Epilogue: North Carolina

Editor's Note: Apart from another post on things seen in churches and possibly a couple of reflections, I'm done here. Kinda appropriate, since I've been a month behind on almost everything here. But if you enjoy ramblings, I think I'll continue over at Blackbirds and Berries. Best wishes, all! 

I think I about cried when they told us that we were being diverted to Greensboro. After 2 months,  nineteen days and  eleven long hours away from home, all I wanted to do was land in Charlotte, see my parents and drive forty-five minutes back to Granite Falls, my house and my own bed. If storm clouds could be burned away by a glare from angry eyes, the storm over Charlotte would have evaporated on the spot.

But we landed in Greensboro and the people around me on the tiny plane that had left from Chicago a little over an hour before all pulled out their cell phones and started to call their families or friends. My own American cell phone was sitting at Christine's house, voicemail full and useless, and my European cell phone had stopped working a continent ago. I amused myself by listening to people describe where they were. "No, we aren't in Charlotte. We're in some place called Greensboro… no, b-o-r-o. No, I don't know where it is." "Yeah, I think it's kinda north of Charlotte? It's really small." "Well, I think we're in North Carolina. We're in some place called Greensville…" The more travel savvy passengers weathers the diversion well and pointed out Charlotte landmarks when we landed there an hour and a fifteen minute hop later. "There's the downtown area… there's the football stadium." So odd to me, who's been to Greensboro plenty and who has been on the field in the Panther's Stadium in Charlotte, to listen to these outsiders talk about my state. My beautiful, green, hill-covered, mountain and sea bounded state. So glad to be home.

I wasn't back for long before I packed up a small bag and drove to Chapel Hill to work for a week at the planetarium. I didn't even unpack my toiletries, carrying my life around again in a backpack. I stayed on friends' couches and road public transportation and felt like a nomad once again, awkwardly re-familiarizing myself with bus schedules and local customs. I jumped when the waitress came to refill my water at Pam's birthday dinner and almost balked in surprise when a campus ministry member asked if there was anything she could pray for me about as I sat in the Union on a break from shifts. I listened in closely, deciphering again the sweet melody of southern accents and soaking in the forgotten songs of crickets.  I basked in the undeniable warmth of the end of a North Carolina summer and smiled as happily when I saw a firefly as I had seeing the lights dance up and down the Eiffel Tower. I ordered a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and Cheerwine at Wendy's and thought about the potato casserole, ranch dressing and steak that my family had had for dinner and the grits that I would soon have for a breakfast. When I drove, I drove with my windows down, taking every opportunity to breathe in the North Carolina summer I had missed.

It's weird, isn't it, coming back? Quarters almost seem like foreign objects when you haven't seen that coinage denomination in months. I thanked the bus driver with no question about the appropriateness of my action. I became an expert again on the history and culture of an area, answering question after question about the campus, Franklin Street and the planetarium. I turned around in surprise when someone didn't speak English instead of when someone did. Everything savored of home and yet the places I slept I visited for less time than I had spent in any single city in Europe. So maybe I wasn't back yet.

Saturday, a week and two days after we had left Europe, after we had walked up to Pam's apartment door on a few hours before she turned twenty-one and gotten the most surprised hugs of our lives; after  six days of traveling again, this time through a place I had been many, many times before; after half a day's worth of travel hours up and down the highways of North Carolina and after a couple of hours struggling with boxes and mattress, I was moved into my new apartment, finally in a place of residence that would last me for months instead of days.

And Sunday I went to church. I came in late and had to sit in the back, sheltered by the balcony that used to segregate the congregation. As I found my spot in a wooden pew on the left of the church, the two associate pastors played out a dialogue about small groups starting up in the school year. We had a call to worship and the choir processed in as we all, a congregation of hundreds of people, sang a hymn. We confessed our sins and passed the peace, listened to a couple of lessons, one read by a student lector up at the pulpit at the end of the long hall of the church, in front of the apse that help the choir and a set of stairs up from the altar centered in the chancel. The campus minister preached a beautiful sermon, an associate minister led the congregation in the prayers of the people, we took up an offering (because wherever two are gathered an offering will be taken) and the ushers brought it to the waiting pastors as we sang the Doxology. A closing hymn, a parting blessing and a postlude and suddenly I was standing in a line with one of my roommates from last year, waiting to shake hands with the pastors on the way out the door.

