Cathedral of Saint John the Divine

A little over a week ago I attended another church, this one in New York City! A one-day vacation from the religious services of Los Angeles, Ben, Kebra, and I headed out one Saturday morning from New Haven. After just barely finding parking, we walked to the cathedral. This cathedral was much more a real cathedral than last week, the Cathedral of Our Lady of our Lady of Angels. And while last week was the real Catholic cathedral, St. John was Episcopal! ...let's just say those religious designations would not have been anyone's first guess after seeing either building--inside or out.

Another "house of prayer for all people," the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was imposing but in a very different way--more Catholic than a catholic cathedral (what a contrast to the last entry!), it was dark, with buttresses and stained glass windows. But unlike most Catholic churches, St. John had an AIDS memorial, an FDNY memorial, a sweet art exhibition, and some rather surprisingly modern stained glass.

 (and there are Ben and Kebra in this picture of the sanctuary!)

Ben got me to this cathedral with a promise of an AIDS memorial, and I was not disappointed. Within the humongous sanctuary, on the right and past the tribute to American Literature, was a rainbow flag and a book of names of people lost to AIDS. I felt acutely aware of being in New York City--the initial epicenter of the epidemic and where Professor Chauncey lost many friends. Some religions are great, especially the kind that don't call AIDS the "gay disease" and shun hiv positive people.

So nice. Also nice, the awesome wood spike FDNY memorial:

This church had a long long empty stone-floored area leading up to the pews and the various altars. There were entirely separate altars around the stone middle-area. One especially neat place had a guestbook at the entrance, leading into a black tent set up behind the altar area, shielded by huge ornamental stone gargoyles. It was an awesome art exhibit! They had filmed the dinner table of various cultures for a while and set up a holograph-type thing to project, in a sped-up way, those meals. Here is a picture I took at the table we were sitting at, to give you an idea:

It was totally awesome! How cool! And then it turned into a slightly creepy table full of arms!

Kinda creepy, when you think about it. The other coolnesses of the church consisted of some awesome statues, like of Shakespeare, Ghandi, Lincoln,etc.

Neat, right? Note the four people all squished together on the left. The right I think was George Washington, though Hamilton was there somewhere too I think.

Last neat part: The stained glass windows! Ben kept coming up and showing me how they would have a basketball player in stained glass or a hockey player! What fun! Other modern stuff as well, like field hockey and tennis and things not even related to sports!

Sadly, I attended this church before the lovely new iPhone update that allows iPhone zooming! Get ready for even better pictures taken by smart phone!

Apologies for being a bit brief, but as there was no actual service, there were fewer epiphanies, other than that cathedrals don't need to be Catholic! They can be Episcopalian too. Yay New York City.