It's All Connected

First United Methodist Church, Anchorage AK

So, it’s 1968. I’m ten years old. I’m sitting in a pew at First United Methodist in Anchorage, Alaska, in the very same building you see in that photograph.

My family always sat on the left side, about three quarters of the way up to the front.

I was a bulletin checker. That meant I always picked up a copy of the folded program that contained the order of worship, and I would check off the various elements—Call to Worship, Gloria, Announcements, Pastoral Prayer—in an effort to make the service kind of go faster.

Of course, some parts of the service—the anthem, and, especially, the sermon—went slower than others. At those points, I would lay my head back on the top of the pew (I didn’t have to slump too much, which would have attracted my mother’s attention) and I counted the knots in the wood on the ceiling.

And, as you can see from this photo, there are a lot of them.

And, ultimately, it was a pretty frustrating experience, because there were just way too many of them to count with any sort of accuracy. But, generally, by the time I gave up on the project, the pastor would announce the final hymn, and we’d be in the home stretch of the service.

That was my level of piety fifty-eight years ago. Honestly, sometimes, I wonder if I have made much progress since then. But I do know this: My family went to services every single Sunday, no matter what. So, my life would probably have been a whole lot different if I had been able to spend all that time looking at a medallion or some intradoses rather than at knots in lumber.

A medallion is an icon of a saint that is round.

Intradoses are the iconically decorative elements on the underside of an arch.

We’re going to be using both medallions and intradoses in our new temple.

And when I look at that architectural rendering, the place my ten-year-old inner self is going to want to be is on a bench in one of the side aisles, away from the main action—close enough to stay connected, but far enough away to maintain my own fragile sense of identity.

I’m thankful that we’re going to build a temple that allows for nooks and corners and non-direct-line-of-sight spaces, because our modern insistence that absolutely everyone has to have “a good seat” is just another way of insisting that absolutely everyone must pay attention. It’s a visual kind of tyranny, and what it proclaims, more than anything else, is that we are, finally, unsure about what we are doing.

Because when we are secure about what is happening, we don’t have to force everyone to watch. If we are confident about the value of what we’re doing, we can allow folks to look away or even do something else.

That means, in our new temple, when my ten-year-old inner self manages to snag a spot on one of the benches in the back corner of the nave, that’s going to be OK. He probably won’t be tracking each litany or hearing every antiphon, but the ushers aren’t going to tell him to move along (unless my seventy-two-year-old actual self needs to sit down and there aren’t any other seats available).

Still, that kid is going to need to look at something, just as I did in that worship facility that overlooks the Knik Arm of Chikaloon Bay. And let’s be clear: we’re not talking about distraction or entertainment or that old Protestant explanation about icons being early Church multimedia educational materials.

No, when I say that ten-year-old needs something to look at, I’m talking about contemplation—which is a word that’s loaded with all sorts of mystical and spiritual baggage, but, when you get right down to it, contemplation is just being attentive, and the ability to be attentive is right at the heart of what it means to love.

Which is why medallions that feature the images of saints and intradoses that feature this creation praising the Most Holy Trinity are so very important. Remember, my inner self isn’t doing what everyone else is doing, so he’s not going to be focused on the iconostasis. But if every surface of our temple is adorned, then our guy in the corner will always have something upon which to gaze.

And after our ten-year-old spends hours and hours attending to those saints and those creatures, he will come to realize that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof/the world and all that dwell therein” (Ps 23.1) and “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament/proclaimeth the work of His hands” (Ps 18.1) and “Since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1.20).

He will come to realize that everyone and everything is connected—intimately connected—to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Will he be able to put all that into words?

Eventually. Through the grace and mercy of the Most Holy Trinity.

Because, to paraphrase Van Morrison, you just can’t stop that rainbow from touchin’ your soul.

But, in the meantime, we’ve got to get that temple built.

So, if you want my ten-year-old inner self to have a corner to sit in and medallions and intradoses upon which to gaze, offer the Akathist to a New Temple with us (PDF/video), pick up a T shirt from our CSSB clothing line, commission an image in our new temple, or sign up for a paid subscription to this Substack.

But, if you want my ten-year-old inner self to be able to occupy that corner before my actual self turns eighty, go ahead and donate directly to our temple project.

And while you’re figuring out the very best way to help us move forward, we’ll put on Van “The Man” and some of his Celtic Soul