![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Stranger in a strange land
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 08:38 pm.
Today I walked into St. Basil's.
I hadn't been there since 1980. At that time, having recently learned how construct stained-glass windows, I and my best friend (who was studying from me) took to traveling around L.A. and neighboring counties to view church windows. St. Basil's has the only example that I know of in L.A of three-dimensional windows. They're a geometric design, great sharp planes of colored glass held in dark metal came that extends from the top like the church's bones. The windows have shape, something rare as most window artists design in two dimensions. So we went and dug on the changing shapes of the colors as we moved along the aisles, but I found the place too stony and cold, the altar figures too abstract and disturbing. I like my churches traditional, thank you, and this place had clearly been built sometime between 1948 and 1969, an attempt to impose the design fads of the time on something that is timeless. But the windows were cool.
My lawyer's office is across the street from the church, and when I came out of the building today, I looked across the street and saw those windows, and was drawn to go inside. I'd only been inside a Catholic church twice in the last 18 years - this was an unusual impulse for me. Not that I have any objection to them; they're beautiful places, for the most part; I just feel no need to go in one. And I didn't exactly feel a need now. I wanted to go in, but I have no idea why.
Immediately I felt ill at ease because there was no holy water stoup that I could see. I had to make the sign without water and that felt wrong. (I later found out that the only stoups were on either side of the central doors, which were closed, and were in recessed nooks in the wall, making them hard to find. Another example of that annoyingly modern, unfriendly design.) It was surprising how the lack of that cool touch disturbed me.
A word about that: I'm a pagan, through and through. However, I believe in the power that places of worship accumulate whether in cathedrals or caves, and temples of all kinds are places for respect. So when I entered the church, I made the required obeisances, as I was not interested in annoying whoever or whatever might be hanging around. Once I was seated at a pew, I looked around.
The ceiling is very high; it's a tall building. The walls are that pebbled-smooth that's intended to convey great age, a somewhat depressing brown-gray tone. The windows are not as impressive as they once were; I think they need cleaning. Except for one cloth hanging in muted Byzantine color and style near the altar, all the figurative art was abstracted into untouchability, very little actually human about them. In the vestibule there had been two huge figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, both of them showing very little detail except for their thundering faces. In the main church, the altar area was dominated by two huge plaques, easily eight feet long, of amber-colored wood, each carved with an enormous pseudo-Byzantine figure of the saints. Someone had a problem with warmth.
I whispered some prayers to be polite, and looked up towards the altar, hoping for some connection from the central image. None such luck. The figure was another abstraction, an amalgamation of twisted pale wire in the vague shape of a human, obscuring the cross itself enough that it was hard to identify the piece at all. Horrid design decision, one I can't imagine offering anyone any comfort. The place seemed determined to be unpleasant at all costs. Even at the banks of candles, I found that had I wanted to light one, I'd have had to buy it at the rectory office before putting it in line - no more donation box.
In my few forays into the land of my fathers' gods, I'd always felt comfortable even though I'd never really belonged, if you know what I mean. I grew up there, after all, and I know my way around. I know exactly what I'm expected to do and say, and what I'll get for it. But this was the first time I've felt...shut out is not exactly the word for it. Invisible, more like. There wasn't anyone there when I spoke. No, that's not right - what I said wasn't being heard. That's it. As if I was looking at all this through some kind of shield, maybe. It was disheartening.
I still don't know why I went in there. The likeliest reason is for a little connection, a touch of nostalgia. To say hi to the Virgin, also, but I couldn't find her. (Was she on one of those big plaques? I couldn't tell.) Instead I just ended up bewildered and unsettled, a strange feeling. I wonder if it's just that one particular place, or whether I've traveled so far along my own orbit that that world is now on the other side of the sun, where I can't really see it anymore, a far country known from memory.
ETA: Earlier today, I had no idea that this was going on, but it does fall into place. The slow seep of Protestant fundamentalist-style worship and attitude into the Roman Catholic church is something I find upsetting in the extreme, and I haven't been a Catholic in 32 years. If this is where the Church is headed, it's no wonder the connection I once felt is severed.
*sigh* I remember Sister Lucida, my 8-grade science teacher, and I think of brave Matthew Fox, who risked much to change things, and all I can think is How sad.
