The Question Mark Inside

This is the culmination of artist Martin Firrell's project on the meaning of life, The Question Mark Inside, at St Paul's. As explained in my previous blog, Martin has canvassed the views through his own website of what gives life meaning, transformed them into light and projected them onto the architecture of St Paul's. The tragedy is that it will only be there for a week, as there is not the funding to make it last longer.

Music: The Thief on the Stair, a 'secular hymn'.

Update:

The Question Mark Inside inspired my latest column for the Church of England Newspaper, reproduced below.

Suicide has been on my mind a lot recently. It is not just the kind of dramatic suicide described so vividly by Rupert Shortt in his new book about the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. I've also been thinking about the chronic suicide that could be said to describe a life of excessive, eating, drinking and smoking, having attended the funeral of such a person, a member of our extended family, on Monday.

My own brother committed suicide more than 20 years ago, so I understand a little of how the Archbishop must have felt when the young woman he was trying to help rejected this assistance in the most uncompromising fashion possible. I tried also to help my brother, although this help was unasked for by him and also, ultimately, refused in a manner that left no mistaking his intent. I have always believed I could and should have done more, and done it sooner. And as a result I carry, even today, some blame around inside me for his death.

The suicide of a relative or close friend does strange things to a person. In my case it hardened me. It was so upsetting, so deeply and fundamentally violating of a life that I and my siblings and parents held as dear as our own, that a fastening of the heart seemed at the time the only way to survive. Of course I cried. We all did. But some part of me refused to become completely lost in grief, because it felt too risky. One of the most frightening consequences of what my brother Owen did was the sudden insurgence into my own mind of a desire I had never had before, a desire to follow him into what could even appear to be a blissful, peaceful oblivion.  I experienced the terrifying temptation to emulate his rejection of life for the hope of something better, or at least easier. It was this, and the fear that my irrational self might prompt me this way in spite of the wisdom of my better, rational self, that propelled me into analytic psychotherapy for seven years, a process that worked, because I am here to tell the tale.

His death and all that followed from it were also key among the factors that led me back into active church attendance.

Since then, when I hear about a suicide, one of my strongest responses is anger. There is also grief of course, and compassion for the relatives and friends who get left behind and who always, but always, wonder if they could have done more. I can't help feel anger though that the suicide, who often (although my brother did not), leaves a note or message urging the mum or dad or friend not to worry, saying it is not their fault, that things are better this way. Have they no idea?

But last week, something got behind these fortifications. The BBC broadcast a programme about this subject, presented by Michael Portillo, who described the devastating and unforgettable consequences of the suicide of a friend of his, a brilliant young musician, while still a schoolboy. My husband and I watched it with deep fascination, me because of my family history, and he because he ended up at Oxford and became close friends there with some of the schoolboys who were in the film, many of whom have gone on to be successful in arts, politics and other areas of British establishment life.  Unlike with my brother, and other suicides who are clearly mentally ill, there seemed absolutely no reason for this boy's decision to take his own life, beyond simply not wanting to live any more. He felt the burdens of the whole world on his shoulders, and couldn't bear it any more.

This was very moving, and I began to experience another emotion towards my brother and aunt and Chris and all the others I've known of who've taken this route: forgiveness.

At St Paul's this week, I went along to the launch of one of the more extraordinary art exhibitions of the year, Martin Firrell's Question Mark Inside. This involves projections onto the dome, the west end and the inside of the cathedral, rather like a modern Book of Proverbs, a form of living blog. One after another, the sayings of people who had contributed to Martin's project were projected through the dark onto the architecture of Christopher Wren's masterpiece.

I am sure everyone who saw it will have found their favourite.

Mine was: 'Grief deepens our experience of being alive.' 

Comments

[andrew holden]

"St Thomas had a question mark inside- but that is before he recognised the Risen Lord, by the wounds that He bore."

What happened to "faith seeking understanding"?

I can't abide the "faith believes nor questions how" irrational approach to faith. I remain a rather curious human being always asking questions: when? where? how? and, most of all, why?

I'm pretty sure that Thomas kept his question mark - and so should we all.

[Fr. Van Windsor]

He sure dressed up the comments that I read on his site,but it is lovely.

[Chris Gillibrand]

St Thomas had a question mark inside- but that is before he recognised the Risen Lord, by the wounds that He bore.