Caerdydd, Cymru
For the better part of four months now I have been on voyages that have taken me to remote parts of the world containing some of the most beautiful cities and landscapes on earth. In assorted hard drives, flash cards, CDs, and a necklace of thumb drives are ten thousand images of ten centuries of eastern and western civilization in as many nations. It has been my privilege to experience color in unimaginable hues and textures ranging from the awe-inspiring gilded spires of The Cathedral of Spilled Blood in Russia to the bronzed weather-eroded faces of dear friends not seen since the last millennium. In thirty thousand miles one comes upon a lot of exotic images and some that are profoundly ordinary, comforting, and familiar.
One of my favorite things in the world to do is to take church to people; those invisible beings who have become imprisoned in their houses because of physical disability, mental challenges, or the ravages of abject poverty. One of my weekly ‘duties’ in the church is to take communion to our housebound, always making sure the experience is as visual for these parishioners as possible. Years ago I built a communion chest of ancient white oak and filled it with fine objects from my larger outer world. I make it a point for them to see Russian icons, Bavarian crystal, English silver and gold, and fine Irish linen every time we gather to remember the important things in life.
I am out here in this glorious world all the time taking five hundred pictures a day while those under house arrest are often confined to a recliner chair, looking at four walls and perhaps an old grainy TV. A big day for them is staring at the four drab walls of a physician’s waiting room or reading out-of-date Newsweek magazines. I feel a responsibility to bring some of the brilliant color out here into the interiors of their monochromatic worlds. Fortunately, modern computer technology allows me to bring many of these images into the gray world of the home-bound captive.
On one occasion recently I made it a point to carefully photograph the altar at church from the exact position two of our incapacitated parishioners used to view it. Sitting in their former pew I made high resolution images of the altar and the sanctuary. After setting up ‘church’ on the dining table of these dear friends, I arranged the equipment required to project bright colorful images of our church for them to see during the hour we would enjoy fellowship. For people who not so long ago could explore the back country of Alaska, being able to see comforting images of the altar in a beloved church is a big deal when your world has shrunk to neurologists’ exam rooms; neurologists who tell you that you will never get better.
Yesterday afternoon I visited an ancient time-encrusted church nestled in between buildings wherein distant history occurred. This church offered me something truly exotic - the familiar, the ordinary, the numinous. All alone in the sanctuary, illuminated by a ten thousands beams of light in as many hues; ignited by aureate luminosity radiating through ancient windows, I found a chapel altar for those offering intercessory prayer. Those curled scraps of paper pinned up on the altar told me that even ten thousand miles from home, people face exactly the same challenges as those on my own side of the world. Aging, disability, injury, financial ruin, and heart rending relational failures are common denominators in the human experience, ignoring creed and national origins. Suddenly, it didn’t matter where I was. I was home. In a place, no longer remote, I was able conduct my own ‘commerce’ in that chapel, sharing common experience with those that call this ancient place home.
A small bowl of fine smooth beach stones was on that altar. These stones gained their silky beauty by being exposed to the rough and tumble world of erosion for uncounted years. Some of the finest people I know have become silky smooth and gracious in their spirit as a result of their rough and tumble life experiences, often suffering inconceivable losses. Only two days ago I met one of these saints who has suffered through the deaths of two husbands and the catastrophic illness of her daughter, forever consigned to a life of disability. There is a smoothness to this mother’s soul that is the talk of people who know her. I could sense that within seconds of first contact. I now carry a small well worn stone in my pocket that will remind me that I am never very far from home.
As I toss myself into a daunting gauntlet of trains, busses, cars, and airplanes over the next few days, I remind myself that I am going to perhaps the greatest destination of all … church … at my friends’ house. Each time I make the journey to their dining table, the congregation sends me out by proclaiming with me, as I stand at the altar, “We who are many are one, because we share one bread and one cup.”
Home is where the heart is.
No comments:
Post a Comment