Sacred Spaces

The speaker in Larkin's poem "Church Going" stops off at an old church while out on a bicycle ride. While there he finds himself imagining the daily life of the church, wondering if it is truly abandoned or just momentarily empty as the surrounding village is employed in its daily labors. The speaker wonders if,perhaps "...after dark, will dubious women come/ to make their children touch a particular stone;/Pick simples for a cancer; or on some/ Advised night see a walking dead one?" (lines 28-31).
All of these things, and other mentions of routine rituals that occur in churches, let the reader know that the speaker is has a background in church, and is long familiar with the scenes of major life moments that often occur in the confines of a church, such as "...marriage, and birth,/ And death, and thoughts of these- for which was built/ This special shell" (lines 50-52).
However, for all of the speaker's obvious familiarity with religious ritual and habit, it seems to be a habit the speaker has fallen away from, as do more and more of modern society. The speaker points this out poignantly in the lines "A shape less recognizable each week,/ A purpose more obscure..." (lines 37-38). These lines speak to the loss of the church's place as the center of community life, as new modes of communication, such as telephones and computers, have taken the place of face to face conversation, and the central activity of life has gone from being in the home, where one was surrounded only by family and church was a great social event, to the workplace, where one is surrounded constantly by a crush of social behaviors and home is a welcome respite and a place to escape the constant press of humanity.
However, as a tree-ceilinged clearing in a silent woods, or the Parthenon with moonbeams gleaming through, or Stonehenge at sunrise will cause most people to feel at least a momentary catch in the breath, a reverence for things larger than themselves, so do beautiful, if crumbling, old churches bring forth a feeling of awe, of respect for the sacred events and the places tied to them. This seems to be what the bicyclist in the poem is feeling, as he goes through the motions of those things one does upon entering a church with little more than mechanical attitude, not thinking of the meaning of the acts so much as absorbing the holy atmosphere of reverence and history in the place even as he acknowledges the physical decay of the building and his own, and others, spiritual decay. He looks into the superstitious past without sentimentality but does seem to regret that humanity is rushing toward a faithless future without the pomp and circumstance of historical precedence and tradition.