And it was like coming home

Some Helpful* Hints for Cathedral** Travel

I'm convinced it'll take me a couple of months if not years to really realize how much I've learned while I've been away. Traveling is an experience in itself and add to that the spiritual whirlwind that took over my life for nearly three months and I've got a lot to write home about. But I've learned some concrete things that might help other people, even if you're just visiting a cathedral because it's pretty or if you stumble into any old church on a hot day in a Mediterranean city. Because I like them, here's an enumerated list of things I learned.

*This may not actually be all that helpful, but it should be vaguely interesting?
**This isn't really exclusive to cathedrals. Cathedrals just sound cooler than churches.

1. Check the website.

Want to see Notre Dame? Of course you do, you're in Paris. I happen to know that it's free to walk into the sanctuary and that it costs five euros to climb the tower and see the gargoyles and pretend you're Quasimodo, but you might not, so you should check the website. (En normally means English) Want to see St. Peter's Basilica? Of course you do, it's a sacrilege to be in Rome and not head over to Vatican city to look at that. I happen to know that if your shoulders are uncovered or your knees are showing, you'll be turned away, but you might not, so you should check thewebsite. (Surprisingly, one of the least attractive church websites I've seen in a while.) Want to go to church on Easter? It's a nice thought, so you might. I happen to know that if you don't believe that the host is transformed into the body of Christ that you shouldn't take communion in a Catholic church, but you might not, so you should check the website.

Most large churches and cathedrals will have a pretty decent website. If you don't want to troll the internet, Sacred Destinations gives you a description of the sacred space you're planning on visiting, the times the place is open and any fees or dress or action restrictions. They'll often have a link to the website so you can check and see that the information is up-to-date and everything's listed by country and city, so you can check here to see if there are other places that would be good to visit while you're in a place.

2. Check the calendar.

Ever heard of Ascension Day? It happens forty days after Easter and in some countries it can mean that everything's closed except for churches and they'll often have extra services on that day. Most churches aren't going to allow you to come in and take pictures while a mass or service is going on and it can be awkward to wander into a church in the middle of a service. If you're planning your visit ahead and want to be a part of a service on a holy day, you can check the church's website to see if they have anything special up their sleeve. It can be an interesting perspective to go to a service or mass based around a saint. I was in St. Paul's in London on the feast for St. Joachim and St. Anne, the parents of Mary better known as the mother of Jesus, and I got a little historical background on the saints' story in England that I wouldn't have known. All the same, it's good to be aware of the events in the church's calendar, like Pentecost and the like, so you can appreciate the service, even if it's not in your language. And, of course, it's always good to be aware of the holy days of religions everywhere.

3. Don't expect English.

The international service in Notre Dame consisted of a bulletin with the scripture readings printed in English and Italian. The rest of the order of service was in French and the entire service was in French. The priest did pause and thank the choir in English as they were visiting from England, but that was the only moment of the most internationally-recognized tongue in the world. The mass I went to that the pope led was in Latin and Italian and there were pilgrims from all over listening to that. Most countries are proud of their language and even in big cities where they expect and even depend on tourism for the upkeep of their churches they'll keep to their native tongue. I know as thinking people we don't expect a greeting in English as we walk into a service, but you should be aware that if you sit down for mass in La Sagrada Familia, there will be no one around to tell you when to kneel.

At the same time, there will often be guided tours, especially in the bigger places, in English, though they may leave less often than tours in the native language. There should be pamphlets that you might have to pay money for in English, or it could be Sainte Chapelle where a stand held large laminated boards in a variety of languages explaining what visitors were seeing. The staff of the church will often speak at least limited English, especially if they're expecting tourists, and they all know how to tell you how much money to pay. Still, if you really want to know what you're seeing, your best bet is a guide book brought with you or some research online. Which brings me to my next point…

4. Do some research online.

With the internet today, there's almost no excuse not to check up on some place you want to see. Sacred Destinations is a good place for quick hits about place. Wikipedia can be a good guide for a short history of a space and it will certainly hit the most famous things about any place. The church's own website might have some interesting history on it- Notre Dame has an explanation of the figures above the three front entrances plus tons of other information. (It may seem that a theme is developing, but really, I cannot recommend any Gothic cathedral so heartily as I can recommend Our Lady of Pairs.) Beyond just visiting practicalities, the internet can help you get an appreciation for the things you're seeing.

