Theatre

— Midweek Meditations:
thoughts, inspiration and encouragement
from ACF community members —

Just before entering Mainz Hauptbahnhof (that is Mayence for the old-timers), the train passes through a tunnel. Right before that tunnel, on the left, comes a smaller train station for local trains and S-Bahn and a view on to several somewhat unsightly sets of piles of stones. The station used to be called Mainz-Süd but was, somewhat grandiosely I thought, renamed “Mainz Römisches Theater” in 2006.

I love theatres, including Roman ones. The partial reconstruction at Kaiseraugst (Augusta Raurica) never fails to enthrall me, and I am pining to see the allegedly best-preserved ones in Aspendos and other places in what is now Turkey. Other than with those theaters, however, I do not have to wait for a regime change to see the one in Mainz. So when my wife and I recently had the opportunity to stay in Mainz one extra day, we finally managed to have a closer look at the Roman theatre ruins. We did not expect much.

Like so many Roman ruins, the theatre had served as a quarry for the medieval city, and the neighbouring baroque era fortress had also eaten into it. During the construction of the train tracks, and the station, in the late 19^th c., the foundation of the stage and the parodos had been documented – and then obliterated. The piles of stones, it turned out, were largely what was left of the foundations underneath the actual theatre building. The whole thing had been more than a hundred meters long, with a 40 m stage. It had seats for 10.000 people. We were, in short, looking at the remains of what had been the largest Roman theatre north of the Alps.

It was a grandiose sight. Our imagination reconstructed the huge scena, and rows on rows of seats seemed to rise out the ground. And it was a humbling experience. How often does it happen that we keep on passing something, or someone, because they seem to hold no particular promise. They are unsightly, somewhat out of our way, seem to be less interesting than so much other stuff. Only to reveal their greatness, their ability to engage, and their beauty, when we go out of our way to look at them more closely.

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The ACF Midweek Meditations
are written by a diverse group of our church members with the intention to seek God’s fingerprints in our lives. They range from somber to humorous and are inspired by all facets of live and faith. Written by ordinary people from all walks of life, they reflect a wide range of Christian backgrounds and spiritualities.

Each week’s text portrays the individual viewpoint of its author. They might not always resonate with everyone, and are not meant to be understood as representing the Anglican Church Freiburg as a whole. Yet, as a church that is aiming to ‘Build a Community of Grace’ we seek to practice learning from and listening to one another.

We pray that these humble ponderings add a small spark of blessing to your week.

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Photo of the Roman Theatre in Mainz by User:Kandschwar, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons