But There Was Something Else

I have spent the last week in London, and what an amazing experience it has been. My first passport. My first time out of the country. I loved the architecture, the history, hearing different languages, and visiting places I had only read about.

The Royal Opera House deserves its own post. It was the reason I came to London. Words would only diminish what that evening means to me. For now, I’ll simply say it filled my heart in a way I don’t quite have words for yet.

But there was something else.

We visited St. Luke’s Church. During World War II, it was bombed, leaving only some of the walls still standing. Instead of rebuilding it, the space was transformed into a garden. There are benches where people can sit and read, think, feel, write…or just be.

I don’t know how else to explain it. I just knew I was on sacred ground.

I felt honored to sit where generations before me had laughed, cried, prayed, celebrated, mourned, questioned, and hoped.

As I left that little church, I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who had worshipped there before the bombs fell. The walls were broken. The roof was gone. And yet people still came there to sit quietly among the flowers.

It reminded me that maybe sacredness isn’t something a building contains. Maybe it’s something that can survive destruction.

Perhaps that is what sacred places do. Even when they are broken, they continue to offer refuge.

I found peace in that little garden. More than that, I found hope. If peace can be restored and discovered in the ruins of a bombed-out church, then maybe we are never too broken or too damaged to find peace ourselves.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved sitting on benches. They ask nothing of us. They don’t expect us to hurry. They simply offer a place to pause, to notice, to think, to pray, to question, to hope…or to just be.

If we sit long enough, we may find beauty. We may find hope. We may find solace.

As for me…

I found God.