The internet can also tell you what to expect in a service, if you want to attend one. If the country is mostly Roman Catholic but you yourself have never been to a mass, you may find yourself a little out of the loop. (PS- Here's a map of European countries by religion, right above the map of the frequency of fair hair, goodness, I can't laugh enough at that.) It's easy enough to stand when everyone else stands and kneel when everyone else kneels, but if you want to know why all of this is happening and don't have a parent or priest to pass on this knowledge to you, you can use the internet. More than likely, you're not going to get an order of service in the church because the priest will assume that anyone actually there for the service knows what's going to happen as mass is pretty much the same everywhere. You can check up on which Protestant denominations are going to do things that look Catholic-y, if you're not already a member of that denomination, and you can check and see if you should expect some speaking in tongues. Most of the places you'll want to see, though, are Catholic, so learning about a mass is a good priority, though figuring out which churches it's best not to cross yourself in might also be a good idea.

While the internet is wonderful, It can also lie worse than Dan Brown in the middle of a Robert Langston chase scene (honestly, the guy tells you that Venus is rising as the sun is setting- you can't trust him at all), so double check something before you go looking for that hidden doorway into the secret upper story.

5. Be respectful.

Looking for a hidden doorway into a secret upper story isn't exactly what I'd call respectful. Most of the time, if you're interested in visiting a place, chances are no less than a hundred other people are interested in visiting that place the same hour in which you want to visit. There will at the very least be staff around to guide people and to make sure the sacred place stays sacred. Don't be the guy that the guard has to call out "No photo!" to. Don't be the girl who has to be asked to leave because there's doubt as to whether her shorts qualify as outer garments. Even in countries less religiously conservative than Spain and Italy, appropriate attire is good. All churches are used as places of prayer and your voice should be kept down, even if the sheer number of tourists creates a dull roar that you feel you need to speak over.  And for heaven's sake, don't take a picture in the Sistine Chapel. The guard may be angry, but you will have killed a little piece of Michelangelo's soul. Please. Put your camera away. For the sake of the ninja turtles.

Europe From Above

I have a lot of pictures from Europe. Like, a lot. And I'm not quite sure what to do with them all, but I figured I'd share some of the vistas I've seen because I became a semi-professional cathedral climber over the summer. Enjoy! 

Prague

Berlin

Vienna

Venice. Actually, one of the less impressive pictures I took there.

Florence. Sigh. Love!

Rome

Pompeii

Madrid

Seville

Marseilles

Lyon

Paris

Glasgow

Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Editor's Note: This is lengthy and internet is oddly harder to obtain when you're busy, even if you're in America. Also, I couldn't get all the pictures to load. A thousand apologies. 

On my last night in Edinburgh, I went to go see a comedian with Christine, Kerry, and a couple of people from the hostel. Being of Scottish heritage but born in Canada and currently residing in England, he had a, shall we say, unique perspective on the different societies that he had viewed. He was hilarious and I laughed so hard that I cried throughout much of the show. Just one of the positives of visiting Edinburgh during the Fringe Fest- the place was full of comedy, plays and other performing arts. The comedian remarked that arriving in Edinburgh is much more impressive when one arrived by train in Waverly Station. You get off the train and there are bagpipes and people dressed up for performances and tourists galore and then there's this castle- you're generally a little overwhelmed when you get off the train in Edinburgh.

I loved it there, despite the rain and cold that I will almost incessantly complain about when I talk about the city, having become very homesick for heat that hits you like a wall of boiling air and humidity, and near drought conditions. Neil Gaiman stuck it into my head that Oscar Wilde once said that if this is how the Scots treat their summers, they don't deserve one. I don't know that the Scots must have done to offend summer so, but the entire time I was there it felt more like January of perhaps a cold snap in March than early August.

Still, the hostel I was at was small and full of interesting, friends people. On my second night a group of four came in from London and I spent many of my nights listening to their conversations and easy friendship. As wonderful as it was to find new people to be friends with, that wonderfulness was exceeded by having more familiar faces to enjoy the city with. Christine returned from her visit with her family in Ireland and brought Kerry, a friend of hers and an acquaintance of mine, with her from the independent island off the British coast. Her friend Jesse also came to visit, taking the bus up from London where he had been studying this summer.

