Weekday hospitality in an Anglican Cathedral.

By Helen Watson White in Articles

Helen describes being there to welcome visitors at St Paul's Cathedral in Dunedin.

Why would I choose on the next-to-shortest day to sit in St Paul's Cathedral for four hours with hardly anyone around (but snow forecast for later), wearing all my winter clothes, and with the choir's sole CD for company? In a word, hospitality.

Our hospitality tradition goes back to Abraham hosting three strangers at Mamre. Excavation of early synagogues found apartments, built to host travellers, ranged along their walls. In Amsterdam I saw an old church with similar apartments along its outer wall. (Perhaps they were residences, but they might have been for people passing through.) It was near the Anne Frank museum, which also tells a hospitality story: in the cramped attic above a working warehouse, Dutch locals - braving Nazi prohibitions - hosted a small group of Jews for months that turned into years.

Back to synagogue-history: Dunedin's first purpose-built synagogue (now the Temple Gallery, 29 Moray Place) had/has two parts: a big worship space, with Hebrew lettering and symbols, and next-door an equally large social space, which now houses exhibitions. Upstairs is accommodation for artists on temporary residency with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Perhaps that apartment was meant for visitors too, as when the synagogue was built (1863) people were on the move, following the gold finds in Central Otago. As southern warmth has always been appreciated, so has Jewish-style hospitality, for instance at Olveston, where Dorothy Theomin regularly invited out-of-town students for tea.

Most churches provide hospitality on Sundays, but some go further, staying open during the week for allcomers. I have warm memories of inner-London churches like St Martin-in-the-Fields, where the doors are open, chandeliers lit, and downstairs (alongside a tourist shop) cheap hot meals are served: comfort food like bread-and-butter pudding, soup, or macaroni cheese.

But things have changed in Dunedin. Although I don't think the 1863 synagogue has suffered, both the second, grand synagogue in Moray Place (now gone) and the much less assertive one in George Street have been the subject of graffiti attacks, as has St Paul's in the last five years. The consequence was that both synagogues were closed to the public, and the Cathedral doors are not now open (as they used to be all day, all year) without someone in attendance. While there is a paid person in the afternoons, morning duty is filled by a handful of volunteers. In addition, from Spring to late Autumn, rostered volunteers welcome people morning and afternoon and show them around.

The tourist season brings thousands of people from all over the world (St Paul's being the country's second-most-visited Cathedral after Christchurch), and in the school holidays (not just in summer) Australian and North Island families often make a pilgrimage here. Then there are Dunedin hosts bringing groups of exchange students -- for instance, from Korea -- or bringing their family, or visiting colleagues, or just themselves. As I meet an amazing range of locals and foreigners in this ministry, I am privileged to hear their ordinary and extraordinary stories. Sometimes they reveal that our conversations have filled a need, whether or not they are about going-to-church.

The conversations may be intentionally about theo-logy (God-talk). Or they may be intentionally NOT about theology; for some that's too touchy. For me, they are ALL about theology - whether in the form of politics, social issues, or the weather (as it often relates to climate-change). Even "just chatting" is of value. Methodists know a good chat is as necessary to life as food and drink. I don't think we underestimate the size of the hole left in Dunedin's heart by the loss of our Friendship Lounge.

It pains me that food and drink can't be offered in St Paul's upstairs, which is the only part open now. Some days, however, people are welcomed into the nave by heart-warming cooking smells from downstairs. That's because two special people are currently teaching clients of Anglican Family Care - women and children - how to bake fish pie, beef up soups, make hot stuff of mince and rice.

You never know who's going to come through the door, upstairs or down. The Unknown Visitor might be the Angel at your Table. Or, as for Abraham welcoming the strangers under the oaks at Mamre, the Unknown Visitor may indeed be God.

-- Helen Watson White

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish weekly bulletin, July 4, 2010.