Sisterchicks Go Brit! by Robin Jones Gunn Page B

Exeter College, lay a manicured lawn in a large rectangle surrounded by a walkway. The antiquated buildings that encased the courtyard were three stories high and crafted from pitted sandstone that gave the buildings a soft, buttery color in the morning light.
    The students all seemed to be headed for the classrooms inside the rectangular buildings. None of them was going to the more ornate building on our left. It looked like a chapel, with tall, arched windows and a pitched roof. We took several steps up and were greeted by organ music. We inched forward, wanting to make sure a service wasn’t in progress.
    The organ music suddenly stopped, and so did our footsteps. We paused, looking at each other, wondering if we had been found out.
    “Begin again, if you please. From the last bar,” a distant voice above us said. The organ music, emanating from the chapel’s backbalcony, started up again. We couldn’t see the master or the student, and we didn’t think they could see us. But we could certainly hear them, and if Kellie and I got too loud, they would be able to hear us.
    But we weren’t loud. We were as reverent and tippytoey as church mice. All we wanted was a quick peek. And, oh boy, did we get what we came for!
    The long, narrow chapel was the most beautiful and intricately decorated either of us had ever seen. The elevated pews were positioned on the right and left sides, leaving the center aisle open and the front of the chapel ablaze with breathtaking, soaring, stained-glass windows. The sunshine lit up all the vibrant colors in the stained glass, and dozens of images of biblical accounts danced before us, highlighted with heavenly brilliance. Kellie and I stood with our hands folded in front of us as we tried to take it all in. It was much more exalted than the simple sandstone country chapel Lewis attended that we had visited yesterday.
    I felt awe and reverence. The chapel didn’t seem overdone or gaudy. I loved the arched ceilings, the dark wood, and the artistic balance of all the elements. Someone who loved details had decorated this chapel. More likely it had been decorated and redecorated many times over the hundreds of years of its existence. One could sit here and worship Creator God for years and never notice all the intricacies in the tapestries or the small details in the carvings on the pews.
    Cautiously I took several steps into the worship area, then paused behind a wooden lectern that held a large Bible. Affixed to the front of the pulpit was a glimmering bronze eagle with its wings back and its face to the altar. With my hands now clasped behind my back, I saw that the large Bible was open in about the middle of Jeremiah. I scanned the verses before me, curious if the Bible was only for display or if it was actually read from during a service.
    I tried to imagine what it would sound like to hear God’s Word read aloud in this jewel case of a chapel. Would the words, read in a rich British accent, match the beauty of the stained glass and the deep hue of the carved pews?
    Squaring my shoulders, I tried out a sample reading in a low voice, using my best British accent. The organ practice in the balcony behind me certainly would drown out my reading.
    “Jeremiah chapter 24, verse 7. ‘I will give them hearts that will recognize me as the L ORD . They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly.’ ”
    The organ struck a major chord and held it. I smiled. This was good stuff. I was beginning to develop an affection for the majesty built into the worship in a formal “high church” setting that wasn’t always evident in the more casual church we attended. What did Opal call it? A contemporary service?
    I liked our church and the familiarity of it. I wasn’t interested in changing. But I felt a growing curiosity over what it would belike to worship in a place like this chapel. The verse I had just read felt richer, somehow, reading it