Space and Time and .....God?

No disrespect to anyone with interests in any of the above. I personally am neutral, my husband not exactly but regardless of that the exhibition we attended the other evening at Lichfield cathedral didn't really do much to provide a wow factor for any of them. It was billed as Space, Time, the Universe and God, or words to that effect, depending whether you looked at the online info or the posters advertising it in the cathedral grounds.

The cathedral is great in its own right, awesome in fact, and it's really good to see the church sector coming up with ideas to get the community's attention (other parts of the country are doing it too in churches and cathedrals, each with their own ideas) but ...but ...it was disappointing, for us at least, because we'd expected more. P, who is not religious at all, had expected to see something that might explain how the church saw its position in relation to time and space travel and the universe in general but there was nothing at all along those lines. There were big screens showing old footage from NASA with Neil Armstrong's moon walk and that sort of stuff, lots of atmospheric lighting effects 

and music to match and larger areas of floor coverings made out of rubber to look and feel like the surface of the moon. 

People seemed excited walking on it, sitting on it, some even lying on it and taking time to absorb the, ahem, I'm not really sure what. We walked over it and past it. I'm over simplifying a bit maybe and I guess as other people seemed riveted on some of the displays and amazed at the various lighting effects it must have been enjoyed by many but for us it was a bit of a let-down.

I took some photos but it was so dark inside and most of them are useless.

On the way out, there was a brightly lit area, P said it was a bit like an airport sales floor, where they were selling souvenirs and paraphernalia, you could even buy a space suit for the kids, oh yes very commercial. P was impressed with that, he liked the entrepreneurial attitude, but he didn't feel he'd learned anything about how Time and Space and God fitted together. So he wasn't converted:)

On the way out, just before we hit the bright lights of the sales area, P bumped into a child in fact nearly tripped over them, he stopped to make sure the kid was ok and patted his head and said sorry. An older face looked up at him and P could make out whether it was amused or angry and it was dark and people pushing from behind to move onwards so he didn't stop. When he caught up with me he said he thought he'd just nearly knocked a midget over and he felt terrible, especially as he'd patted him on the head, he wanted to go back and find him and apologise but I told him no point, he probably wouldn't find him in the crowd. He mentioned it a few times afterwards, funny how some things bother him, he's a softy really.

So great cathedral, great idea, not the best execution at least in our opinion. Oh and there were hideous queues to get it in, we'd booked tickets for 9 pm but didn't get in until after 9.30 pm. Ah well that's British queuing.

Have a good week.

Ronnie
xx