Sanctification–Tintern Abbey, Wales, UK

The chatter of the other tour participants faded behind me as I walked into the embrace of the ancient stone walls arching high above me.  A hush seemed to settle upon my shoulders, enclosing me in a container of silence.  I raised my eyes up and up and up and stone transformed into the freedom of sky.  I later learned that Cornwall and his men had ripped the roof off Tintern Abbey, because it was valuable, as they had methodically stripped every last decoration from every surface they could reach.  They thought they had reduced the building to nothing, and maybe in the eyes of man, Tintern Abbey had become nothing but a remnant of the past.  Instead, I believe they sanctified the area, opening it up to the holiness and incalculable riches of God’s realm. 

The only thing Cornwall left behind, besides crumbling stone, was a small milky-white pane of glass, too high to reach and too common to make it worth their while.  I stared up at the glass and fancied that if my eyesight were as a hawk’s, I would be able to see the reflection trapped in the pale material.  What would I see?  Stone?  Hundreds of years trapped within?  Or the face of God?  I had a sudden urge to kneel, on the mud and grass trampled by dozens of my fellow tourists that day.  To kneel and turn my face towards the unfathomable sky and bask in the holiness infused into the very air.