Raising the Dead
22 October 2007 - 11 חשון 5768 by Huw
Go read Donald’s description of a workshop and worship at St Paul’s Chapel, NYC, posted on the Daily Episcopalian. When he told me he had been to St Paul’s I was surprised. My first thought was of the spiritually dead museum in lower Manhattan - Donald says “it was essentially a museum, George Washington’s Church in New York City.” All I can remember is the odd, far too ornate altar and pulpit and Washington’s Pew. We reserve a seat for the dead here, but we never hold services.
That was before Trinity Church tore out the pews, redid the liturgy space, and started a congregation there, across from Ground Zero.
Even two full days of our workshop didn’t prepare me for the joyful wonder of 10 a.m. liturgy in this place of pilgrimage. I sat in the third or fourth row of the oval seats so I could both join in and watch the congregation and the pilgrims on the perimeter. The busses don’t stop just because it’s Sunday, and as a worshipper and part of a larger, more diffuse group, I felt the strangeness (and joy) of it very strongly. We were a hundred or so people, a solid, diverse congregation, and we were together in faith, in prayer as publicly as if we’d made our circle in Grand Central Station.
Way to go, St Paul’s!
