Peace drums In Europe
It was impossible to walk back far enough to see the building in perspective because it stood in its own tiny, almost private, square. Yet this Romanesque church that the guidebook had ignored demanded attention in its bulk and its beauty. A note on the church door scolded parents for allowing their children free rein within the church and regretted that, as a result, the church could only be opened for a few hours each day.
My companion had every right to be a bit sick of churches and abbeys but I quickly calculated that, doing all the other things that the day promised, we could still return this way during opening hours. We were rewarded. Impressive as it had been from the outside, within, this church soared. I do not have the words to describe the sense of nobility of the interior. All stone, and the colour—so light and golden—gave a feeling of spaciousness and grace, as if this building, so heavy outside, could simply float away. The place was stunning. One of those unexpected treasures that justify travel.
Even better, this church was in use. Churches work for me when they are used as their builders thought they would be used. There is a sense of time and effort fulfilled; they justify themselves and their makers.
When we entered the building, we found three rows of women at prayer. Sandwiched together when they might have spread out—six to a pew—for the warmth, I supposed. They were praying for peace, these women, in the middle of February, with the news from Washington resolutely bad. In a tiny French village, in a 12th-century church, in the face of a 21st-century war. If the church took my breath away, these women’s prayers forced me to sit down to think.
I had taught a unit on women and war all those years ago at university. Women and war had been a theme in two books I had written on the impact of war on the Australian people. I had worked on exhibitions around this idea at the Australian War Memorial and I had spoken about it on the radio often enough. For me it was a concept, another way of doing history. Here it was real.
When my brother had been conscripted for national service there were women from the Save Our Sons movement outside the Swan Street depot when he reported there to