It was almost an instinct, that feeling that I needed to get away for a bit. Not tell anyone exactly where I was going. Wander for wandering's sake.
Downtown, I diverted from the main road...discovered a patisserie with rainbows of macaroons...delighted in walking alone...
My only worry was that I would cross paths with someone I knew.
I felt like sand trying to find an escape route through interlaced fingers. I longed for someplace different, more mysterious, more sacred, more impenetrable. Somewhere that wasn't Californian America.
Maybe that's the curse of having experienced life abroad.
For some reason, the Different seems more approachable now, even more familiar.
My feet directed me to an episcopal church. My eyes fixated on the church doors, and I approached it as if my whole Saturday had been aligned to lead me to that moment.
The doors were locked.
I spent the next seven minutes strolling around the complex, trying every entrance to the church to no avail.
There was a glass panel in one of the doors that led to the sanctuary, and I stood there and peered inside longingly. Lit candles in votives. Stained glass windows. Majestic vaulted ceilings. Though I couldn't see the organist, I could hear him practicing, and the door reverberated with the vigor of the lowest notes. My face was so close to the door that I could smell incense burning from somewhere within the sanctuary.
It was as if a few granules of sand had sifted between those fingers, fallen, and rejoined the dunes along the seashore...
For the redolence of incense had rocketed me back to memories of a Syrian Orthodox service in an extremely poor neighborhood we attended one night in Istanbul...to mental images of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Good Friday teeming with Christian pilgrims and holy men from all over the world...to recollections of quiet, solitary explorations of smaller churches in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the aroma which for thousands of years has symbolically reminded worshippers of the ever-present prayers of the saints. How strange, I thought, that churches East and West could be united in my mind by that scent of incense.
The organ music continued to rattle the door. I thought back to the evening years ago when my family sat together in the pews of a German cathedral and listened to an organist practicing for the approaching Easter services in Nürnberg.
I thought especially of my Dad, who has always loved organ music and the smell of incense. My memories are now imprinted with their significance.
There was an open window above me, and I could glimpse more stained glass, the colors of which were much more vivid from the inside looking out than from the outside looking in.
Church doors should never be locked.
Downtown, I diverted from the main road...discovered a patisserie with rainbows of macaroons...delighted in walking alone...
My only worry was that I would cross paths with someone I knew.
I felt like sand trying to find an escape route through interlaced fingers. I longed for someplace different, more mysterious, more sacred, more impenetrable. Somewhere that wasn't Californian America.
Maybe that's the curse of having experienced life abroad.
For some reason, the Different seems more approachable now, even more familiar.
My feet directed me to an episcopal church. My eyes fixated on the church doors, and I approached it as if my whole Saturday had been aligned to lead me to that moment.
The doors were locked.
I spent the next seven minutes strolling around the complex, trying every entrance to the church to no avail.
There was a glass panel in one of the doors that led to the sanctuary, and I stood there and peered inside longingly. Lit candles in votives. Stained glass windows. Majestic vaulted ceilings. Though I couldn't see the organist, I could hear him practicing, and the door reverberated with the vigor of the lowest notes. My face was so close to the door that I could smell incense burning from somewhere within the sanctuary.
It was as if a few granules of sand had sifted between those fingers, fallen, and rejoined the dunes along the seashore...
For the redolence of incense had rocketed me back to memories of a Syrian Orthodox service in an extremely poor neighborhood we attended one night in Istanbul...to mental images of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Good Friday teeming with Christian pilgrims and holy men from all over the world...to recollections of quiet, solitary explorations of smaller churches in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the aroma which for thousands of years has symbolically reminded worshippers of the ever-present prayers of the saints. How strange, I thought, that churches East and West could be united in my mind by that scent of incense.
The organ music continued to rattle the door. I thought back to the evening years ago when my family sat together in the pews of a German cathedral and listened to an organist practicing for the approaching Easter services in Nürnberg.
I thought especially of my Dad, who has always loved organ music and the smell of incense. My memories are now imprinted with their significance.
There was an open window above me, and I could glimpse more stained glass, the colors of which were much more vivid from the inside looking out than from the outside looking in.
Church doors should never be locked.
Again, the coda hits home. Though the church doors were locked, the vault in which you keep your precious memories is open and you share generously. I hope you know that to you and yours, far more sacred than the interior of the Episcopalian church is the interior of your soul. Not only is it more sacred, but it is infinitely more vast and rich. I am not making attempts at flattery here. I am stating the truth. I like how you felt that you wandered, putting your trust in Providence. The incense triggered far more richness in the sand that joined the dune than the sand that was burned and fused into glass windows for that church.
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