Steeple Chasing Quotes

“The angels are survivors. They looked on as the glass was smashed, the walls whitewashed, the statues decapitated, the roods torn down, Destruction was nothing new to them, of course; they were born of it. Acorn to oak to angel, these were trees once. They had roots and branches, drank from the earth, knew the thistledown touch of the sky. Birds landed and nested in them, the wings of crows foreshadowing their own coming form. In time, they felt the kiss of the axe, the teeth of the saw, and they began to take shape, to become angelic.”
― Peter Ross, Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church

“I had grown tired of the present with its anger and fear and lies. I was losing faith in the future. I wanted to delve into our deep past, to be buttressed and braced by history. A close examination of churches and the customs associated with them offered, it seemed, a chance to reconnect with who we were, rediscover who we are, and reconsider who we might yet be. The world, I thought, would look better through stained-glass eyes.”
― Peter Ross, Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church