More thoughts on the Cathedral

Still thinking about the Cathedral and reading some of the idiotic comments on the Press pages. Some people just have a trigger knee-jerk reflex, I guess. Or just don't listen to what's been said. Of course I had to wade in with my two cents worth too:

The idea of a prayer garden really appeals to me. Retain the foundations, pillar bases, and pavement, rebuild the spire in wood or steeel and replace some of the bells in it. Plant in and around the ruins. New growth symbolic of new life. Retain the huge tree to the south of the ruin as a memory tree, so that people can leave flowers and messages of comfort there. Have a bell at ground level that people could ring (along the lines of the Peace Bell in the Botanic Gardens). Have a small open air altar where the high altar was, just a simple block of stone from the old Cathedral, perhaps with the original foundation plaque. Somehow reconstruct the rose window at the west end and the apse windows at the east end. Erect a new cloister around a pool or fountain, to give warmth and shelter to visitors. So many beautiful and meaningful things can be done, the ruin can be our memorial and continue to play a part in the spiritual life of the city. This will ensure that at least a small part of the heart of the city stays green. Don't worry about the tourists; they will come to be inspired and see how we have remade our lives. Look at Coventry Cathedral; the ruins include and transcend the past. Don't go back - take the past, cherish it, but build it into something new.

 So I spent part of the day redesigning the site as a prayer garden, using the footprint of the Cathedral. The existing footprint is very strong and formal and would make a beautiful foundation for a garden.

It would be great if the Church set up a website so that we could see the deconstruction process. I'd like to know what is salvageable, for example, is the font still in one piece? It would make a wonderful fountain in the Living Waters Courtyard that I'm planning for the prayer garden.

Christchurch Cathedral

Christchurch has always been a city of argumentative, bolshie citizens. In the past, lengthy and vicious quarrels have raged about such public issues as a rail tunnel, a stadium and a road through the park. Today's news that the Anglican Diocese has decided not to rebuild Christchurch Cathedral will no doubt provoke much more debate and personal nastiness. The Bishop of Christchurch has already had to listen to slurs on her character, along the lines of such objective and reasoned thinking such as "go home, Canadian - you can't decide for us, it's not your Cathedral, you're not a Kiwi". Already we feel as if we must pick a team: do you agree to the desecration of a national icon or do you look forward to that which does not yet exist? Whichever side you take, you can bet that someone will want to punch your face in for expressing it. Which creates a wonderful warm atmosphere of co-operation here in this little city at the end of the world, where we all work together for the future...blah, blah, blah. Councillor Keown believes that we should "defy the earthquakes" and rebuild the Cathedral as a symbol of that defiance. I'm not sure it's possible to "defy" a natural event of such magnitude, any more that we could defy a hurricane or tsunami. (It was pointed out to him that perhaps a way to "defy" catastrophe is to move on and think again and rebuild anew.)
        It's terrible that the earthquakes had to happen, but something new and wonderful can arise from the ruins they left. The real challenge for us is to make sure that we do not end up living in the ugliest city in the world, full of car parks and anonymous blocks of concrete. 
        Perhaps we could leave the foundation of the Cathedral, the pavement and the pillar bases and plant a garden in and around the ruins. Build a garden monument for the Garden City; it will ensure that at least one spot in the CBD does not become a car park, and will contribute to the greening of the square. The idea of rebuilding the Cathedral as it was I think is unrealistic - I believe that those who are pushing for this do not realize how damaged the building and the land underneath it is. The basement is full of sewage, water and liquefaction; the soil is a wet sponge.
        I feel sorry too for Bishop Matthews. People forget that she has a whole diocese to look after, with many compromised buildings in it. Her job is daunting. And in liturgical terms the Cathedral as it stood was not an ideal place for modern worship practices; the old Victorian idea of the church service is now gone. It used to be that the celebrant performed the Eucharistic ritual in sacred isolation at the far end of the church, barely visible to the people, while the hoipolloi of the congregation were kept well away in the nave, so that they could not "pollute" the Sacrament. This has been replaced by a more inclusive ceremonial. The Cathedral incumbents acknowledged this in the nineteen-eighties when they moved the high altar down under the nave crossing, to be with the congregation not above or separate from them, to support a community of faith, not a hierarchy of the faithful. A new cathedral would reflect this.
   There is the question too of whether the Cathedral had become little more than a tourist attraction. My apologies to those members of the congregation who worshipped there, but some of the proponents of a replica rebuild cite the reason that we should rebuild "because it's the thing tourists come to see". Is the Cathedral a sacred site or a populist one? If the reason to rebuild is for the tourist dollar then all Christchurch people should pay for it, not just the Anglicans of the city.
A complex question, then, with no easy answers that will please everyone.