The saying ‘You can take the x out of the y but you cannot take the y out of the x’ is an overused trope but it this instance it happens to also be correct.
You can take the boy out of Catholicism but you cannot take Catholicism out of the boy.
So it is with me. I shed the last vestiges of my Catholic upbringing a long time ago and while I am now surer of the non-existence, than I am the existence, of God, still there is a small part of me that is drawn to the Church. It is a part motivated more by a fascination with place, ceremony and most importantly, memory, but still it is there and it only takes the smell of incense to trigger those powerful memories of a cold stone floor as it touched my bare right knee and sitting on hard wooden benches.
I pop into the local Catholic church from time to time just to trigger and indulge in a little nostalgia. Catholic churches have an interesting architectural and design consistency wherever you go in the UK. Mostly they look and feel like buildings designed and fitted in the 70s; their relative modernity compared to their Anglican brethren being the result of our country’s history of religious intolerance. There is always a heavy emphasis on iconography; stations of the cross will adorn the wall in narrative order telling the story of Christ’s crucifixion. There will be a side alter with candles for offerings to the Virgin Mary and a conspicuous confessional booth placed in such a way as to virtually announce the sins of the occupants to the congregation without revealing the identity of those occupants. And of course there will often be the smell of incense in the air, a perfumed aroma that evokes a sense of both the divine and the opulent.
St. Bartholomew’s in Brighton is Anglican in denomination but it is very ‘high’ Anglican, meaning that it is about as close to the Catholic tradition as you can be without tipping into the truly magical realm of transubstantiation. It represents a religious tradition and practise that is unequivocally dying out in modern Britain. I’m not sure I quite mourn that loss, but I do also recognise that many otherwise positive values will be lost as a result. They can of course be replaced by other things; theology does not remotely have a monopoly on moralistic behaviour.
Perhaps the obvious loss are the people; step into Bartholomew’s on a Sunday around noon and you cannot fail to notice that the vast majority of the congregation are easily into their 70s, some many older. On this particular Sunday, I had decided to pop in to say hello to Freida, the 92 year old lady I had photographed a few weeks previously; my encounter with her is a few blog posts back. As I approached the door I noticed an exceptionally smartly dressed couple about to leave. Around the side of St. Bartholomew’s the church wall borders onto a rarely used road and on that wall there is always brightly coloured graffiti. A window on the building opposite acts as a reflector to bounce the sun in small pools of dappled light directly onto this graffiti. Seeing the smartly dressed couple about the exit the church I suddenly thought how interesting it would be to contrast their gentrified attire against the more urban graffiti. I wasn’t sure I would persuade them into this idea and I confess that System One thinking immediately reached for the heuristic that tells us that people who dress like this are likely to be highly conservative and dismissive of fanciful or auteur creative ideas.
Much to my surprise (and shame) they agreed, though I was reminded that the cold weather would mean I had only a little time to make my image. Patience did seem a little thin but it is hardly surprising as the narrow road does act to funnel the wind and the chill. I pushed that patience as far as it would go to try and get the couple standing in just the right position for the light from the window reflection to fall on their face and just about managed it.
I like this image for a number of reasons. First, I do adore to contrasting narratives especially as the smartly dressed couple’s presentation isn’t just a representation of a particular style but also of a particular set of values that are changing and disappearing. But second, I like this image because it reminds me that System One thinking is indeed lazy and often reaches for the closest heuristic when it should actually get out of the comfy chair in which it loafs and make more of an effort.
This smartly dressed couple were charming, engaging, kind and gentle. I felt a tinge of guilt for having subconsciously harboured ideas that if not necessarily unkind, were definitely inaccurate and unfounded.