Church off the Beaten Path
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Stacked and molded together, the church was made from bricks that were brown and red and burnt orange, as though they’d been freshly fired before they were set. The windows were filled with stained glass. Little was telling about the randomly placed shields and crosses that swirled in the smaller panes. Intention might have been lost completely save for the arching windows in the main chapel. The apostles appearing in them are hard to miss, but more importantly mark this building as a place of redemption.
Nearly identical, the two men stand with hands held in prayer flanking a central panel that, on the inside, must be placed over the pulpit. The sun shines down in wedges that broaden as they approach Earth. Where the rays are directed is not specific – they simply end in a straight line. The place or the person that is enlightened is left to interpretation, so I imagined myself to be the soul that was touched as reward for noticing the imagery in this building off the courthouse square.
Brick churches are common and plain, even this one that hides on side streets so narrow they appear as alleyways or private drives. This one is across a small parking lot from the public library and next to a parking garage that feeds the legal buildings. Accountants, small-time attorneys, and dentists are the neighbors and their places of business stretch half-a-block up the street to the main route all-night bail bonds operations. The proprietors come and go in overcoats – in hats with bands around them, usually with briefcase in hand or coffee or both, and though walking with deliberate purpose are still pleasant in saying hello to anyone that passes on the short walk between office doors and their automobile.
These men are the type to say they know the church well and tell passersby that messages are written in the stone and hidden in the windows, but they do not know what the messages portray or where they can be found. Whoever laid the bricks for this building believed detail precious and important. Belief, though, was the most evident. They were hard laborers but also godly men, affiliated with the church in some capacity if the words chiseled in earth-colored stone and placed above the doorways are any telling.
The most prominent stone was placed in a corner at the main entrance: Built upon the foundation of the apostles and Prophet Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone. These are the words that face the congregation as they walk up a cement staircase on the way in to church on Sundays and stand as a reminder in the background while thanking the preacher for his message after the service and that children run their fingers over while their parents converse, not knowing what the words say but realizing their importance in the deep cuts and the carefulness in the lettering.
On the same stone, on its side facing the street, more words are inscribed: First Christian Church, organized 1860, erected 1925. Lower and toward the middle in the same broad wall, another statement appears: They continued steadfast in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship. The messages are clear to anyone approaching from the sidewalk on the southern side. And the building’s holiness is established from its east entrance, too, though the thoughts address expression more so than laying the path. Down the stairs from the main entrance’s double doors, another brick above the basement door reads: Sing for the glory of his name.
This might have been the way to the choir room when the structure was first raised, but now it’s a dark hall dirtied with faint watermarks left on the glass where the overhang has sharpened the storm winds in its narrow space or drips have slid down the windows. The doors are sloppily painted, the panes are rotted. Craftsmanship and its standards have changed in millennium since the church was assembled. Values and the standards taught from the pulpit may have, too.
The god fearing churchgoers who still worship here would like to think not. So the words imparted on the stone are still carried out in faith. Faith in these phrases is the literal foundation on which this church was founded, words serving as guiders and reminders to its founders and attendants. The smaller windows were also filled with stained glass. Some are so narrow that an arm could fit through but nothing more. The effects are insignificant on the inside but on the inside must be worthwhile, maybe partially lighting a stairwell or a study.
Surroundings such as the garage and the business do no make this church a destination for newlyweds. The patrons here are older, their ties run deep perhaps as far back as the people who determined the parcel be the place to witness the Lord. Their children have grown up now, and many have chosen more scenic places to live and to pray.
This church now survives on convenience. While it’s close to the county buildings, those offices are closed on weekends, which make the side streets and the parking lots available for church traffic on Sunday mornings. Where it sits, among the neighborhoods and the houses that were built around it, it is an amiable enough place to come together. The appeal of the windows and the stones are secondary to the faith they represent.
