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A Sense Of Spirit
The Spirit is the one who
testifies,
And the Spirit is truth.
- First John
In every land there is a place
Not subject to the town;
The outpost of an exiled King,
Who’ll one day claim his crown.
The poorest here are welcome,
And daily fed within
With bread and wine and radiant hope,
And washed of grimiest sin.
The Pope! How many divisions has
he got?
- Joseph Stalin
The differences most Christians have with each other are cultural,
not theological. A man dying of thirst will take water from the
first well he finds. The structures that house believers differ as
much as their language and customs, but share in common a yearning
for the sky, based on a firm foundation in their native soil.
Churches hold an
enduring appeal for artists. The rounded flesh-colored buttresses of
the little iglesia in the plaza south of Taos, New Mexico
were favorite subjects of Georgia O’Keefe, not generally known among
the faithful. Her nearby Ghost Ranch below the painted rocks at
Abiqu, however, is now a Presbyterian Retreat Center.
The cathedral at
Wells, England has been described as music frozen in stone.
Looking up into the soaring vault above its crossing made me dizzy.
I could not believe my eyes when first I saw there engraved a date
with only three digits in it.
Wells Cathedral |
La Purisima, California |
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San Luis Rey, Oceanside, CA |
Highway |
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Carmel |
Country Churchyard |
Whether in Paris, Rome, or Cottontown, Tennessee people have always
given the very best of whatever they had to build their churches.
From the dusty barrios of a forgotten Spanish realm, to Norman
Cathedrals in England, to a modest spire on a white frame Cumberland
Presbyterian Church which sprang from the Great Revival on the
Tennessee frontier, people have used the art of architecture to
build their soaring hopes of eternal life into these structures. A
country churchyard such as the this one on a quiet hill above Dry
Fork Creek is a beautiful place to await it.
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