Church, recycled.

In Texas, there are so many churches that many don't meet in church buildings--they meet in malls, auditoriums, people's houses. It's a little different up here. Seems that there are so few churches that the buildings get sold and made into other things altogether. We've seen old churches made into an art gallery, an Ojibwa tribal museum, a restaurant & bar. Some have the steeples still rising up to the clouds, and stained glass arching over white clapboard walls. I wonder about these spaces. Is there such thing as "holy ground"? How do the Hymn-seasoned floorboards feel about this turn of events? Rafters that absorbed decades of songs and prayers and scripture now watch tourists buy trinkets. Is this a travesty, a commentary on a nation losing it's religion? Is it worse than worshipping next to the mini-mart?

Yesterday we took pictures of the outside of St Paul's Cathedral. Catholic architecture has historically strived to remind people of God's majesty, and this cathedral does it well. This was without going into the building, so my imagination could create whatever it wanted of the space. And it did. I found myself wishing for an architectural revival in my own worship tradition, so I could be small among towering stone and polished wood, surrounded by stories and senses and a sense of awe.

I think places can be holy, where intention and history have somehow affected the materials. I breathe deeply in these spaces and think about a God who is sovereign over stained glass and stripmalls.