Together we took a walking tour of Edinburgh that I highly recommend if you have the means. We listened to the history of Scotland as told through the lens of its capital, walking up and down the Royal Mile, stopping by  the outside of the cathedral, John Knox's grave, the Grassmarket, Greyfriars Kirkyard, home to Greyfriars Bobby, walking past Fringe venues and ending up in the Princes Street Gardens. Did you know that James Clerk Maxwell was a Scotsman? Good, because if you did it would probably be because you learned his equations in E&M and I would fear for your state after enduring the merciless tyranny of physics. But there are plenty of other notable Scotsman besides William Wallace- Robert Burns, Ewan McGregor, Sean Connery, David Hume, Adam Smith, the father of modern economics. JK Rowling has a small castle up there. I have also visited the Elephant Room, the café where she wrote the first three books of Harry Potter. Nerd moment of the trip completed.

I went back to the cathedral on my own for the Sunday morning service, taking communion in a huge circle by passing the loaf of bread and the cup of wine, each eating and drinking on their own before being blessed as a group by the priest. The choir sang an anthem, little bags were passed around for the offering, the priest preached a sermon on a letter of Paul and a gospel lesson about Jesus walking on water and Simon Peter sinking. Later, as I walked around, I noticed the lion and the unicorn protecting a shield as I'm used to seeing in Scotland and thistles in the decorations, proclaiming the national symbol of Scotland. 

The cathedral was interesting and historical. It was laid out in a Greek cross, the first church I had visited like that and the altar stood at the intersection of the arms of the cross with the congregation on either side coming together for communion. It's a different kind of space and coming forward for communion made me think about the service back in St. Mary's in Berlin, passing the peace to people whose language I didn't speak. Here, I walked to the heart of the church and circled around the altar and smiled and shook hands with kind Scots and thought about how far I'd been.

The last thing I did in Edinburgh was climb Arthur's Seat. It's a huge hill on the edge of town, a touch of the highlands for which my heart ached. We had climbed it earlier, Christine, Kerry, Jesse and I, and we had stopped by the small ruin of a chapel near the beginning of the climb. 

There's not much left of this chapel, just and entry way, two windows, an arch support and a couple of corners, but the space lends itself to an absolutely mystical quality. You can rebuilt the chapel in your mind and imagine the monks who must have come here, lighting torches or candles for late night vigils. The crag around you minds you of a faerie world where sprites and nymphs could come and infest the stone of a place meant for Someone else, packing the place with a meaning all to different from the one you're accustomed to assume. And if you let your thoughts run wild you can imagine a day when we've all but left these places, these cities and these cathedrals, when the grass will grow again in the wind-deposited dirt and the walls of all of these grand houses of God that I've seen time and again in my months abroad will be reduced to a doorway, two windows and a corner, blackbirds racing each other around the ruins.

I didn't revisit the chapel on my solitary hike up and we didn't stay long as a crew the first climb up. We were beat up the hill by a trio of middle aged men determined to scale the mountain quicker than the college kids in their prime. We stopped often to take pictures and be distracted by a man walking his cat along the heath at the bottom of the valley. We paused just before the final trek up to the rocky peak, collapsing on the oddly-well maintained grass to guess at the shapes hidden in the clouds, watching as the high wind demolished them, leaving us with new patterns. I paused to look out again at the sea the sneaks into Edinburgh when I climbed by myself, but only for the briefest of seconds before picking out another path among the rocks.

The climb up to the top of the seat is up uncovered rock, different from the steep slope of grass that came before. As a group we laughed, first following the chains and posts and then guessing at the easiest climb before stumbling up to the open vista of the crown of the hill. I meandered around when I returned by myself, not pausing at the top but instead selecting a hidden outcropping to sit and think and read. Leaves of Grass lay abandoned in the pocket of my pack. I broke out a collection of stories by Neil Gaiman and immersed myself in a world of wonder, feeling the wind blow my hair around for the last time. When we four had climbed the seat, we had found our way around to the tops of the rocks, laughing and taking pictures and waiting for a group of Spanish-speaking tourists to give up their place on the highest before giving up and climbing up there anyway, crowding around the back of the dulled peak of peaks.

I left the last of my locks on a iron hook up on Arthur's Seat, the hefty one I had bought for five euro in Paris. I hadn't needed it in the hostel and wouldn't need it for our one night in Dublin before flying from there to Chicago to Charlotte. I can remember the jokes the group told as we picked our way down the rocks and flew down the hill before, but as I walked back by myself I turned a corner I hadn't seen before and walked down a stair step of rocks and trickling water. I walked through grass and by thistles, purple and green and perfect as I tugged my jacket closer against the wind.