Today I walked into St. Basil's.
I hadn't been there since 1980. At that time, having recently learned how construct stained-glass windows, I and my best friend (who was studying from me) took to traveling around L.A. and neighboring counties to view church windows. St. Basil's has the only example that I know of in L.A of three-dimensional windows. They're a geometric design, great sharp planes of colored glass held in dark metal came that extends from the top like the church's bones. The windows have shape, something rare as most window artists design in two dimensions. So we went and dug on the changing shapes of the colors as we moved along the aisles, but I found the place too stony and cold, the altar figures too abstract and disturbing. I like my churches traditional, thank you, and this place had clearly been built sometime between 1948 and 1969, an attempt to impose the design fads of the time on something that is timeless. But the windows were cool.
My lawyer's office is across the street from the church, and when I came out of the building today, I looked across the street and saw those windows, and was drawn to go inside. I'd only been inside a Catholic church twice in the last 18 years - this was an unusual impulse for me. Not that I have any objection to them; they're beautiful places, for the most part; I just feel no need to go in one. And I didn't exactly feel a need now. I wanted to go in, but I have no idea why.
Immediately I felt ill at ease because there was no holy water stoup that I could see. I had to make the sign without water and that felt wrong. (I later found out that the only stoups were on either side of the central doors, which were closed, and were in recessed nooks in the wall, making them hard to find. Another example of that annoyingly modern, unfriendly design.) It was surprising how the lack of that cool touch disturbed me.
A word about that: I'm a pagan, through and through. However, I believe in the power that places of worship accumulate whether in cathedrals or caves, and temples of all kinds are places for respect. So when I entered the church, I made the required obeisances, as I was not interested in annoying whoever or whatever might be hanging around. Once I was seated at a pew, I looked around.
The ceiling is very high; it's a tall building. The walls are that pebbled-smooth that's intended to convey great age, a somewhat depressing brown-gray tone. The windows are not as impressive as they once were; I think they need cleaning. Except for one cloth hanging in muted Byzantine color and style near the altar, all the figurative art was abstracted into untouchability, very little actually human about them. In the vestibule there had been two huge figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, both of them showing very little detail except for their thundering faces. In the main church, the altar area was dominated by two huge plaques, easily eight feet long, of amber-colored wood, each carved with an enormous pseudo-Byzantine figure of the saints. Someone had a problem with warmth.
I whispered some prayers to be polite, and looked up towards the altar, hoping for some connection from the central image. None such luck. The figure was another abstraction, an amalgamation of twisted pale wire in the vague shape of a human, obscuring the cross itself enough that it was hard to identify the piece at all. Horrid design decision, one I can't imagine offering anyone any comfort. The place seemed determined to be unpleasant at all costs. Even at the banks of candles, I found that had I wanted to light one, I'd have had to buy it at the rectory office before putting it in line - no more donation box.
In my few forays into the land of my fathers' gods, I'd always felt comfortable even though I'd never really belonged, if you know what I mean. I grew up there, after all, and I know my way around. I know exactly what I'm expected to do and say, and what I'll get for it. But this was the first time I've felt...shut out is not exactly the word for it. Invisible, more like. There wasn't anyone there when I spoke. No, that's not right - what I said wasn't being heard. That's it. As if I was looking at all this through some kind of shield, maybe. It was disheartening.
I still don't know why I went in there. The likeliest reason is for a little connection, a touch of nostalgia. To say hi to the Virgin, also, but I couldn't find her. (Was she on one of those big plaques? I couldn't tell.) Instead I just ended up bewildered and unsettled, a strange feeling. I wonder if it's just that one particular place, or whether I've traveled so far along my own orbit that that world is now on the other side of the sun, where I can't really see it anymore, a far country known from memory.
ETA: Earlier today, I had no idea that this was going on, but it does fall into place. The slow seep of Protestant fundamentalist-style worship and attitude into the Roman Catholic church is something I find upsetting in the extreme, and I haven't been a Catholic in 32 years. If this is where the Church is headed, it's no wonder the connection I once felt is severed.
*sigh* I remember Sister Lucida, my 8-grade science teacher, and I think of brave Matthew Fox, who risked much to change things, and all I can think is How sad.
