Marilyn and I went to Canterbury yesterday to visit the great Cathedral. There has been a church there or near by since the 500’s. The towers of the church dominate the landscape of the city. Sociologists say that the most important buildings of a culture are the most imposing and tallest. Naturally in the United States the most imposing structures are corporate headquarters and banks. Here the Cathedral, the object of the journey of literally millions of people in the past 1500 hundred years, still enjoys the prominence that churches in the states simply do not have. Even though the church in England is poorly attended it’s architecture still has a central place.

As we walked through the town and approached the great entrance gates of the Cathedral precients what do I spy to the hard left: Starbucks of course. Even here we are not immune to the commercial. So I couldn’t get too romantic about the place. However I did feel peaceful. And that’s something to be treasured.