On our way out of the city the next morning we sat on the top of the double-decker bus to the Edinburgh airport and Kerry cut off the conversation for a few moments so she could say her goodbyes to Edinburgh. I had been woken up that morning by a goodbye- Brooke, the Australian nurse from my room, had left the hostel group early to get on a plane for a night in London, despite the riots, before leaving out on a tour of the continent. We had said multiple goodbyes to the people in the hostel before walking in the rain to the bus station. Through all of this, I had never thought of saying goodbye to the city. Faced with the thought of leaving, I found my mind distracting itself from the idea. I don't do goodbyes. I was glad when Kerry finished hers and Christine and I discussed plans for surprising Pam when we returned to the States for her birthday.

I sat in an aisle seat on the plane. Given a window, I'll stare out at the ground, memorizing the place I've been from the air before it disappears in the clouds. With that moment taken away, I think I'll keep long montage of pictures taken from the upper floors of castles and cathedrals and hills looking over the cities I've seen in my mind as my memorization of Europe. I'll begin in Prague and I'll end at Arthur's Seat and I'll think of all the things I've left. And all the things I've gained.

Glasgow Churches

Editor's note: I left my camera card my computer because I was catching up on Paris posts and so I didn't take any pictures. Sorry. 
Editor's secondary note: I can't claim to have come up with some of my comments on the use of spaces in church architecture that come later in the post. I'd love to talk it over with you, citing heavily from Richard Kieckhefer's Theology in Stone.
Editor's final note: This is a long post. I'm sorry again. 

So the last time I came to Scotland I came with my youth choir. It's quite different when you're traveling in a large group- the potential for getting the wrong train or bus isn't as great, as you've got a coach to travel in, your meals are much more determined and you have a ready-made group of friends. It's very different from showing up at the train station and hoping your hostel is close enough to walk and sociable enough to make friends.

The wonderful thing about having been in a place already, though, is the potential of friends to meet you. My choir director from back home is friends with a Scottish Methodist pastor who has a circuit of four churches just outside of Glasgow and after a couple of emails, Liz and her husband met me outside my hostel on Sunday morning for a day of exploring the Methodist churches around Glasgow.

Now, I grew up in the Bible Belt of the United States. We had FCA in high school and most people had a youth group of some kind that they went to on Sundays or Wednesdays or the occasional Thursdays. I pretty much lived at my church in high school and it was a big change in college when I only had Sunday School, a small group and bell choir to go to. I'm used to a regular congregation of 200 or more filling the room I'm in on a Sunday morning and there's nothing unusual to me about not knowing every member of the congregation. In short, I'm used to big spaces and lots of people on a Sunday morning.

The church in Scotland isn't particularly like that. Across Europe I've been to several services in large cathedrals with full crowds, but on the whole, the services have been made of smaller congregations. Christianity is on the decline in the Western world and there's not really any getting around that. With that in mind, getting up to read the two lessons on a Sunday morning in front of less than twenty members of the congregation wasn't surprising, especially after having been warned. We were in a small sanctuary upstairs in the church, looking for all the world like a small village church placed on top of a meeting hall.

This is the thing that I've been missing most when visiting big churches- none of them seem to have fellowship halls or a church office in another building or rehearsal spaces around back or anything like that. My church campus back home has four or five buildings depending on how you count- there's the sanctuary and the attached children's building, the church office and education building, the youth building and the Family Life Center (fellowship hall). It's the meetings that occur, either on Sunday mornings for Sunday school or during the week for any number of small groups, committees, organizations or rehearsals that form the life of the church. The ceremony on Sunday is the knot that ties all the strings of our different focuses together.

So I climbed a set of stairs following behind the greeter at the church door and walked into the sanctuary, noting the layout of the church- three sections of fixed pews plus a balcony all facing the altar on a raised platform in the center front of the church, accompanied by a pulpit just off on stage left, a piano on stage right and a nice set of stairs up to the organ that dominated the wall behind the altar. In a cathedral, you're likely to see a huge altar piece behind the main altar after walking through the choir. It was a comfort to see an organ back there, almost marking the Wesley brothers' musical emphasis.

Liz had told the people we greeted just outside the sanctuary that I was here visiting and studying worship spaces and how they're used in liturgy. This has indeed been a focus of mine but not something I've talked about very much at all here. Let me explain.

