Today we visited St Michael's and All Angels in Hawkshead. It has been there since around 1200. It was enlarged in 1300 and again in 1500, and the building today is much as it was 500 years ago.
The latch on the door is a bit tricky, but I got inside and loved the silence and peace of the place. Then the latch rattled, and rattled again, followed by a knocking on the door. I went over and opened it from the inside and in the unlit vestibule the gentlemen said "Thank you Father." Then he saw me and smiled, and went and lit a candle, which he placed next to the one I had just lit, and then to the pews to pray.
There's much to say about the church interior, another longer post later. For now, it was one of those interludes that was unscheduled (we'd gone looking for the tearoom), but there's something amusingly poignant about opening a church door from the inside when someone is so audibly rattling and knocking, to get in. There's a parable there, somewhere, which I leave you to find
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