Sweden for the last two summers and rented a motorhome there. This year, since we bought our own, we decided to drive from Oxford to Denmark.
It was an epic drive, but we have listened to some of the Narnia books which I last read to the kids over 10 years ago, and which were enchanting and have a travel feel–The Horse and His Boy and Prince Caspian. And slept a lot (well, not the driver) catching up with our sleep lag.
So Oxford—Dover—Dunkirk, where we slept by a canal, through France, Belgium, Holland, where we slept in farm country, through massive Germany, and then into Jutland, which is the only point that Denmark connects to mainland Europe. Slept by a lake, last night. This sort of holiday is cheaper than flying and renting a camper—but it takes a day longer—but you listen to more books on the way, and arrive rested and in a holiday mood. Yeah, I think we will do it again.
As one drives through Europe–I guess we’ve driven through 6 countries in the last couple of days–globalisation, or rather Americanization is evident. KFC, Pizza Hut Burger King and McDonalds’ everywhere!!  I know everyone hates globalisation, but I must confess I do stop into McDonald’s on the way, for the free WiFi, and a mocha caramel Frappe
                                             * * *
The American business model is generosity. McDonald’s throws in free WiFi, and clean loos, and sells many accidental coffees and Big Macs in the bargain.
In Germany, I was struck by the fact that, though it was a great big successful economy, nothing was free. To get “free” WiFi at McDonald’s, you enter your German mobile phone number, and they send a text to your phone with a code. In other countries, like France and Holland, you just enter and use it!! No German phone, no luck. (In fact, a friendly employee logged us in!!). And in Germany, you are automatically logged out after an hour!! No nursing your latte for hours!
To refill water in the camper at rest areas, you put in a 50 c. coin. To use the loo at gas stations, you go through a turnstile with a 70 c. coin. Etc.
And Germany is the most prosperous European country.
I wonder which model is more profitable. Free loos in petrol stations, and the grateful customer might pick up a coffee.  Or a paid loo and you don’t feel you need to buy anything. If the very American story of Wall Drug is universally applicable, the former should be better. Generosity is good for business as well as for personal relationships. But no doubt, number-crunchers in business schools have analysed all this.
Denmark is a very small country. You can drive from one end to another in 3 hours, so we are hoping to see a lot of it.
* * *
Scandinavia, in particular, and Northern Europe in general, is so pleasant. Polite, considerate people, clean surroundings, a high degree of honesty, and everything so efficient, well-organised, and highly innovative. For instance, parking spots in Haderslev were marked 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 3 hours. Danes have a little clock in their cars, and punch in their time of arrival. And if you are a visitor. “Oh, just leave a note saying when you came.”
Cleanliness, tidiness, order, hard work, efficiency, punctuality, consideration, decency, honesty: All these traits have are integral to the ethical system called Christianity.
Jesus, of course, didn’t directly stress the first six virtues, but Northern European Christianity today, as percolated through the Reformation, Luther and Calvin, is a construct which does not closely resemble the simple , revolutionary and wonderful faith Jesus taught.  

Not that I am criticizing the Protestant work ethic, and “cleanliness is next to Godliness”– Reformed Northern Europeans distinctives which have become synonymous with their brand of Christianity. The world might well be a better place if run on the Scandinavian and Northern European model—but with a smile.
Scandinavian and Northern European countries consistently rate among the happiest in the world. The high emphasis on fitness probably plays a part–physical fitness keeps endorphins high, and gives you a positive outlook on life, increased self-confidence, and disease resistance. And increases productivity. Perhaps their is a connection between their love of outdoors sports and the high wealth.

I see the wealth in Scandinavia, generated by hard work, innovation, discipline, honesty, and inherited income. And feel sad for Africans who probably put in as many hours as the Northern Europeans, but who still struggle for subsistence.

Roy reminded me that Jesus said it’s perhaps harder for those who are rich in this world to wriggle  into the Kingdom of Heaven. And that is some comfort for me. I don’t want these strapping Vikings to be out, but I would rather like the smiley cheerful Africans to be in!!

Images of Istanbul

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(A guest post from my husband, Roy)

A roundup of a few shorter visits — The Topkapi Palace ( that was suddenly closed as we arrived because of a sudden dust storm, that also closed souvenir sellers), the Grand Bazaar, Church of SS Sergius and Bacchus (now a Mosque, and called Small Haghia Sophia), the Basilica Cistern, and sights on the street.

Topkapi Palace (Entrance Only)

Entrance to Topkapi Palace Gardens
A row of tulips (Topkapi gardens)
Entrance of Topkapi Palace Enclosure
(see details below)

Alas we were at the exit very soon

Blue Mosque through the exit from Topkapi
An interesting building being build just outside the Palace
detail of above
Street light near the Blue Mosque
Anita and Irene in front of Hagia Sophia

Sweet temptation

healthier temptation

The Grand Bazaar is one of the world’s oldest and largest covered markets with 61 covered streets and over 3,000 shops — we explored less than 1% before emerging with our booty.  The guidebook advised us not to miss the many surrounding shops, but we had had enough.  It is not a noisy Middle Eastern market with vendors hawking their wares, and is actually more peaceful than most Western shopping malls!