The majority of the places I've seen have been longitudinal ceremonial churches- they're laid out either in a hall or in a cross and the focus of the church is the altar. The liturgical focus is communion- sermons have grown important over the years, but we're as expected or central as we see them today until the Middle Ages leading into the Renaissance. Mass is pretty much the same everywhere beginning with a procession Bible bearers, acolytes, crucifers and priests who all need to bring the holy accoutrements of a service into the prepared space. The congregation sits and watches and comes forward for communion at the end. All of the rest of the side altars, chapels and decorations, unless they're used in the procession, are there for devotional use. There hasn't been much need to talk over this use of the space- it's the same, with variations over time, that's been in place since Christians began using basilicas in Constantine;s time.

This church was arranged the same way, though without the side altars. Another difference is that the action of the service happened at the pulpit as opposed to the altar- Liz led prayers and started off hymns and preached from the pulpit. We didn't even have communion. Much of the time, a protestant service is going to be focused on the pulpit and the sermon. Even though we occupy ceremonial churches, we've adapted them to put a focus on the things we feel are important. Some honor tradition more than others but most reflect the changes that came about a couple hundred years ago.

But that's just the inside layout of the church. Most longitudinal churches are going to be on the ground floor of a building, because the space is so well suited for processions into the building. A few ceremonial steps up to the entrance to the sanctuary aren't that big of a deal, but the winding stair in this church sets the sanctuary apart from the more easily accessible fellowship hall. The sanctuary is an upper room now, and you go there purposefully, no chance of wandering in off the street and finding it. It's a different emphasis, an interesting combination of ceremony and fellowship that also presents challenges in accessibility. It makes you want to read into the history of the church and see the thought behind the design even as you sit through a Sunday in the life of the living church.

I loved reading the lessons and singing hymns and listening again to a service in my language with a sermon I could understand and think through. We're such people of words, we protestants. It's the lyrics that make our songs holy, not the tunes in particular. Liz had picked the hymn words but let the organist pick the tunes. After the service, the organist came over to chat and offered me an old red hymnal. Not to brag, but I've been told by multiple other people that Methodists have the best hymnal and, as a church choir mouse, I've loved my fair share of hymnals over time. I was surprised at the gift and I kept asking, "To have? I can keep it?" and Liz said, "It's funny the things she gets excited about," with a laugh.

A favorite pastime of mine is exploring churches. Given the connections to facilitate the opportunity, I would love to spend days wandering in and out of the maze of back halls I'm sure cathedrals have. Maybe I'll write a book and then I can go like Victor Hugo and familiarize myself with the twists and turns of the stairs of Notre Dame. Given the opportunity here, just outside of Glasgow, we found our way into the old sacristy down a back stair that led from the sanctuary to a hallway that led eventually to the fellowship hall. A small room at the back of the sanctuary served as the sacristy now and this room lay forgotten. On wall, though, was a framed letter from John Wesley himself. See, I'm a nerd. This means I'm given free reign to be utterly excited about subjects that might confuse other people. A letter from the founder of my favorite branch of Christianity? I love history.

We left Port Glasgow and headed over to Paisley, home of the fabric pattern. The streets are all named after things in the textiles industry- there's a Gauze Street and a Silk Street, etc. You figure I'd feel at home, growing up across the street from a clothing factory. There's an abbey in Paisley and the largest Baptist church in Europe, I believe. It's interesting to think about the heydey of the town and the kinds of churches built then- how exactly do the stars align to set prosperous times in Paisley with a rise in the Baptist interpretation of the faith?

But we came to Paisley to look at the Methodist hall that houses a congregation of 80, a fair sized congregation. The place looks like a theater from the street, a large building on a street corner without a peaked roof or steeple to mark it from the shops around it. The gated front door even reminded me a bit of a box office, though no ticket windows peered out from the walls. The morning's service, held in the fellowship hall on the first floor, had ended but a few people had come in to see the hall. We walked upstairs and I felt in my element again- after two months, give or take a week, of walking into churches with the express purpose of looking around, I was quite used to touring sacred spaces.

