Building a Cathedral, and other reflections on planning a wedding

A few days ago, we got on the topic of building cathedrals. Jonathan & I had convened in my sister’s kitchen, conveniently during naptime, and the four of us were comparing the similarities between Silicon Valley and Evangelical church planting when the topic came up. Rather than cover a church in the trappings of popular (or hipster) culture to draw a crowd--the current Evangelical approach--we proffered the idea of building a cathedral. I suppose the desire comes from an inordinate love for beautiful things that is present in all four of us, and my own stubborn resistance to cultural trends. What if we were to build not a modern cathedral, such as the LA Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, but a gothic cathedral? The old fashioned way, too--in the middle of a town, slow and painstaking, so that the lucky man might see it both started and finished in his lifetime. And perhaps by the slow rise of sublimity we might draw those who hunger and thirst not for another concert and light show or another TED talk, but for the silent gravity and reverence of the God who calls himself a Rock and a Fortress, a Sanctuary. The Beautiful One. Of course, none of us have millions of dollars to build a gothic cathedral. But the idea hasn’t left me. 

      As Jonathan and I have planned our wedding, beauty has been a central idea. As we worked to find a date that fit with two teacher’s schedules, plus an international student’s schedule, we decided that being in a beautiful place was more important to us than “just being married.” And so we’ve spent our summer off crafting, cutting, sanding, dreaming, and running all over the city of Phoenix to build a wedding that is beautiful. As we draw to the end of our intensive planning period, I find myself daydreaming about what I would do next if we had unbudgeted margin. Our parents have been extremely generous, and we are so excited about the things we have planned. The wedding, as is, will be beautiful. But, with the final details falling into place, I find myself idly dreaming--what if I had had the funds to commission a dear friend & composer to arrange our favorite hymns for string quartet? What if we could haul a little spinnet up to the woods and have it tuned so that one of my best friends could play on the day of our wedding? I dream about a wooden altar table in the front of our woodland sanctuary, laid with communion elements, scattered with greens, and lit with white candles rising from brass and gold candlesticks. I imagine hanging old church windows from the trees to catch the sunset light. 

     And what I find myself saying, buried in the wrapping of all these little impractical musings, is that I long to build our wedding like a cathedral. I want to create something unmistakably beautiful that points not to itself, but cries out the glory of God. I want our wedding to be quiet and peaceful yet saturated with the joy of God’s love. I hope that those who join us find respite from the frantic, overstimulating distractions of the world, and enter a cathedral that echoes the transcendence of our Lord. In our celebrations, I hope we will be both solemnly joyful, and riotously worshipful. I hope that it feels like the feast of heaven, even if the feeling just shines around the rough edges. I hope that it feels holy. 

      This too, is why the celebration of Eucharist will be so central to our wedding. In it we give thanks, receiving what God has given and offering it back to him in love. Schmemann calls it “the sacrament of cosmic remembrance: a restoration of love as the very life of the world.” For just as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us, so husbands ought to love their wives. Just as Mary, who is the first Christian, the Mother of the Church, and the symbol of Christian life, gives herself with loving, full obedience to the will of God, so brides ought to love their husbands. On the day of our wedding, Jonathan and I will not only have created what I hope will be a beautiful day, but the foundation of a cathedral that will take a lifetime to build, and will point, ultimately, to the love of God for his people, to his great glory and beauty and splendor. 
      “This is a great mystery--but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.”

collecting beautiful things

the happiness project: new desk

At some point during June, I bought a beautiful desk at an estate sale in the neighborhood. It took a little maneuvering, and negotiating with my sister to get her to take my old dresser, but I finally have the desk set up.

Here's the room before the desk - (this is from January, right after I painted & re-arranged)

The purple lamp is leftover from when we moved into the house (it matched the lavender walls). I had since replaced the lamp, but I was doing all of my schoolwork on my bed in the meantime, and Kelsey was always coming in to use the mirror. 

Since coming home, I've put up two Monet prints, re-arranged my bookshelves, and designed my desk to create a good working space. This summer I finally feel like I have a space truly my own, that fits my taste and is works better with my lifestyle. 