Goldsmith’s street
Souveniers
Ceramics of all sorts — wall tiles, table tops, clocks, bowls, plates, vases, figurines, …  All beautifully painted by hand or machine.
Lamps and textiles
The exit

Church of SS Sergius and Bacchus built by Justinian and converted to a mosque and now known as Little Hagia Sophia Mosque (Küçuk Ayasofya Camii) is in an unpromising residential area near our hotel

It looks like a Byzantine church on the outside

image credit

but like a mosque inside
Lovely soft carpet underfoot
A color scheme for the interior of the domes above the entrance

The Basilica Cistern  (Turkish: Yerebatan Sarayı – “Sunken Palace”, or Yerebatan Sarnıcı – “Sunken Cistern”), built by, you guessed it, Justinian.   The columns are 9 meters tall, and there are over 300 of them, so it is like a massive flooded crypt.  Now there are only a few feet of water, but someone has introduced goldfish.

Most of the columns aresmooth with an ornate capitol.  However, for reasons unknown, there are two with Medusa head bases and one carved column.   Ofcourse, these columns were not desiged to be see by the publish, so they were probably just left overs, and defectives.

Sideways Medusa head base
Inverted Medusa head base
Back at street level tulips everywhere

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Generalife in the Alhambra and Granada

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A guest post by my husband, Roy Mathias

Palacio de Generalife was the Nasrid rulers’ summer palace. When asking for directions, do remember that the “G” is pronounced as an “H”.

Generalife is literally, “Architect’s Garden”.   Approaching the palace, one passes through extensive formal gardens.  As it was winter, we say only the evergreen hedges that partitioned the garden into rooms, and the wonderful walkways paved in traditional Granadian style with a mosaic of pebbles: white ones from the River Darro and black ones from the River Genil.  These two rivers run on either side of the Alhambra.

Here the black stones are placed on their sides to create the impression of a knotted rope or wood grain.
Here you can see the “rooms”.
This one is from the steps of church in Granada.  The greenish tinge is moss and other plants growing in the cracks.

One inside the palace,  the architecture is similar to the Nasrid palace, though not as spectacular.

Irene in the summer palacePerhaps winter is not the best time to see the summer palace!
View from a room onto the gardens — persimmons in fruit.

Flowing water played a prominent role in the architecture.  There was very steep path, paved in the usual black and white cobbled style.  Enery so ofter there was a wider area with a fountain.  On top of the wall, the “hand rail” is actually a water channel with flowing water.

Here you see the cobbles, the fountain, the water flowing in the “hand rail” and the steepness of the path.

Here are some other pictures from Granada.  We stayed  in the Albayzín area, which together with the Alhambra  comprises the UNESCO world heritage site in Granada.  Albayzín is a very very steep, and contains a number of gypsy caves.  In the summer these are a center for flamenco and out door cafes.   Here is  the courtyard from  the pedestrian area at the top of Albayzín.

World heritage or not, you just can’t escape Coke.

These houses are in the “Gypsy area”.   The so called caves, are now normal houses with electricity and ventilation built into the hillside.

A church courtyard.

The River Darro is just a scruffy stream, perhaps 10 feet across.

 

Images from our visit to St. John Lateran, Rome

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A photo-essay by my husband, Roy
St. John Lateran (Arcibasilica Papale di San Giovanni in Laterano) is the Cathedral of Rome, and the official ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome, that is the Pope. However, it is built on a quiet square, surrounded by ordinary Roman houses.

and an obelisk built by Thuthmose IV (ca. 1400 BC), then transported to the Circus Maximus and finally relocated here

Here is the facade and a closed iron gate

The interior decorated from ceiling to floor.

The dome above the apse
This looks almost lime a museum display, but is actually a detail from the ceiling near the altar.
Another detail — it is not easy to take a square shot looking straight up.

And here is view of the whole ceiling above the nave.

The walls — marble everywhere!

The church was empty and we could enjoy the floor which had a variety of simple tessellations that produce a 3-D illusion that the mind can interpret in different ways.  Here is one

The church is attached to to a cloister, which as always has a peaceful beauty:

Notice the variety in the columns

Earlier remains on display:

Dreaming in Strasbourg Cathedral

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Strasbourg’s Pilier des Anges, perhaps inspired by Jacob’s  Ladder

 

Detail of the Pilier des Anges, Strasbourg

 

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Facade Strasbourg Catehedral

Enjoyed Strasbourg Cathedral, a pretty lacy confection. Some of the oldest jewelly stained glass windows in the world inside.

