In January we experienced a threshold moment for Bradford Cathedral as we said thank you and goodbye to Dean Andy and Ali Bowerman. Andy’s leadership has shaped us through a season of courage, change and imagination. In early March we will experience another as we welcome Jonathan Triffitt as Interim Dean. Between these two points there is a space that opens up which, if we’re honest, we are tempted to rush through. “Nothing to see here!”
In between spaces are rarely comfortable. They expose habits, unsettle assumptions and resist easy narratives of progress. Yet the Christian story is shaped by them: wildernesses, thresholds, waiting rooms of the Spirit. These are not gaps in the story but places where attention is sharpened and where deeper questions begin to press.
It feels more than coincidental, then, that one of our themes for this year is Borders and Belonging, exploring themes of migration, community and integration. Borders are not only lines we cross; they are experiences we inhabit. They mark moments of arrival and departure and of welcomes offered, withheld or tentatively tested. Belonging, too, is never a finished state. It is practised, negotiated, sometimes lost and patiently re-learned.
February’s programme invites us into that work. The World Reimagined exhibition continues to draw people into difficult and necessary conversations about history, memory and whose stories shape our shared life. There will be a special Saturday for families to further open up these questions in ways that are playful, serious and surprisingly profound. Lent begins this month, not with answers but with ashes, on Ash Wednesday (18th February) and on 28th February, Bishop Toby will lead a free Lent Retreat, offering space for reflection and prayer in the great wilderness of Lent, a time of profound ‘between-ness’.
If you are part of the Cathedral community, a civic partner, a supporter or simply curious, this is a good moment to come closer. Not because everything is clear, but because it is not. We invite you to share this season with us, to dwell for a while in the questions, and to help us practise what belonging might look like when borders are not denied but honestly faced.