Tag: spirituality

Open the windows!

In the woods, among the trees, in tunnels of green I feel connected to something larger. Nature nurtures my spirituality. This weekend, I will present some of my photography in a church – a spiritual place too. I took it as an invitation: how would I make this church my church?

As an adolescent, I rebelled against organized religion. In agreement, I wrote down quotes that described churches as cold storage silos where every divine spark was extinguished in the chill of authority, hierarchy and stifling dogmas. No, it’s nature I looked upon. Nature is free and does not judge. Wasn’t a majestic tree or a standing stone enough for people to meet God in the past? Wasn’t that as good?

Today I am more moderate. I like to visit churches. But wouldn’t it be nice to bring some of nature into the church as well? To open the windows, as it were? In my exposition, I took this idea as a starting point.

Awesome wonder

I am not the only one who feels inspired by nature. Through the ages, people have found God in trees, brooks, and mountain tops, and written and sung about it. The expression ‘awesome wonder’ comes from a beloved English hymn, where it describes the feeling of meeting something higher in nature. It is a wonder, an amazement at the beauty of creation; but it is also a feeling of awe and respect for a power greater than humanity. Awesome wonder became my motto and the title of this blog.

The feeling of awesome wonder, of amazement in awe, is the core of all religion, according to some: the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the mystery that fascinates but inspires with awe at the same time. At the exposition, on the altar, I have placed three images that resonate with this idea: (wo)man in a cathedral of trees; an elephant, a gentle giant you don’t want too near to you; and the lion with his blind eye that seems to look straight into the spirit world.

If you are near Heumen this weekend, enjoy with me, in awesome wonder, of the majesty of nature in this exposition. And then, step outside and discover something beautiful!

Two chapels

Today we visited a forest- and a field chapel. In the forest we found the chapel Dekke Tönnis – Fat Tony – for St Anthony. For fear of wildfires from candles the entrance was barred. Even more bars made the statue of the saint impossible to photograph. But it was a good place for a picknick!

After hiking through the beautiful forest we went to the Bruder Klaus Feldkapelle – Brother Klaus Field Chapel – a chapel built in 2007 in a very modern style. Parking is a kilometer from the chapel, so it’s a brief pilgrimage to get there. From the outside, the building looks a bit like a climbing wall. Inside, there is room for two people, it’s a really intimate space with big marbles in the walls that let the light in. It’s beautiful and has a very special feeling.

We were awed by the destruction in Bad Münstereifel, still visible after the floods two years ago, but driving through the Ahr valley, we saw that it was much worse there. It’s unimaginable what happened there. We ended the day with Flammkuchen in Bad Ahrweiler, where the marketplace was restored.