The Methodist Hall in Paisley is quite different from the other churches I've primarily studied, but not so different from the churches I've found myself worshiping in over the years. Instead of following in the traditions of Roman basilicas shaped into crosses that had formed church architecture for the longest time, designed for ceremonies and sacraments, the Methodist Hall is an auditorium, built for the speaking and hearing of sermons. The downstairs is full of theater seats facing a raised stage comprising of two side stages and a central platform jutting out just a bit with indentations. The pulpit used to stand there, when the hall was in use, again just in front of the organ console and pipes that dominated the wall behind it. A communion table could be brought out as well and probably placed on the lower level, underneath the pulpit. Upstairs the rest of the organ sat opposite the pulpit, surrounded by a balcony full of the same seats as below.

In a day and age of megachurches in America and huge Christian conferences meeting in arenas in Atlanta, it doesn't seem odd to me that people would choose to worship in a space like this. There's great acoustics and a choir could have a killer show in a place like this. Man, bring a gospel choir over here- it's a near perfect venue for that. There are these back stairs that lead from the chancel's upper levels to a little backstage place where the choir could get ready before walking in. I've missed choir lofts. But this place is designed for a performance. It's liturgically planned for the congregation to come in and sit and watch. The fellowship hall downstairs is planned for participation.

That's not to say that it has to be used like that. Yes, it's ideal for lectures and concerts- it would be a great space for a conference on any topic. There's not even a ton of religious symbolism in the room- the walls are white and the skylights have cherubs on them, but that's all. And churches today, everyone's so creative. A person with a good eye for the stage could really use this space- there's a lot of potential there. I mean, there are all sorts of considerations to take into effect when you've got a space like this- I've often wondered how much it costs to heat a cathedral (because goodness knows they're always cold unless you're in Spain), and, again, with the flight of stairs to contend with, there's a bit of an inconvenience in accessing the space, but there's always inconvenience when you're doing some spectacular.

And that's what was happening with big venues like this were built. Spectacular things. But all across Europe, Christian is a thing that people have been. And you can hear stories of spectacular things happening in, say, South America or Asia or Africa, but the places from which we've been sending missionaries, they're mostly over this whole church thing. And it's going to take quite a bit of work to convince them different. I mean, there's a thousand different ways to do the work, the future being oddly similar to the cavernous building in Paisley. It's difficult to know your way around, but the entire space, it's full of potential, you know?

Glasgow Cathedral

The cathedral in Glasgow is dedicated to St. Mungo who is said to have been buried there. Anybody else think of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries? Good.

Pictured: Not a magical hospital in London

It's actually a pretty well preserved medieval cathedral, something that tended to be torn down in Reformations and the rejection of Catholicism. I can never decide how interesting I find the history of the Protestant Reformation with all its different sects ending up allowing for the thousands of versions of Christianity we have today. I mean, if we had cards, I'd be a card carrying United Methodist, but that's mostly because I'm good at joining organizations and the United Methodist Church in the states is an organized monster indeed. But more on all of this later. The cathedral in Glasgow is a Presbyterian, Church of Scotland place. It was popular during the Reformation to de-roof churches but this medieval cathedral survived and, though desecrated during the Reformation, the people of Glasgow willing paid for its repair.

And so I walked around inside with some kind of appreciation. Sure, the outside was covered with scaffolding, but the inside preserved the quire (choir) screen,

The thing that looks like a wall. Yup, that's a screen.

 separating the open nave from the pewed choir, and even if the stained glass windows were new, they kept up with the traditions of the windows, one belonging to the guilds of Glasgow, another to a wealthy family, each eager to leave a mark on such an important holy place. Again, I enjoyed the English on the walls, from being able to understand that this list of names was a list of those killed in a war and this list of names was a list of honored bishops of the cathedral. I loved picking out Bible verses and stories I knew from the words in the windows and floors. I love that a prayer for a guided path encircled the column in the sacristy and that Jesus' injunction to care for the sick, hungry, thirsty and imprisoned carried the theme of the windows in that same space.






I walked down to the lower church to see the tomb of St. Mungo and caught the end of a tour of the cathedral, pointing out an older Gothic column preserved in its decoration

and a chapel with brilliantly white walls used for weddings. I left the cathedral as they were setting up for a wedding in the upstairs church, giving space for a new life to begin while I walked slowly around the lives that had been ended, reposing on a nearby hill.