Pretty astronomical clock, and tower of angels.
A lovely sacred space to wander around and dream—like a vast ship, wrecked outside the normal confines of space and time.
* * *
Is God more present in one space than in another?
A theologically absurd question, since omnipresence is one of his defining attributes.
However, we can feel his presence more in sacred spaces traditionally set apart for contemplation.
Perhaps what happens in a pilgrimage spot is not that God descends to earth in a shower of radiance and the earth ever after exudes his fragrance.  Perhaps it is we who make spots of earth sacred when we bring our weary spirits, our thwarted hopes, the whole human freight of grief, and pray–our eyes grown wide and trusting; our being, a concentrated yearning.  Perhaps that yearning–which is a glimpse of better things–makes that spot sacred and lingers in the earth and air and water so that future pilgrims say, “God is here.”
* **
Not in all of them however. Some traditional sacred places—the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, where one is transported on a conveyor belt, or the Shrine to our Lady of Knock, or even the shrine to the mysterious Black Madonna near Barcelona—are monuments to commercialism more than anything else.
 * * *
I think one is more likely to be shaken by an extraordinary sense of God’s presence in spaces set apart for him by people of extraordinary faith.
In these “thin places,” the presence of God can be more powerfully felt–perhaps because people’s faith magnetizes and draws the spirit of God there.
I am going to Ffald-y-Brenin, (described in the interesting book “The Grace Outpouring) one of these special places for a 5 day retreat in December.
                            * * *
I was grounded for week and a half before we went on holiday. I felt mentally exhausted, and decided there was no point in flogging the tired horse of my mind.
And so I decided to just float and let life happen to me. Not achieve or do anything much at all. Just think lazily. Just be.
I read a little in a desultory fashion, I prayed, I reflected.
                            * **
And I realized that the most significant things that have happened to me have happened because of prayer—either the idea was birthed in intense prayer, or intense prayer precipitated a sequence of events which gave me my heart’s desire. Here are a few of these: I decided to write as my life’s work (such as it is), I decided to apply to study English literature at Oxford, I returned to Oxford after 17 years in America, I founded a business which is supporting our family, I decided to blog.
I realized that prayer is the most important and significant thing an individual can do.
Those contemplatives were onto something!
 * * *
Since our family are all Christians (three of us have decided to be, one of us has been brought up Christian, and has not decided not to be!!) we are planning to schedule at least one retreat away a year, and perhaps some weekend retreats to give us the experience of hearing God and realigning our lives with his will in periods of intense prayer.
Already looking forward to December’s retreat in Pembrokeshire, between the sea and the mountains.
* * *

See also The Byzantine Art of Mosaics and the Mausoleum of Galla Placida
http://dreamingbeneaththespires.blogspot.com/2011/04/byzantine-art-of-mosaics-and-mausoleum.html

and

The Ravenna Mosaics at Apollinaire at Classe

http://dreamingbeneaththespires.blogspot.com/2011/04/ravenna-mosaics-apollinarie-at-classe.html

The Byzantine Art of Mosaics and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna

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I loved the bright, perfectly preserved mosaics in Ravenna, and decided to research them a  bit.

In Byzantine times, the greatest gift an emperor could bestow on a dependent town was a few tons of gold, glass and enamel–and an artist. From Justinian’s time, the art became a trademark of Byzantine civilization. As part of diplomatic initiatives, Constantinople’s emperors send their mosaicists abroad–their work can be seen in Egypt, Sicily and in The Great Mosque of Cordoba.

Mosaics were a favourite Roman medium before the advent of Christianity, but not always taken seriously, usually reserved for the decoration of villas.

However, early Christians with a desire to build for the ages, and a body of scriptures which could best be interpreted pictorially made mosaics the new medium of public art in the 6th century.

Ravenna’s mosaics were probably created by Greek artists from the court of Constantinople. Early Christian art was born here.

The early mosaicists sought to serve both art and religion. Using a new vocabulary of images (The Good Shepherd, sacrifice) they sought to duplicate and surpass the sense of awe and mystery still half-remembered from the interiors of pagan temples.

In churches like San Vitale, with their glorious colours, we still see the same light that enchanted the Byzantine artists–the light of the Gospels, the light from beyond the stars.

The Mausoleum of Galla Placida was one of the most magical buildings I saw on this trip.

ceiling of mausoleum of Galla Placida

 Unimpressive from the outside, but rich and ornate from the inside. The vault shows a deep blue firmament glowing with hundreds of dazzling gold stars set in concentric circles. In the centre, at the top of the vault, a cross represents the transcendent God above the heavens. At the corners, are the traditional iconographic symbols of the four evangelists, the lion, ox, angel and eagle.

All the Byzantine churches use a similar technique–the small glass tessera are laid in section, alternate rows set at slightly different angels to vary the reflection of light and give an impression of depth. Colour is emblematic, with gold denoting holiness–or high status!!

A close up. What bright colours for a 1500 year old mosaic!!

 

Elaborate lavish interior
The Good Shepherd