Christ Church, Southwark

Christ Church, Southwark, is not a building I would normally admire. It was very obviously post-war, another victim of Herr Hitler’s many bombs. The dull brown bricks and rectangular windows would fail, on a normal day, to warrant my attention. The church’s noticeboard offered ‘silent meditation’ twice weekly. Again, this is something at which I would normally sniff: faith comes by hearing, not vegetating. Yet that day I was feeling tired. It was warm, and I had been jostled about at Borough Market. Somewhere cool and quiet suddenly seemed an attractive place to be. And if it was an uninteresting interior, so much the better. I should have dozed off but for fear of being molested by one of London’s many muggers.

The church was indeed of a poorer calibre than I was used to. Yet it was certainly more peaceful than the cathedrals or City churches with their self-perpetuating traffic of visitors and clergy. Here all was quiet and still. I was in the middle of one of the world’s busiest cities, yet there I sat, hearing nothing but the occasional wail of a siren.

We in rural Lancashire and Yorkshire are better placed than Londoners to escape the noise, hustle and bustle of shop and office. Life is busy, hectic, clamouring and demanding. Those of us who hold position in a church will often find Sundays busier than most. Spending some quiet time alone and with the Lord is a contrast to this, and a relief to the soul. If the Lord Jesus went alone up mountainsides to pray, how much must we depart from the throng and remove ourselves, even for a little while, from life’s rat race?

Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;

Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.

By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;

Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.

-Wm Longstaff, 1882