It feels like we have been metaphorically hopping the Alps – going from one high point to another.

Nothing prepared me for the York Minster.  It was so beyond.  Beyond imagination. Beyond comprehension. Staggering.  First the dimensions.  The central tower goes up 197 feet.  The building is so massively tall.  Nothing fits in the camera’s view.  One of the stained glass windows is the size of a tennis court!

We arrived in time for the Evensong service Saturday evening.  The service itself was in the “choir” (a part of the cathedral) those wooden stalls which face each other. The Minster choir was on tour in Italy, so the visiting choir was the 16 part Liverpool Choral Scholars.  (That is a brilliant name as compared to a Boys Choir.  If you were an adolescent boy, you’d rather be part of the choral scholars than the boys’ choir, wouldn’t you?)  They sang through Psalms 65, 66, and 67, sang several responses.  Putting the words to music gave them a potency that bruised our hearts.

All in all, it was glorious.

Afterwards people filed out, but we stayed put listening to the organ until it stopped.  I love that about my husband.  He is willing to experience things up to the very end.  (We usually sit through the credits at the movies and soak in the darkness and quietness before we re-emerge into the bright light.)  The couple next to us also sat and listened.  Later they told us that the wife’s choir would be the visiting choir in August and they were scoping things out.

Still later, we stood across the street, admiring the view of the cathedral, reluctant to leave.  The boys from Liverpool came by in their street clothes.  We thanked them for their music and asked to take a picture of one group of four.