Thought for the week: Barrie Mahoney’s window of opportunity

‘The excited chatter from my pupils immediately ceased.’

Glass, with its transparent quality, can serve as a metaphor for clarity and purity, and the interplay of light and glass has long captivated human imagination. In many spiritual traditions, including Quakerism, light symbolises the presence of God – the Light. Symbolically, it represents the clarity that spiritual seekers strive for in understanding the mysteries and purpose of existence.

I experienced this for myself during a visit to Buckfast Abbey. I last visited over thirty years ago, with a party of schoolchildren, and I will never forget the impact that the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament made on my pupils and me.

The window was created by an artist and Buckfast monk, Charles Norris, in 1968, and was made in the Abbey’s workshops. It is made of chipped, roughly-hewn glass. It is breathtakingly beautiful.

Stained glass has adorned places of worship for centuries, harnessing the transformative beauty of light to convey sacred meanings. Its kaleidoscopic hues remind worshippers of the various paths that are taken in seeking a connection with God. The radiant beams become a tangible representation of God’s presence, and invoke a sense of awe and reverence. The play of light and shadow is a form of dance that mirrors the ebb and flow of spiritual experiences.

Glass allows the passage of light without obstructing its essence, which for me symbolises the veil-like nature of boundaries between the physical and the spiritual. It helps to serve as a reminder that, like light through glass, the divine presence can be felt and experienced throughout our lives. The transparency of glass encourages us to embrace openness and honesty, and to seek guidance towards a deeper understanding of our own lives, and the purpose that we seek.

The excited chatter from my pupils immediately ceased when we entered the chapel. We sat in awed silence looking at the window, and I believe that we all experienced something very special during those few minutes together. We left the chapel and Abbey in silence, and there was very little conversation as we left the Abbey grounds.

Sitting in silence, just as I had with my pupils thirty years earlier, bathed in the Light from this window, I reflected on my spiritual journey. Glass, light and the Spirit converged to transcend the material world, and invited me to explore my beliefs more deeply. Glass became a metaphorical portal, allowing me to connect with the essence that unites all of creation.

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