faith

Both Here and There

Steve · December 11, 2011 · 11 Comments

MIssion Churchyard Cross, Steve Givens 2010.

He was but two,

the age they call “terrible,”

the age that elicits terrible questions too.

He stood at the crib at the church’s entrance;

he glanced up at the cross in the church’s sanctuary.

Then Aidan asked his mother,

“How can Jesus be both here and there?”

from “Aidan’s Question” by Bishop Robert Morneau, A Splash of Sunshine and Other Glimpses of Grace, Orbis Books, 2011.

Aidan’s question resonates deeply in me in these days leading up to Christmas. For especially now we Christians face this great, painful and glorious paradox of the wood – the wood of the stable and the wood of the cross. Back in my undergraduate days, I wrote this (very) short poem:

Onlookers and faces in the crowd

Steve · November 23, 2011 · 8 Comments

They are the faces in the crowd, some standing on tiptoe to get a glimpse of this condemned prophet or rabble-rouser, take your pick, as he stands mute before the authorities, as he flinches but never complains against the searing heat of the lashes, as he bears the weight of the beam across his shoulder blades and feels the bite of the sheer mass and the splintered wood.

On the Road: To stand and receive where JFK was laid

Steve · October 15, 2011 · 2 Comments

The next in an occasional series of travelogue/photo essays on seeing and experiencing intersections of faith, history and culture — on seeing new and old communities of faith.

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I attended morning mass at one of my favorite places, the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, just a few blocks up from DuPont Circle where I was staying. Because I travel to D.C. a few times a year to attend meetings of higher education public affairs folks like me, and because DuPont Circle is “home territory” for many higher education organizations, I have come to know this area pretty well. And St. Matthew’s has become my parish home when I’m there.

To be honest, in a city filled with architectural gems, from the outside St. Matthew’s has little in its facade that would draw you inside. It lies just a block off busy Connecticut Avenue on Rhode Island, tucked back from the street in such a way that you might miss it if you didn’t look up. But inside, its collection of side chapels, statuary, and mosaics are inspiringly beautiful and prayerful. My favorite mosaic is that of a different gospel writer, St. Mark, elbow on knee and fist beneath his chin, urging us all to enter into conversation with him on the life and death of his friend. The shape of the interior (at least to my untrained eye) is more of a square than a rectangle, drawing all nearer to the altar. (In fact, it is in the shape of a Latin cross, 155 feet long by 136 feet wide). To see more of the Cathedral, visit its online tour. [Read more…] about On the Road: To stand and receive where JFK was laid

On the Road: A house built on solid rock

Steve · September 17, 2011 · 7 Comments

The next in an occasional series of travelogue/photo essays on seeing and experiencing intersections of faith, history and culture — on seeing new and old communities of faith.

butte — Outside Sedona. Photo by Steve Givens

Sue and I just returned from a week in Sedona, Arizona, celebrating our 31^st anniversary surrounded by some of God’s very best handiwork. Located in Arizona’s high desert country under the southwestern rim of the Colorado Plateau, Sedona is situated at the mouth of spectacular Oak Creek Canyon and surrounded by massive red-rock formations. It was a glorious week of rest and walking the area’s myriad hiking trails that drew us right up to the bases of the rock formations with names like Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte and Boynton Canyon.

But located between Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek is one of the region’s manmade (and woman-designed!) wonders: The Chapel of the Holy Cross. We had been through here once before when the kids were…well…kids. We had stopped at the chapel then, too, but this time we had more time to savor the beauty of the chapel and its setting, and even experience a beautifully simple Taize ecumenical prayer service.

Although operated by the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix and St. John Vianney Parish of Sedona (our parish home for the week), the church is open to all and is not an operating Catholic church. The story behind its design and creation is the story of one artist’s vision, a nagging dream and her desire to find the spirit of Christ in her art.

chapel1 — Chapel of the Holy Cross. Photo by Steve Givens

On the presence of God and the color purple

Steve · August 21, 2011 · 10 Comments

In my reading this morning for a class I begin next week, I read the following, which brought me up short because I had forgotten it, even though I read the book mentioned many years ago (and saw the movie):

In [Alice Walker’s novel] The Color Purple, the heroine, Celie, had never been introduced to any image of God other than the old white man with a beard, legalistic and authoritarian. Her friend Shug is much more awakened. Celie is astonished: she says to Shug, “You telling me God love you, and you ain’t never done anything for him? I mean, not go to church, sing in the choir, feed the preacher and all like that?” But Shug’s God is a lover who is “always wanting to share a good thing,” who is “pissed off if we walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.” (from The Art of Spiritual Guidance, Carolyn Gratton)