Reader-response

 Some rights reserved by digitalkatie

This space I provide
For meaning
Is bounded by a
Few unimaginative
Words and
A donkey.

Make of it what you
Will.

Ligature - that which ties you

The things that bind us are many and varied. Ties to family, to culture, to faith and to conviction keep us upright and braced against the vagaries of fate. Equally, however, our ties may hold us fast and prevent us from moving with the times even when change would be for the best.

Many years ago (I find myself writing that line more and more), my friend Peter Lenten and I designed a social studies unit on religion. For years we had been taking students to visit a mosque and a church and a synagogue. It occurred to us that, whilst these were important places for our students to keep visiting, few of our students would feel any personal connection with these religions. In fact, in a largely secular school, few of our students had much of a tie to conventional religion at all.

Peter had studied divinity many years before my many-years-ago and he explained that one etymology of the word "religion" is from the same Latin root as "ligature": historically "religion" has a sense of meaning "that which you are tied to". We decided to add one more place of worship into our tour and so took students to the largest shopping mall in our city. What we were interested in helping students explore was the way humans find meaning in their lives and the way that consumerism fills a defining space in the lives of many secular identities.

 Some rights reserved by xiquinhosilva

Shopping malls, like churches and mosques and temples of many creeds and colours, can be inspiring places. As a young traveller I visited St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and stood, neck straining and head stretched, looking in awe up at the vastness of the dome. It was an inspiring experience. Despite my ambivalence about religion and the tensions I felt about the wealth represented in the Vatican, I was inspired by the sense of grandeur and the enormity of the space. This also is a feeling that I have often in Singapore. This largely secular island is filled with architectural extravagances which, despite my reservations about the resources involved, constantly amaze me. Architects place boat-like structures on top of casinos or turn lotus flowers into museums or build waterfalls and temperate rainforests inside vast, glass, refrigerated snow-domes.

http://sg.lifestyleasia.com/features/Entertainment/
singapore%E2%80%99s-latest-performing-arts-
centre-the-star-opens

Last Wednesday I visited a particularly inspiring space. Sharon, my wife, bought tickets for us to hear Nora Jones singing at the Star Theatre. The tickets were expensive but the theatre alone made me feel like we were getting our money’s worth. Vast escalators suspended in open space carried us up through glass floors and into suspended anti-chambers which took us to more escalators and then into a theatre space that dwarfed anything I have ever been in. A black roof dotted with star-like lights and two sweeping mezzanines which seemed bigger than half a football stadium provided space for 5000 people. Nora Jones was extraordinary, and, with the physical force of the music combining with the atmosphere of the theatre, the experience came as close as I think I am likely to get to religion. How interesting, then, to discover that the Star Theatre project is a joint venture between  a mall developer and a church and that each week thousands of Christians ride the escalators past the designer clothes shops to meet in this space.

I remain ambivalent about religion, but once again I have found myself standing in awe in a religious space.