Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, May 17, 2026
Ellen and I were in Florence, Italy on Easter Sunday, and we saw an unusual celebration. A wooden tower on a cart was pulled by white oxen into the square in front of the cathedral. Thousands of people crowded the adjacent streets the allowed a view of the square. In the middle of their Easter mass, inside the cathedral, the archbishop lit a fuse on a metal dove mounted on a wire. The metal dove flew down the cathedral nave, out the front door, and lit another fuse on the tower. The dove then flew on, back into the cathedral to where it started. What followed were fireworks on the wooden tower, and they erupted in sequence over the next twenty minutes: rockets and explosions and catherine wheels and fountains and more. It was an unusual feast for the eyes and the ears and the nose. The Florentines have been doing this every Easter for over 500 years. Once a year on Easter, the Scoppio del Carro, the exploding cart.
Is this extravaganza of sight and sound and smell a spiritual event? Perhaps for some. A tourist experience? Probably for many others. It has stayed on my mind because it led me to wondering what it takes to help people have a spiritual life.
Many people I know don’t have spiritual lives. They don’t consider themselves as ‘being religious’ or ‘being spiritual.’ They don’t belong to a church; they don’t go to church. If they think about those of us who do, I imagine they think of us as decent enough folk but perhaps a little silly or foolish. Foolish to believe such things, whatever it is that we believe. I’m not disparaging such folks who don’t have spiritual lives. I’m simply observing that they don’t see a way into the spiritual realm.
And what is it that we believe, those who us who do have spiritual lives – or lives with a spiritual dimension. I’m not sure I can say, quite varied things, I’m sure, but I can’t really say even about myself.
Still, I think we believe this, in common. We believe there is something deeper, something beyond, something very important. What we can see, touch, taste, feel, smell: let’s call that the ‘ordinary‘ world. Or the ‘sensible’ world. Is it the ‘real’ world? A lot of those who don’t have spiritual lives think so, I think. But those who do have spiritual lives think there is something quite real, maybe more real, beyond what we can see, touch, taste, feel, or smell. There’s something even more real that is deeper, that is beyond or beneath or above this ordinary world.
Is this making sense to you?
So I ask myself, is there a door to that deeper reality? A portal? Let’s call it that: a portal that we may not see until one day we do. And the more we make use of it, the more confidant we become that the portal is there – and there for everyone.
Many people live in a world where there is no such door, or where there appears to be no door. Perhaps we have to provide it – not just for ourselves but also or especially for them. What might that portal to the spiritual realm look like?
Earlier in our spring trip to Europe — and I hope you’ll forgive me if I talk a little more about how we spent our spring vacation — we spent a day in Reims, in the north of France, to visit the cathedral there. It was once the site of coronation for all French kings. The current cathedral was largely built in the 13th century, so it is over 800 years old. It is one of the pinnacle accomplishments of high gothic architectural style.
That cathedral has arched and vaulted ceilings; it has towers, and flying buttresses on the sides. All these features allow considerable height. The cathedral interior is over 125 feet high floor to ceiling, and the towers and spire are more than twice that height. The cathedral soars above every other building in the city. It can be seen for miles from every direction across the surrounding fields. The exterior view is awe inspiring. The interior height draws you into a different reality. It was intended to be a portal to a spiritual realm, completely different from everything else in everyday life. It does this by providing an experience of heightened sensory experiences of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
There are other features of this cathedral, and all the other high gothic cathedrals built in the late middle ages that give you sensory experiences that transport you. At one time, the floor was a labyrinth to walk in prayer. The towers contain bells that weigh over 10 tons. There are gorgeous stained glass windows. There are hundreds of carved statues on the façade and on the sides. Inside there are relics of saints and candles. At religious services, likely incense will be burned. The spiritual realm may be beyond our five senses, a different reality, but this portal is constructed to draw you towards a different reality. In sight and sound and smell, even in feel, the cathedral seeks to carry you to a different reality, a spiritual reality, one that lifts your eyes and your hands and your heart and your mind to God.