Here's the end result: 

the Happiness Project: fun reading

One of the main things that has kept me sane this summer, and kept motivating me to read my school books, is always having something that I am reading simply because I want to. Reading fun books reminds me why I love reading, and keeps my mind engaged and stimulated so that when I do sit down to read Darwin or Melville, I know how to be present with the book. Here's a list of the fun reads I've tackled thus far this summer:

The Little Prince ~ Saint-Exupéry

I re-read this book at the beginning of the summer after finding a beautiful copy at Half Price Books. It's so good. It totally made me cry. And the illustrations are always a winner.
I read this a bit at a time at night, just a chapter here and there when I could stay awake for it. I finished it in a week.

A Grief Observed ~ C.S. Lewis

I've had a tiny paperback copy of this for about two years but never got to it. I was so glad I chose to start my summer with this because it felt like he put words to my own journey with doubt. Interesting, heartbreaking, but fascinating. I went back and re-read sections when I was done.

Bread and Wine ~ Shauna Niequist

I've heard this book recommended by several bloggers whose book recommendations I trust, but I checked it out from the library as a last-resort when the book I wanted was out. I was so glad I did. A memoir on hospitality, community, and food, this book is full of stories that will make you want to cook and have people over. I've still got it sitting on my dresser with post-it notes where I want to copy recipes.

Geography

my head hurts like the dickens

and you are not here.

Tonight leaving work

there was the moon—

huge and hanging low

pale orange and I thought to tell you

but you were not there.

Of course. How could I expect you to be?

It is the hardest because it is

so reasonable

and my mis-starts and missteps

like a child who keeps thinking

the Andes are next to the Himalayas

and crying when she is wrong

because she knows better.

But you, unlike the distant Himalayas,

ought to be near

to share moonrises on the second of June

thunderstorms

and quiet Saturdays

drives at golden hour, the air full

of snowy cottonwood seeds

catching the sun like stars.

(Were there no mountain range between us

I would lie on the floor beside you

murmuring conversation until tired enough

to sleep this headache away.

And your silence would be broken.)

But ever my geography was faulty. 



~j.l.s.

stand with your lover on the ending earth-

stand with your lover on the ending earth- 

and while a(huge which by which huger than 
huge)whoing sea leaps to greenly hurl snow 

suppose we could not love,dear;imagine 

ourselves like living neither nor dead these 
(or many thousand hearts which don’t and dream 
or many million minds which sleep and move) 
blind sands,at pitiless the mercy of 

time time time time time 

-how fortunate are you and i,whose home 
is timelessness:we who have wandered down 
from fragrant mountains of eternal now 

to frolic in such mysteries as birth 
and death a day(or maybe even less)

(e. e. cummings)

Icarus

I am not quite sure you have been right about

everything.

About most things—I will give you that—

But all of them? I would shake my head, then,

And look at you with open eyes.

Will you to see yourself clearer than that.

Look for mirrors sharper than that

and pray for defiance of augury

and knowledge there is grace

            for the fall of every sparrow.

Even those such as Icarus. 

Triplicate

i.

I dreamed the long flight home,
saw that yours was the thought which made me smile,
drank the ocean air like elixir.
Stumbled words, laughed,
ached with threnody.

ii.

If only my arms were as strong as yours!
My solidity would then be unquestioned,
recursive rings tracing my lines.
Then the sunlight could sheet down my sides unfettered,
I could drink air,
and breathe song.

iii.

Who would have thought them sweet?
Those, those words
could bound flesh, thoughts, hope, pain?
Which one of them knew answers? and to
Which question? oh this love
both less and more, more
than I have ever known-


-R.F.B.

120 volt threnody

Escape these saturated colors and leap
(footlong and headloose)
into grey smoking waterfalls
and the white light of past generations,
stilling the electric nerve
and relentless neon pulse of uncertainty.

-Or, just dress that way on social media.
It might be easier, such insulation;
after all, the sepia world never did look like that.