The Necropolis in Glasgow is modeled after Pere Lachaise and is from a time when the fortunes of the British Empire smiled on Glasgow as the second most important city in Britain. Names that I don't know of rich people who died long ago and not so long ago adorned tombstone after tombstone. A high monument to John Knox and other reformers sat on top of the hill with the best view of the cathedral and Glasgow and I smiled as a little boy ran up to it and turned to ask his father if it was a king on top of the high pedestal.

Right around the corner from the cathedral is St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Life and Art. It's got plenty of good stuff in there from the five major religions and I spent a couple of hours reading every plaque and thinking over every exhibit. I watched the wedding party arrive and leave from a second story window, keeping my laughter to myself as a group of older German ladies stepped in front of the window and cooed at the small boy in a kilt I had been amused by an hour earlier.

All of this is swirling around in my head, all these bits of religion that I've encountered in one day. On the one hand, you have an extremely familiar form of church for me sitting right out there, a ceremonial church designed for sacraments, inspiration and words of authority. Then there's a graveyard, familiar in its unfamiliarity with a monument to men that I recognize briefly but realize I could not tell their story. And now, here I sit, among Buddhas, copies of the Qu'ran, dancing skeletons and Shiva as the Lord of the Dance. Plenty of people think that if you're a religious studies major, you're on your way to seminary and that you're focused on their religion and a history of their church.

On my right I have a building to remind me of why they think that and on my left I'm surrounded with proof to the contrary.

Glasgow

It's not a bad train ride from London to Glasgow. I took an early train because it was literally fifty pounds cheaper and oscillated between reading and staring out the window. Tiredness and excitement vied internally- I remembered loving Scotland the last time I was there but I hadn't slept well in the large dorms in Paris and London and so, though I stared out the windows with anticipation, it was difficult to bounce around as one is said to do when excited.

Glasgow Central train station makes my top three favorite train stations (you know you're backpacking around Europe when you have favorite train stations). I arrived before my check-in time, so I enjoyed some Starbucks internet and watched the pigeons harass passengers before walking down a couple of blocks and catching a glimpse of the Clyde River before walking into my hostel.

Here's a hint, if you're ever planning on doing something like this yourself: If you have the option and the funds, pick smaller hostels. Big hostels might have... well... well, actually, the only thing bigger hostels have that smaller hostels don't is an excess of floors. You can find a kitchen, laundry and free internet at smaller hostels and in smaller hostels, you actually get to meet people. In a big place it's easy to get lost among the crowds of school groups there on holiday or packs of friends traveling together with no need for another person. I hate being excluded like that.

Thus, I was quite happy when I found myself in a smaller room than requested- I was in a four bed room instead of a fourteen bed dorm. Through lucky happenstance (by the way, did you know that our word happy has its roots with the older English word hap, or by chance?) I was in a room with, among a rotating door of others, two girls my own age, one of whom was a musician (the aforementioned Bec Sandrige, who you should go give a listen to now) and the other her friend just visiting in Glasgow for a few days to support Bec at her shows.

It's crazy nice to come back to a room with people you like to be around. It's ridiculous the amount of empathy you develop over the course of trips like this- I understand much better the feeling a body can have when you don't want to go home but you don't have anywhere else to sleep. And so I was, again, delighted to have good roomies. I went out to see Bec perform at a venue one night and loved it, and spent the rest of their time in Glasgow enjoying chance meetings at the hostel even after they had to book another room.


Other than that, much of my time in Glasgow was spent walking over to the Starbucks with the internet and catching up on things. I'd go down to the river on less rainy days, watching people walk, bike, stroll, skate and sit on calm paths that bore witness to the night's excitements the next day. I went up to the cathedral and wandered through the Necropolis, walked through museums and shuffled through shops, spending every day other than my Sunday when I visited two churches just outside of Glasgow with a friend, in town filling the time between the early sunrise and the late sunset. I read.

It's amazing how caught up a person can get in the news and thoughts of the world around them. It does not do for me to have that much extra time on my hands, spotting potential TARDISes that turned out to be ice cream shops and musing on my trip long before it's over. I spent an afternoon in a bookshop, having become determined to buy Looking For Alaska, sitting and reading from my two new books. I had to put Looking For Alaska down. The talk of summer heat in Louisiana made me homesick. I had to put the internet down for a while too. Thinking over the headlines made me worldsick.

In the end, though, I was glad to head on to Edinburgh. Eventually, even the destinations become part of the journey and you start to look at the days on the calendar like hours on the train, carrying you along to a not-too-distant end. Oh, distant enough, I guess. But approaching.