On our travels in March and April, we saw other versions of this same high gothic setting: in Paris, at Notre Dame (now completely restored after a terrible fire); in churches in smaller cities and towns in France and Germany and Switzerland; and in soaring cathedrals and basilicas in Italy in Milan, and of course in Florence where we saw the Scoppio del Carro, the explosion of the cart in front of the door to the cathedral.
The cathedral is not the whole of the portal. All the delight for the senses that comes with high gothic cathedrals provides a setting for a religious ceremony, the Mass. The Mass is a recreation of Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples. That celebration of the Mass – the Eucharist – is intended to be the essential part of the portal to the life spiritual. Those who consider themselves Roman Catholics have been celebrating the Mass, providing that portal together, for two thousand years – since the decades after the crucifixion.
As Friends, as Quakers, we don’t use that kind of portal. Quite explicitly, even defiantly not. What you see and hear and smell and touch here in this Meetinghouse, in any Quaker Meetinghouse, is something quite different. There are no vaulted ceilings, no soaring heights, no spires, no stained glass, no sculptures, no pictures, no relics, no incense. And of course there is no ritual – no communion, no saying the same words week after week. Our portal depends on minimizing sensory experience of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
We do have a portal, I think, but it’s a quite different one. Our portal is, in appearance to the five senses, the complete antithesis of the portal of a high gothic cathedral and the Mass. Simple surroundings, no sensory distractions, a gathering in silence. Here at Durham Friends, we do allow for some hymn singing and a prepared message. But on the whole, we don’t provide an experience that is larger or richer or more ornate than everyday life; we provide an experience that is quieter, emptier. It is meant to be a very different kind of portal to the life spiritual. Instead of going higher, we provide a portal that goes within.
The creation of this different portal, this turn away from the high gothic cathedral, started with Martin Luther and the Reformation. Quickly, all over Europe, people sought something more authentic, more personal – more intense because more simple. They created alternative spiritual bodies — today we call them denominations. No group carried that simplification farther than Quakers.
Does our portal work better? For some? If so, for whom? That’s what I’ve found myself thinking about. I know it works better for me. What about those others who do not see the door?
We should remember that the Reformation was proceeded and, I think, propelled forward by the invention of the printing press. On our trip, we visited the site of that invention in Mainz in Germany. In a space of a few years, the Bible became available to own and to read to thousands and then tens of thousands and then millions more people. Having the Bible to read was itself a different kind of portal.
The high gothic cathedral provided a setting for telling the gospel story visually, in paintings and sculptures that told the story. With the printing press, ordinary people began to read the Bible for themselves. They didn’t need those paintings and sculptures – and maybe those paintings and sculptures undermined the Bible. For some Reformation protestants, the Bible became the one true portal, the one and only.
But remember, not for Quakers. From the beginning, Quakers revered the Bible but viewed the Bible as only a “secondary” rule, one subordinate to the inward, immediate revelation of the Holy Spirit — the “Inner Light”. As Robert Barclay put it: we esteem Scripture as a “true and faithful testimony” of the Spirit, but insist that the Spirit—not the Bible—is the “primary ground of all Truth”. Listening to the Inward Teacher became our portal.
This is our portal to the life spiritual: seeking the Holy Spirit (by whatever name) in simplicity and stillness and silence.
It seems to work for us, few though we may be in number. But does it work for the many? Does it work for the many, and does it work for those without a spiritual life? Does it work in an era of graphic novels? Of logos and brands? In an era of reality TV? In an age of cell phones? In a time of social media and Artificial Intelligence? Those are the questions I found myself thinking about.
How do we provide – how do we find – a portal to the deeper spiritual reality. I hope you’ll ask, regularly, is this a door to a deeper spiritual reality? And I hope you find one.
