Glastonbury

The Abbey walls stand broken, abandoned, and forlorn, their monkish inhabitants long gone. Henry’s little snit with the church was perhaps good, ultimately, breaking the grip of the Church on the country and allowing more freedom, but it is sad to think of all those places of devotion and refuge ruined, their inhabitants scattered, their lovely and laboriously crafted stone buildings reduced to garden decorations for royally favored lords. The strongest feeling I get in or about the Anglican churches we visit today, along with the sense of long, formalized tradition and pretty but irrelevant ritual, is a sense of embarrassment about the past. At least the Roman Catholics, through the burning, wars, and persecutions, have maintained their passion and authority. Here it seems that Henry overturned it all. People have to make their separate peace with the tradition and live spiritually passionate lives despite the history. [2003]