Daily Photo 35: The Oil Can Church

. . .  more formally known as University Circle United Methodist Church.   

The sanctuary of this church ~ yes, the ceiling is way up there 

in the oil can ~ is spectacular.

Daily Photo 34: Home of the Cleveland Orchestra

Daily Photo 33 - Cemetery Stained Glass

 

There are small mausoleums scattered throughout the cemetery where I walk.  Many of them harbor stained glass windows, windows which almost no one sees.  And why is that the case, that almost no one sees them?

For one thing, not that many people spend time at the cemetery.  And those who do tend to be walking or running, or visiting the graves of those they love, or perhaps stopping in to see the Garfield Monument.   They aren't pausing to do more than glance at the smaller buildings.

And the windows are usually on the back side, often covered with protective grating.  Even if someone were inclined to walk around to the back, she wouldn't see much.  You have to walk up to the front door (all of them locked) and peer in, hoping that the sun will illuminate the window from the back. If you and the sun both co-operate, you may be rewarded with a view of a small, hidden treasure.

Mausoleum Door - Daily Photo 32

Daily Photo - 31

My last post doesn't seem to have shown up anywhere so, since I'm home recuperating, I thought I'd do something I haven't done in awhile and post a daily photo.  Actually, I haven't been taking many photos lately.

My new call involves a lot of driving to towns and cities in east-central Ohio, as my congregants seem to have a tendency to land in various hospitals and nursing facilities scattered far and wide.  I've started to make sure that my camera is in the car, and one day last week that effort paid off.

The photo is of St. Peter's Catholic Church in Mansfield, Ohio. 

Hands and a Foot (Daily Photos 26-30)

I don't have much to say these days.  Or rather, I'm saying it in images, old and new, rather than words.  As I was walking through the cemetery a couple of days ago, I became almost completely focused on hands ~ and then, a few feet.

Friday Freedom (and Daily Photo 25)

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights

Idea here.  I'm taking the day off from the internet in all its guises, from the tv (well, except perhaps for one little late afternoon addiction I've developed), from the phone unless someone calls me who might have something urgent to convey (and there are only five such people), from any and all things electronic.

I'm so taking a media Sabbath Day that I'm writing this the day before and listening to tomorrow's Pray As You Go tonight.

The photo is from my walk a couple of mornings ago. I got so interested in the various arches and shadows of this church down the road that I ended up peering in an open window.  I can count the times I've been inside: once many years ago for the funeral of a 13-year-old girl, and once more recently for the funeral of an elderly lawyer and former mentor of mine, once to hear Martin Marty speak, and several times over a period of weeks for an evening course on Meister Eckhart.  It's nice to get a glimpse when the day is still and without distractions.

Like mine tomorrow!

Just for Fun - Sliding Rock (Daily Photo 24)

When I was a little girl at camp in North Carolina, an afternoon at Sliding Rock was a highlight of the month.  I slipped up there early one morning last week for some photos, knowing that within a couple of hours it would be covered with screeching kids sliding into the icy pool at the bottom.  And adults, too ~ it hasn't been all that long since my own last slide down.

Looking Glass Falls (and Daily Photos 22-23)

When they were little, our three children played in the stream beyond the falls, sailing boats made of rhododendron leaves, and when they got a little older, they swam in the pool under the falls.

I was there Saturday morning, very early.  And when I turned to go, I saw that someone had made a small cairn across the tumbling water.  It guards Josh, I thought.  It waits there and watches.

It's a beautiful spot, and I could imagine Josh saying, "Thank you, Mom.  This was a very good place for all of us."  But . . . 

Don't say it's not really so bad.  Because it is.  Death is awful, demonic. ***  People sometimes think things are more awful than they really are.  Such people need to be corrected -- gently, eventually.  But no one thinks death is more awful than it is. 

~ Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Graveyard Fields (and Daily Photos 17-21: Mountains)

I don't remember how we discovered Graveyard Fields (origin of name unknown, but possibly due to a scattering of stumps reminiscent of gravestones) in the Pisgah Forest of North Carolina.  I do know that our first hike there involved the entire family in a gigantic thunder-and-lightning storm during which we ignored all safety rules in  our determination to make it the entire way to Upper Falls.

