More on the Dove & the Blue Boat Window

Earlier this week I reflected on my ambivalent feelings about stained glass windows in churches. On the one hand they are costly to create and maintain, and they close sanctuaries off from the world around them. On the other hand they can be beautiful, evocative, and in earlier centuries they told the scriptural story in images for those who couldn't read the words -- or were prohibited from doing so. 

I mentioned seeing a new window, recently installed at the church of St. Mary's in Wickenhoe, Essex which represents a boat and a dove, which represents the Holy Spirit. Another piece came my way about the same installation so I thought I would share the link, which has some fascinating photos about the creation of the window and an explanation. I find the connection to the refugee crisis and perlious crossings of the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel to be  poignant. The boat was a Christian symbol before the cross, so it is a meaningful, and this takes the imagery from a "stained glass" context into the world we live in. 

Here it is, along with some of the text: https://andyljbrooke.com/2022/05/12/the-dove-and-blue-boat-window/

 The small clinker boat is a type that would have been built locally, a type that James helped build when he was an apprentice boatbuilder. The boat has come to signify many things to him. He says “the boat is a vessel that carries my artistic ideas. For the refugee a boat can represent a way to be carried to safety. For a religious person a boat can represent a place of worship and salvation.”

The Holy Spirit is often represented as a dove. In the famous paintings by Piero della Francesca and Leonardo Da Vinci of the Baptism of Christ the dove flies straight down from the heavens. The dove is also a symbol of peace, with its olive branch it offers Noah hope when adrift in the great flood. The Ark is a sanctuary in the turbulent seas. The boat is an ancient symbol for the Church and still resonates. The word Nave comes from the Latin Navis for ship, the word we use for the central portion of a the church.

“Dove and Blue Boat” is an updated and very topical version of an ark – a sanctuary in troubled times – with the biblical dove bearing an olive branch of peace from out of the sun. James says he likes to think the window depicting a small vernacular blue boat and dove represents love, community, hope and salvation, from the hardship and anxieties of climate change, pandemic and war. It has been a privilege to be involved with this project.