THE DESIGNATED “PRAYER CORNER” set aside and simply appointed at the time of our church reordering / simplification a few years ago has proved to be what George MacLeod said of the sacred isle of Iona, a “thin place” – a space of real blessing, “where the division between earth and heaven is no wider than tissue paper.” And like Iona, it has become “a touching place“.

Odd, some may think. Isn’t an entire church building supposed to be a prayer space? And come to that, aren’t the members of Christ’s Body supposed to be “a touching place”. Yes, and yes. But the setting aside of times and places and special spaces for prayer has the effect of precisely that! – causing us to think, to ask the questions, daily, about what the “space” of life is for, and our “place” within it. And that requires some silence, some stillness, a place “just off the thoroughfare”.

I went to pray with someone in my beloved Chester Cathedral the other day. Now let me first say that I understand that cathedrals need funding, and I understand that at least some of the thousands – millions – of visitors to cathedrals appreciate a “welcome centre”. But it seemed odd that, complete with clerical collar, I should be approached and asked “Just a walk around, or worship?” - and a little odder still that my companions, struck by the general noise and bustle, and visitor headphone sets  - should have felt the need to ask me “is there anywhere quiet where we can pray?” (There is a specially designated place in Chester Cathedral, like most cathedrals, actually, in this case beyond the Quire and the High Altar, in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel). But I find myself asking “how on earth did the founding Benedictines manage without headphone sets, or the parish churches without the ubiquitous PowerPoint, or a laptop in the Scriptorium?”

And I guess that’s why we, too, recognised a modern-day need for our own “prayer corner” in the midst of Bramhall’s parish life. We need the reminder to be still sometimes, to “hush the noise”, to come before God in silence, leaving the action plans, and the church diary, and the shopping lists, and the printed prayer requests to one side for a while. And what we have observed and reflected upon is that surprisingly large numbers of people enter into that space and place … and in the silence remember who and what they wanted to bring before God, and they discover something afresh of Light in their own lives as they pause to light a candle. Of all the many reasons for delighted exclamation we hear as people leave – or enter – our newly (and really very simply) reordered Church, the one we hear most frequently is “isn’t it wonderfully quiet?” …

“Just a walk around, or worship?” – good (life) question that, for all of us.