-R.F.B

on Holiness

Summer in the midwest is my favorite time. The world is so alive, then, the wind tosses the trees and brings the rain, it sends them away and the sun sets and the world turns golden. It gets me to thinking of holiness, of the Spirit running with whispering feet over the fields bringing fruitfulness and life. And I find that such beauty, in nature, singing calls me into some of the holiest moments I have known.

And so, my question.

Perhaps yours has nothing to do with beauty, or everything to do with it. It doesn't really matter. You could write it poetry or prose, about the darkness of 5am or the brilliance of a summer sunset, but my question is this:
what has been one of the holiest moments of your life?

~j.l.s.

on Hummingbirds and Signs

     Aliza and I ended up on the same poem prompt through conversation. After about fifteen minutes with the same prompt, here's what we came up with.

Sat Still Long Enough

I think I saw you(the hummingbird sat still)long enough
to see that
there are branches to sit on
also branches
also sitting.

So please lead me along with an augury that doesn't rely on myself
(I'll fly south with my eyes wide open the entire way).

I'll make my nest in a field
still
enough

to house swallows,
also snakes,
also myself.

And You.

-a.g.s.

Augury and Oracles

I never expected signs

did not need them

I learned independence in the dark

and assurance in solitude

never doubting, firm as a rock

how extravagant then, that you

in the afternoon light

would wreck me with augury

and with the tiniest of birds

I should be overwhelmed.

that a thousand winging thrills

and a flash of ruby red

should over and again be

the feathered providence

      of tender grace. 

~j.l.s.

In which I am posing a question in the form of a prayer

You, Christ, use things to fill me up; the sound of bells distant and golden sunshine illuminating the green trees, a hummingbird, a conversation, piano music spreading over the hall. Are they your way of filling and sustaining me? Ought I not to be satisfied in you alone? Should those external things seem so to fill me and be drips of the waterfall where I hold my cup? Are they your way of showing me your quiet and overflowing beauty in abundant measure, the brimming-ness of your character? Or is it just me delighting and wondering in the creation rather than the Creator to whom I owe all affection, devotion, adoration, delight, praise and attention?

Am I right to see such moments as a filling up; giving thanks to you for them as your provision? Or do I mistake them for more than simply the ordinary?

~

How do you know when you have gotten stuck on the beauty of the creation and failed to ascend to worshiping the beauty of its Creator?

go out

there may be eighty seven

ragged souls in this loud room

how many known?

Not even one

not even completely

Look at their faces

caught unawares

at rest

hopeful or weary

peaceful or pain-full

it’s in the eyes,

gleams like fire caught flickering

rosy dawn shimmering

wild storm flashes

high-tossing waves.

Can I dare to look and see?

go outside the limp shape

that is my own soul and try

to see the shape of another?

Australia

Faces tanned and angled
by the fingertips of the land
dragged across bright eyes
and thin-curved lips-
the red rich dirt
the fertility of the earth
has settled into the soul of these people,
themselves soujourners
in this land which flows
with gold and honey.

-r.b.

The Studio

"Oxford had really represented to us two things so intertwined that we did not clearly distinguish them. One was the apostolic faith in its fullness, as represented by C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. The other was high civilisation, sweet reason, and the life of the mind, which was no less represented by Lewis and Williams as well as many others. Religiously, we longed for the lively life in Christ, but we did not fully see that we were equally longing for the lively life of the mind - the delights of conversation at once serious and gay, which is, whatever its subject, Christ or poetry or history, the ultimately civilised thing. When we spoke of the lively life in Christ, we meant keenness, to be sure, but we also meant the subtle discourse on the meanings of Christ's way that is, in fact, only possible among highly articulate and civilised Christians."
                       ~Sheldon Vanauken, from A Severe Mercy

It Is Not In Mourning

It is not in mourning that I cease to be
counted as blessed. It is not in the blackness(for at least night has stars) but in grayness &
fogs.
Do not pity me so, friend, in my wailing.

When I have forgotten (to notice the trees is when) you've lost me.
When I care no more for the aching horizon it is when
I can no longer smell the potted plants, just outside.

Because now, it takes everything within me to slip these words through my bones
like a refugee slipping through prison bars
and it takes me. It takes all of me just to say

It is not in mourning that I cease to be.

-a-