En route we discovered a stretch of river that flattens wide over a bed of pebbles ~ and that's actually my favorite part of the hike.  On sunny days when I've been out there alone, I've enjoyed just wading around in the river, and sitting on that huge rock to journal.  The one day I had last week was, unfortunately, not sunny.  But at least there was no sign of Thor and his thunderbolts.

 

I'm told that Second Falls is a favorite hangout of camp counselors on their days off ~ a great place in which to sit in the water all day long when the sun is hot.  

Josh and I have been all the way up to Upper Falls together, (it's about two miles from the trailhead but, given the terrain, hikes more like four) and have wandered around in the shallow riverbed, and so I took some of his ashes to each place.  Upper Falls was a little scary -- very slick on the rocks, and I had to slide most of the way down once I got up there.

Do you see how my life has changed, that I consider this to be normal behavior?

Goin' to Carolina . . . (and Daily Photo 16)

. . . and maybe off grid.  Back in a few days.

Horseshoe Lake, June Evening

Predator (Daily Photo 15)

Peace ~ Daily Photo 14

 

This is a fairly new monument in the cemetery in which I walk.  I love it.  To me, it evokes the balance that seems so elusive in those contexts that bring us to cemeteries. She embraces the flowers, her face sad but calm; she faces the wind that blows her hair back and gazes quietly into . . .  whatever it is. 

Temporary Visa (Daily Photo 13)

A tiny gray cat has just moved in!

The Quiet Husband does NOT want another cat.  This has been a matter of some contention.

The Lovely Daughter and a friend have rented an apartment (a block away - yay!) for next year, which her friend will move into on July 1.  (The LD is off to North Carolina that day for her summer camp counseling job, and will move when she gets back.)  They were going to get a cat, but one materialized yesterday.  At a bar, to which someone brought three kittens who had been dumped at his house. 

So the Little Gray Cat is here for a couple of weeks.  S/he (gender undisclosed) is quite fierce and Tipper the Dog looks somewhat depressed.

Photos eventually.

Zen Prayer Room at Villa Maria (PA) ~ Daily Photos 11 and 12

If you wander around in the back, looking for the sheep and goats and cows, eventually you stumble upon a tiny cottage with an extravagant herb garden out front.  Inside, on the ground floor, an art room, a small library on herbal remedies, and beautifully displayed objects ~ baskets and gords and photos~ from the past.  Upstairs (via ladder):

Stained Glass (Daily Photo 10)

Window Detail, Villa Maria Retreat Center Chapel (PA)

I'm over at Quantum Theology today.

Architectural Detail (Daily Photo 9)

QG suggested this subject, so on my last couple of walks through the Highland Park neighborhood near the seminary, I paid some extra attention to my favorite houses.

Memory (Daily Photo 8)

I think that my brother put it best when he said on FB," In the midst of thinking of those who protect us and have given so much, and those who have gone before us in our own lives....whom we miss so much."

In our family, at least in recent generations, we have not been touched by death in wartime.  My own family's generations were slightly off the timetable; my husband's father and his three brothers all headed for Europe in WWII, and they all came home.

But my brother and I, we miss our mother, and our brother, and our grandparents, and our stepmother Jewel, and now our son and nephew.

My brother did the work in getting this bench in memory of Josh placed in the cemetery in which I walk so often.  Due to various foul-ups, it took the past nine months for the task to be completed, but this last week-end the mother of one of Josh's best friends and I were able to plant some impatiens.  The bench is on a dirt path in the woods; the view through the tress is of a small lake, where mallards and wood ducks sailed by this morning.  I like to think that those few cemetery visitors who are a bit adventurous in leaving the main roads and paths will find some delight in stumbling upon this small patch of color, and that the words, "And may perpetual light shine upon him" will deflect a bit of the sadness coming from the dates indicating that a young man, a boy, really, died far too soon.

Symmetry (Daily Photo 7)

I have photographed this mausoleum countless times.  Yesterday the play of light caught my eye, and today I had a little photoshop fun.

This Is So Weird (plus Daily Photo 6: Cross)

I have cleaned out two dressers and hung some pictures and done four loads of laundry and played around online and .  .  .   there's no rush at all.  

I can plan to spend the entire week-end in the yard (which looks like the jungle) with lengthy breaks to hang out with my brother and his wife, who may come to visit  . . . and there's no rush at all.

However long it takes to do something is how long I have.