St. Jude Church, New Orleans

I loved this church in New Orleans. Ironically I had gone to the near by great cemetery where the still remembered Voodoo queen is laid to rest only to find the cemetery closed.  I then happened on St. Judes. St. Jude is the Saint of Lost Causes. I certainly have thought myself that on occasion.  Probably why of I love the great Blues numbers played so well in New Orleans, “Oh When the Saints” .  I do want to be in that number but am so easily distracted by the world.  While I know I was interested in the ‘shrine’ of the voodoo queen, as an artist,  the Lord of Creation, the Jesus of my understanding, intervened and took my steps to the nearby St. Jude’s.
It was open and inviting. I walked in, crossing myself with a bow, then kneeled in the pews and prayed.  I like to pray in churches. I like to sit and meditate.  I did this for a while until a cell phone rang and the only other person in the church, a woman, began to carry on a conversation with some distant person about groceries and shopping.  It was my cue to leave.
Outside there was a crypt to the Virgin Mary and a garden. Lovely places to sit and contemplate faith, hope and deliverance.  I was lost but now I’m found.
Jesus Christ mean’s ‘christ within and christ will come again’.  Often for me the sense of lost and found is moment by moment. I listen to the latest in politics and this seems like hell, then I see someone helping another and I feel I’m in heaven. It’s perspective.  I like St. Jude.  Probably because it took the Beatles to introduce me to this saint.  Then throughout my life I’ve had the sense of being lost and found.  There’s a sense of alienation, something triggers a feeling and memory and I’m back in the past my life being threatened and feeling that sense of helplessness, horror and imminent death or dismemberment.
St. Jude’s was a lovely church to visit , pray and meditate in. I love these sanctuaries.  I am so thankful for the work through the ages of Catholics and Christians that have created these shrines in the west. I am thankful for religions the world over that have made ‘third spaces’ that remain today where I can visit and feel safe. I can even feel a bit of serenity at times.  New Orleans is a city of energy and also peace.

 

Kazan Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Russia

I felt sanctity in this church. I enjoyed the long line of worshippers waiting  to kiss the icon of the Mother and Child.  I liked the quiet ones standing prayerfully before other icons.   I believe that the more a church becomes a place of tourism, state functions and ‘spiritual consumerism’, the less it expresses a special wavelength of "worship”.  It’s never extinguished but the ‘noise’ makes it that much harder to hear the ‘wee small voice’.

Worship is a celebration of the highest whereas  consumerism is of this world. Each has it’s place. There is merit even for the church.  But I’d rather there were times, as at a swimming pool, for ‘water polo events' or those who just like visit swimmings pools just to 'look',   and those who ‘love to swim’ and those who really like to 'dive into the deep end.' 

This feeling or intuition I so enjoy experiencing in churches is like a celestial spiritual sound my own soul seems tuned to. Naturally I feel the same elsewhere such as  at beautiful places in nature, especially near dawn.    At such times I experience a sense of awe.  

To those who don't experience this I expect it must be a bit like missing a colour in the spectrum.  Unless or until they experience it they don’t really know they’re missing that particular colour of blue. God knows, there’s so much I miss and only learn later.     To me this is all important though.  I liken it to the appreciation a pianist  for their fingers or for the ability to hear the sounds in a symphony.   

Whether I experience this at different times in different churches may just be the product of the group dynamic.  Perhaps there's some collective prayer or worship experience that leads to the 'quantum leap of faith'.  If there are too many people focussed more on the 'gold' than the 'jewels' , it doesn't happen. 

I’d like to think that millions over the hundreds of years worshipping at shrines on the holy ground where they are consecrated pick up some special ‘vibe’ of the human hearts yearning.  I like churches. I feel just visiting churches is good, like drinking cool mountain spring water.

I buy candles and burn them. Mostly I  pray for my parents. I don’t really tend to ‘ancestor worship’ but so often in the quiet and reverence , my thoughts wander to mom and dad, now dead. More and more I find myself wanting to be the man they believed I could be. Often that thought only comes as I light the candle.   I’ve been reciting Psalm 23 more of late too.

 

Church of the Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

The Church of the Spilled Blood, was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. Construction was begun in 1883.  At the time churches were built in neoclassical and baroque style. This wonder of architecture differed, intentionally following along the lines of the 17th Century Yaroslavi Churches like St. Basil’s in Moscow.
Barrett’s brother in law, Vlad, Orthodox himself, was able to join us.  Barrett and he had much to say about family and friends and old times in Russian. Every now and then Vlad or Barrett would turn to me and indicate something in English.  Either one answered my questions as well. That’s how I learned that if a church had a particular icon of a favoured saint of note,  it was placed to the right of the main shrine. This was not so here because the whole church was dedicated to Alexaander II’s death.
It was a beautiful church.  I was moved by the story of Jesus told in the many icons on the walls.  These were the ‘movies’ for the people, the ‘comic strip’ version of the Bible which the illiterate could appreciate. Even in Soviet times the 'story' of Christ was told in part, by icons on the outside of the church.  The church is a DVD. It’s living Christ.  I was so grateful to be there, to see the celebration and talented skill that went into this labour of love.  

Father Matthew Johnson

Father Matthew Johnson is the street outreach minister at St. James Anglican Church.  He's a handsome personable chap who I've talked to often "on the street".  He helps the homeless and looks out for the really struggling in the vicinity of St. James Anglican which is at 303 East Cordova Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 1L4.
It's not an enviable job. Not very much of what might be called 'sitting room Christianity' in his work.  He's surprisingly uptempo despite the sordid and often harsh surroundings he must minister in.
Today I heard him give a sermon for the first time.  He was terrific. It was an amazing sermon on Ecumenicalism. In brief sentences he sumarized the major thrusts of the different Christian ministries. He described the liberal churches interfacing with society and focusing on things like poverty and civil rights. He saw the evangelical churches as concerned primarily with one's relationship with Jesus. The orthodox were equally concerned with the mystical while traditional Catholicism emphasized authority and truth.  He saw the Anglican church as trying to balance these various priorities. He also spoke of the World Congress of Religions.
He spoke to the need to understand that there were differences in a family but that a family was nonetheless a family. I'm really not doing his sermon justice. It was extraordinarily profound and yet simple.  I was moved.  I felt more a part of a greater human whole connected more closely together with God.
After that there was more incense, the choir outdid itself, we said the Lord's Prayer and everyone went to the front to receive communion before returning to our seats to kneel and pray.  Then we were all ushering out of the church to begin another week of everyday life.
I felt uplifted. No small thanks to Father Mathew Johnson.  I think it's good they let him come inside.