In his book “Subsequent Performances,” theatre and opera director Jonathan Miller examines the work of art known as the Belvedere Torso. What is interesting about this 1st century B.C. statue, according to Miller, is that “we do not see it as the representation of a damaged body, nor do we see it as a damaged representation of a complete one.”
I thought of this idea when I discovered The World of Interiors magazine’s profile of designer Nick Kenny’s home in a former church. Deconsecrated seventy years ago, the space is now alive with cool mint paint hues, bottles of wine and ripe tomatoes. An evocative picture of Kenny smoking in front of a lancet window made me realize that the space seems neither exclusively holy, nor completely secular.
Not only has the practice of converting consecrated spaces into homes become more common, but many people seeking a spiritual life have shared ways to make their dwellings holy as well. In “The Path of a Christian Witch” (readers of faith take note: this slim volume is not about hexes or ill will, but rather a woman’s efforts to integrate natural healing, folk medicine and her femininity into a traditional Catholic upbringing), Adelina St. Clair talks about cleaning the floors with herb-infused water. She advises the creation of a “focal point” in one’s house where “meditative peace” is the objective. In “The Benedict Option,” Rod Dreher suggests transforming the family residence into a “domestic monastery.” This includes a schedule of prayer, as well as the idea that a house is not just a home, but a place of “spiritual formation.” A lovely entry on the Blessed Vigil Substack talks about the “real, transcendent” qualities of the Mass, and the author’s desire for her children’s lives to feel similarly incarnational. A home should be a place of physicality, not simply a location for being online. And popular YouTuber Heather Johnson of A Catholic Mom’s Life offers a video on creating a home altar with items from places like Dollar Tree and Walgreens. She’s not Goop and she acknowledges the economic struggle that most people are facing. You won’t find her recommending a $700 candle scented with biodynamically grown lavender harvested by self-flagellating gluten-shunning shamans.
The British magazine Premier Christianity describes the dissolution of monasteries that happened in 16th century England as a “loss of a way of life. The destruction of the monastic houses was an attack on a kind of approach to Christianity which was contemplative, ordered and quiet.” A monastery was a “structured, safe place” in which the spiritual life could “flourish.” When ruins were rediscovered by the Romantics, it was their very fragmentation that made them beautiful, much like the Belvedere Torso. In the 18th century, a “passion for artificial dereliction” arose, according to “The Gothic Revival” author Chris Brooks. People began to build pre-ruined structures, in the same way that pre-ripped jeans are sold in stores today.
It makes one wonder whether the trend of living in deconsecrated churches will lead to completely new church-shaped houses being built. Could these houses, even those inhabited by a single layperson or family, be interpreted as a kind of “safe space” from secular culture? In the same way that artists and hipsters have reappropriated factories and industrial settings for the past several decades, perhaps Christians could claim these “desacralized” spaces as our own — particularly as mainline denominations weaken. I’d live in a former Methodist church in a heartbeat.
So many of the preoccupations and paranoias of progressive, modern culture, whether in academia or the marketplace, can seem risible to a liberty-minded person. But at heart they are understandable impulses that originate in spiritual need. There is something of the lure of ascesis, for example, in even the most ridiculous and superficial elimination diet. To seek a “safe space” — a sanctuary, a location in which one finds unconditional acceptance — is utterly natural. These yearnings are a move away from the freedom that has come to feel overwhelming to so many. Our Christianity, fragmented though it may seem, is no less beautiful than a Romantic ruin or sculpture from antiquity. It is still alive, more supernatural now than ever.