This is another in a series of photos I’ve taken of windows, some ornate, some ordinary…but all providing some prompt for writing. I have no plan — that may be evident — but I write as the Spirit leads. Or, doesn’t. This is my Lenten fast from routine.

This is just a partial view of the major stained glass window in the sanctuary of the Exeter College Chapel in Oxford, England.NAV_2784 Our quick tour of the church allowed no more than a couple of minutes to gape, take quick photos, and then move on to the next campus building. Imagine taking the time though to simply sit in that sacred space and breathe in the Spirit. I would also love to have the opportunity to stand beneath that glorious window in awe of its artistic majesty.

Then I would find a way to sit down to study the window’s stories. It would take more than a few hours — it would take days.

Like so many church windows of stained glass, whether medieval chapels or contemporary houses of worship, this window ‘preaches.” Or, perhaps more precisely, teaches. Some windows tell the story of the life and ministry, the death and resurrection of Jesus. Others include stories and figures from the Hebrew scriptures, and others pay homage to the lives of apostles and saints. We’ve seen parables in stained glass. We’ve marveled at traditional and more modern religious symbols in jewel-like colored glass. The melding of theology and artistry is inspiring, sometimes curious, and on occasion surprising. (Look for astronaut John Glenn in the faceted glass of Washington, D.C.’s National Presbyterian Church.)

While some stained glass simply creates a colorful array of “lightshine” in the sanctuary with no particular design in mind, I like the windows that for centuries have told stories. Before everyone had a Bible to read, or even before people were at all literate, artists painted on the walls of village churches and bits of colored glass were arranged in designs that represented gospel narratives and lessons.

The priest could gather a group of children and point to the nativity story. Heading toward baptism, the candidates for the sacrament might see in a window of the church a stained glass  scene of Jesus arising from the Jordan’s waters as a dove hovers near. Long before there were tracts, flannel boards (yes, some of us are that old), and illustrated Sunday School materials, there were those windows, whose colors have never faded, whose beauty has never been matched by digital projection. And whose designs continue to draw our attention toward the Light.

Besides the stories we see through the artists’ eyes, we might choose one particular section or  design in an ornate window and meditate on it, praying with or without words, letting the image guide our spiritual journey no matter the season.

Churches that have such windows and that still have children in worship might well, during worship, direct the children’s attention to some symbol or person depicted in the stained glass, and help the whole congregation pay attention to what so many have taken for granted week after week. Some churches would have enough “material” in those windows to last a whole liturgical year!

[This is not the only stained glass I’ll be posting in this series, but I thought I’d start near the top: a cathedral in Oxford.]