Photo credit: Kailee Rose Photography
July is the month we say goodbye to writers who are retiring or moving on to new adventures, and this is Olivia’s last post. She has been writing with us since August 2018.
Stained glass: picture it in your mind. Your imagination probably wanders to vibrant hues, the sun cutting through at different angles and casting colors on the stone of ancient walls. I thought of Sagrada Familia and the myriad of rainbows it holds inside. I did not think of grey.
That was, until I met my favorite stained glass window.
The Five Sisters window in the York Minster is the “largest ancient stained-glass window in the British Isles” per the Guinness Book of World Records.1 And when you stand beneath it, you can genuinely feel the impact of its presence, both physically and historically.
The window is composed of five panels of grisaille (grey) glass, making it stand out among the other colorful scapes in the cathedral. It is so massive it’s impossible to ignore, taking up the entire wall of the north transept in its magnitude. The window was constructed in the 13th century, and the original intention isn’t known for sure, but aligns with Jewish art tradition.
In 1925, two women raised the money to have the window restored and dedicated as a national memorial to the women who lost their lives serving during World War I. One of the women at the helm of this effort was Helen Little. She spoke of the “untiring devotion” she witnessed exhibited by the women who made every effort and sacrifice to care for the men fighting in the war.2 Little and Almyra Gray (her counterpart in the memorial effort) were moved by these untold stories. They were determined to honor the women who sacrificed during the war.
Though the window glass is grey, it lets the light through in an equally stunning way. Even if you don’t know the history of the window, looking at it makes you feel something. Little shared a vision she had of the window, where she saw her two late sisters beckoning to her from the North Transept, the window opening up to reveal a beautiful garden. The window to heaven.
When we received the preview of our wedding photos, there was a photo of my bridesmaids that stopped me from scrolling. The picture captures all five of them in black and white, watching me walk down the aisle. In each of their faces is a different story of our sisterhood. I was struck by the history contained in each friendship: my first ever and forever friend, my precious little sister, my blessing of a college roommate, my travel buddy and confidant, and my soul sister. Each of them has buoyed me during a different era and in a way only they could. Each of them is essential to the composition of my spirit.
Each of them has known me for upwards of a decade. We have walked through the darkest depressions, picked one another up off the floor, lamented about family dramas, laughed until we cried and cried so hard we laughed. Over the years, we’ve watched silly movies and picked up ice cream and sang in the car and talked on the phone at all hours. We’ve traveled the world and shared takeout at home and harmonized and hugged. My five sisters. Letting the light into my soul on my greyest of days.
It’s not equivalent to the sacrifice of those women during war, but it is a sacrifice to dedicate so much of our lives to one another. And I wouldn’t want to miss a moment. I love hearing the seemingly mundane happenings of their lives, getting to run errands with them and talk about marriage and caring for our dogs and the ups and downs of motherhood. Getting to dream with them and care for them. It’s a sacrifice we would all make time and time again, because the best sacrifices don’t feel like a loss. They are easy to surrender; they are born in love.
I think of that photo as their memorial, though Lord-willing we have many more days of friendship ahead of us. It is a reminder of our untiring devotion to our friendship—to being the community the Lord has designed us to deeply crave. A reminder that light can come through black and white photos and grey stained glass and the darkest of days.
1“‘The Jewish Window’ in York Minster and blind ‘Synagoga’ in a church in York,” Patrick Comerford
2“The Sisters Window for the Sisters,” yorkminster.org
Olivia graduated from Calvin in May 2018 with a double major in business and writing. She now works as an editor in Nashville, Tennessee and is eating her way through the restaurants of her new town. She enjoys weekend trips with friends, petting other people’s dogs, and drinking coffee like a Gilmore Girl.
