Museum of St. Dymphna – The Conversation
William Stride
January, 2008
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In the evening of our arrival day in Gheel, Belgium my sister and I paid a visit to the
Museum of Saint Dymphna. We arrived at the museum on foot, after dark; we fought fierce
winds and pelting rain all the way there. A friendly woman at the front desk explained all about
the museum and what was in it. I must admit I didn’t expect to find anything interesting there
but I was wrong. Both my sister and I moved on through the museum and became quickly
separated.
In the many rooms there were reconstructed kitchens, libraries, exam rooms and many
artifacts from several hundred of years of medical and psychiatric care. I came across a metal
framed bed with leather restraints anchored to the side rails. I was saddened to know that they
too had to resort to restraints. Suddenly I heard the far off voice of a woman singing. Her voice
was so pure and angelic I thought that there might be a church service going on somewhere at
the other end of the museum. I walked down the hall only to come face to face with a stereo
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Museum of St. Dymphna – The Conversation
speaker that was bolted to the wall up near the ceiling. I was disappointed to have been fooled
by a CD player. I continued moving through the museum.
Finally I reached the far wing of the museum where there was a large room devoted
only to Dymphna. The first thing my eyes fell upon were two almost life size ceramic statues
depicting the beheading of Dymphna at the hands of her father. I was startled by the sight of
her kneeling in prayer as the sword came down on the back of her neck. This was not the
picture of a typical beheading, not the one I imagined; the highly religious tone of this scene
changed my whole feeling about the legend of Dymphna.
At that point I realized I was not alone. There was a teenage girl standing against the
wall, silent and motionless with her gaze directed at the floor. She seemed to be in some sort
of meditation. I decided not to disturb her and began moving around the room looking at the
different pieces of artwork and artifacts. In the center of the room I came to a solid silver
model of a cathedral that was about half the size of a bath tub. As I examined it, the presence
of my silent neighbor became stronger and stronger. I could no longer ignore her so I spoke.
“What is this?” I asked.
“That is a shrine made to honor Dymphna; they sold it during the war and then bought it back
afterwards . . . They never should have sold it”
“Did they bring a curse upon themselves?”
“No, but they never should have sold it”
I asked her something else and her reply for the third time was “They never should have sold it”
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Museum of St. Dymphna – The Conversation
I asked her about life at the hospital.
She left her spot on the wall and came over to where I was standing.
“Back then they thought that the illness was due to not being right with God. The patients
were made to pray every day for hours”
I thought about people I knew in Boston and how when crisis had struck their lives they
had naturally and without external direction turned to prayer. I thought of the Harvard
professor William James’s bold accounts of people being healed through miraculous
experiences. There was no doubt in my mind that prayers are answered or that miraculous
healings occur.
I said “I have had some religious experiences before and during this trip”
“Oh, I don’t have religious experiences, I am too young”
From the way she spoke I sensed that she was someone who had a deep yearning for that rite
of passage into the spiritual realm via a religious experience.
“So Dymphna showed such great strength in the face of death she became a saint?”
“In those days it was a disgrace for a woman to marry her father”
I thought her statement to be too soft and off the mark “It’s worse than that, it’s sick, he was a
very sick man!”
She accepted my correction.
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Museum of St. Dymphna – The Conversation
As she stood before me the light was very bright. She had red hair, brown eyes and was
much shorter than me. I thought that she must be about fourteen or fifteen years old. I was
more than old enough to be her father.
There I was, on a dark stormy night in the far wing of an otherwise deserted museum
night alone with a teenage girl in the room devoted to Dymphna. It crossed my mind that this
situation seemed like some kind of divine test and I became a little fearful. I prayed that any
carnal desires be quelled for the remainder of the conversation. Suddenly it seemed that we
were standing too close to each other and there was an unharmonious tension.
I looked over at the ceramic statues at the entrance of the room; the ones depicting the
beheading of Dymphna. I said “What’s this?” and motioned in the direction of the statues. The
statue of Dymphna had her gown trailing several feet behind her and out of the folds a gargoyle
was emerging. I pointed at the gargoyle and asked:
“What’s that?”
“That’s the devil”
“What is he doing right now?”
She broke into convulsive laughter and with a big smile on her face replied “He’s looking at us!”
“Exactly. . .”
“I see gargoyles in nearly all of the art dedicated to Dymphna, what do they mean?”
“Where there is a gargoyle present it represents a dark moment . . . temptation”
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Museum of St. Dymphna – The Conversation
“I bet that was a dark moment”
At that point I felt the conversation expire; I remained silent for a moment.
“Well, I have to go where my parents are”
I nodded in approval and told her how nice it was to meet her. We shook hands and she
walked off down the long corridor. I was left wondering about many things but I did know that
if I had a teenage daughter I would want her to be like the young woman I met that night in the
Museum of Saint Dymphna.
William Stride – January 8, 2008
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