The Way of Life sculpture (2001) by Jonathan Clarke, commissioned by the Friends of Ely Cathedral. Photo by Graham Kings, 20 April 2026.

It is easy to miss,

          as you enter the Cathedral

          of Eel Island.

Immediately on your left,

          above a small door,

          framed in two tall arches,

Hangs The Way of Life sculpture,

          squiggling like eels,

          meandering up to the Cross.

‘Such a Way, as gives us breath’:

Such a Way, as takes our breath.

Wide at the bottom,

          dark and pitted,

We are called

          to follow the Way of Jesus,

          as the path narrows

          and gains in

          height and light.

From the source of his Cross,

          springs a river,

          ousing downwards,

          accumulating alluvial

          silt of the Spirit,

          depositing it,

          through the estuary,

          into the sea of

          incoming pilgrims,

          on the labyrinth,

          near the font,

Anointing them, unawares.  

          (c) Graham Kings,

20 April 2026, Ely Cathedral, near the River Great Ouse,

expounding ‘The Way of Life’ sculpture (2001),

by Jonathan Clarke, commissioned by the Friends of Ely Cathedral.

On 17 March 2001, during the service dedicating the installation of the sculpture, a setting of George Herbert’s poem, ‘The Call’, was sung by the choir. The poem includes the line, ‘Such a Way as gives us breath’.

For my poem, ‘Perambulating Paths’, on the maquette of this sculpture, and my other poems in this series on Jonathan Clarke’s sculptures, see here.

For the background to the commission, by the Friends of Ely Cathedral to Jonathan Clarke, to create The Way of Life sculpture, see chapters 11, 12 and 13 in Jeremy Begbie (ed.), Sounding the Depths: Theology Through the Arts (London: SCM Press, 2002. Chapter 12 is an interview with Jonathan Clarke by Vanessa Herrick.