The Church Has Different Faces (Part I)

St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Kalamazoo, MI

As we pulled up to the Episcopal church, I was struck by the European architecture and longed to have a few minutes to explore the building's various nooks and crannies. The doors and hallways led off rooms as if put there as an afterthought. As we walked through the arches from one hallway to another, we passed various pieces of art—postmodern, traditional, and everything in between. This eclectic collection of pieces only served to give the place an aged charm. And as far as American buildings go, it was pretty old—176 years old, to be exact.

It was the main sanctuary that took my breath away though. I love the colour red. It's majestic, bold, and in the right shade, it demands reverence. The sanctuary had been dipped in the colour of blood. And soaring over the padded pews, beautiful stained glass windows let in the sun's light. Everywhere I turned, there were palm branches, the green leaves proclaiming life and a reminder that this faith of ours is not a remnant of the past. These symbols of faith surrounding me were not merely vestiges of a dead religion. Our God lives! But I was struck by the emptiness. There were no people to affirm this truth.

Forgive me as I get carried away in describing the physical church. You see, we arrived at 8 am and the Palm Sunday service had been moved to 9 am, so I had ample opportunity to gaze on the beauty surrounding me. But we also met the church embodied in the person of Charlie Large. Charlie met us coming up to the church doors and graciously allowed us into the locked building. He tottered his way through the halls, maintaining a steady narration on the building's various rooms—the Chapel, the crematorium*, the side room that was going to get a stained glass window soon... I got the impression that we were his special guests and he was delighted to give us a grand tour of his home. You see, 79 of his 89 years had been spent in this church. He had seen priests and bishops come and go (and had opinions on each of them!). He had seen this church dwindle from its hey day of over a thousand in the pews to a mere 300 or so.

In talking further with him, I realized that we were conversing with a research scientist, who had been a force to be reckoned with in his day (although I also gathered that the current bishop still thought he was a force to be reckoned with!). He told us about how research had been conducted back in his day. We heard about his friend's dogs and his late wife's inability to stand winters (I could empathize!). We learned about the current priest's compassion for children and the special service they conducted for them on Saturday nights. When we took our leave of Charlie (to find the service in the park he mentioned), I could not help thinking about this spry, opinionated old man wandering through the building and welcoming a couple lost individuals into his church and hoping I might see him again before he departs to cross the river!

*This is the term Charlie used. It was a room where the ashes of the deceased were kept.