Sad about your daughter’s reaction, Jo. I hope you can get a little more information from her about why she would feel that way. It is good she did not completely hide her reaction. At least you know how she feels and can pray about it. She has a lot of input and experiences in her own life, and little might reflect reality and certainly not your heart from what you have written here. I am curious if she has your picture on her wall?
I have way too many family photos on my walls. I have too many of grandchildren photos, in frames, set about. I would like those to be on a wall but have not found a good way or place to do that right now. My fridge is also covered with them, which is great. The more generations living, the more pictures there are.
My mother did not display any photos of people on her walls, except for one very old one of her own mother when she was around 18 or 19. She did have some photos under a glass top on a desk.
I have a friend going through albums and actually throwing pictures away. She is now in a two-bedroom apartment. Since, her daughter bought her home, she can bring an album or two back to her apartment and weed through the albums. If the picture is of someone who may want it, she sends it to them. If the picture is some her children don’t know, she is throwing them away. A person just cannot keep them all. She knows her children will be tasked with doing it if she doesn’t. She isn’t someone who would use a computer to store them into like Michelle does.
Our church is the old type with a steeple. It also has stairs in front and back and is too small for an elevator. Although, the old churches can be quite beautiful, they can be quite impractical for modern use. They can also be quite small. That is probably why the congregation built a new church all those years ago. A unique feature in our church is the inside ceiling. It is recessed in the middle to form a giant cross sitting over the congregation. I love this. I don’t love that the stairs are hard on some people and impossible for some to use.
There’s a lot to be said about church architecture — the high ceilings (great acoustics), the stained glass, the beauty designed to glorify whom we worship.
The church I belong to now “rents.” It started out 30 years ago as a non-denominational church, loosely related to the Hope Chapels in this area, then became orthodox presbyterian maybe 20 years ago.
Our pastor, who’s led the church all that time and through the changes, said owning a church property just wasn’t ever a priority in the past, partly, he said, because it wasn’t known how long (or soon) it would be before Jesus returned and why “own” property here (on earth)?
So the church met in schools, and other facilities available for rent — for quite some time now we’ve leased space in a business park. It’s OK, but … It’s a business park. Four walls, low ceiling. We did remodel about 8 years ago so it looks nicer and more church-like inside than it did, but still …
That said, it is a big space with several adjacent and separate rooms for group meetings, a small library, a kitchen, nursery, offices. Single story. And the parking is sufficient and ample, which is important for a church our size (and that’s one of the things we found before when we were looking to buy a church property, most were in residential neighborhoods with very little parking). But we pay a lot for our space every month.
And interesting how churches once had cemeteries attached. A Quaker church I belonged to (2 churches ago) had the cemetery next to it, the founding pastor was buried there as were many church members. Our pastor now often says it was a way for believers to be reminded of both life and death, the deeper meanings of our faith and our journey on this earth, that it is a temporary one.
I wonder if Jo’s daughter’s reaction could have been a form of transference in that she is not wanting to accept that her mother has gotten old enough to pass along belongings like that. It is a reminder that she, too, is getting older. And she has firm ideas about how the generations are ‘suppose’ to do things. It is not your problem at all, Jo. “Sorry that I did not know how you’d feel . . .” should be sufficient. Really, it is odd. Not calling your daughter odd, of course, but just this partivular response.
I visited an old Anglican church in Virginia years ago surrounded by gravestones. It was hard not to laugh as the children came out of Sunday School and played among the stones.
Was it dishonoring? Or reminding us that life goes on among the standing stones?
It can be awkward, I think, passing on items — I remember when my mom would occasionally do that, ask if I wanted this or that from my childhood when I’d be visiting, I’d say, well, no, not really. Sometimes she saved them anyway, usually in the garage, so I eventually wound up with some of it. One thing I missed finding was my beloved old baseball glove.
But we didn’t really display “family photos” on our walls either when I was growing up (we also had a very small house). But my friend K, who had 2 daughters, has ALL their photos, at every age, along with pics of her parents (including one of their meeting the pope of years ago), lots and lots of photos of everyone, now grandkids, too, on their walls. I’m guessing (?) her own daughters maybe don’t?
Morning all. It is predicted to be the warmest of the coming days but will reach only 34 maybe. Then that pesky arctic front will hit us with a hard punch! My sinuses are already feeling it this morning!
Pip has gotten into the garbage for the first time…she is now in time out in her kennel. I walked into the kitchen to see trash strewn all over and she knew she was in trouble. I had changed the bag in the can under the counter and hung the filled one on a knob to take out after I clean our bathroom. She somehow knocked it off the knob and had a grand time in my short absence! Dogs!!!!!!
Sometimes having a daughter is like constantly falling onto a land mine with a simple question.
OTOH, sometimes having a daughter is like having a buddy who can also laugh at your husband with you–and then you can get away with it.
As I continue–will this ever end?–having emotional crevices of a different sort revealed through inner healing, I’m astounded at how [poorly] I viewed myself and how I was blinded to truth.
When we have issues with our daughters, sometimes its helpful to ask the Lord to show us if we had similar issues at the same ages/circumstances, and then to hop back one generation to our relationship with our own mothers.
That has turned up a shocking pattern through four generations of the women in my family–all at age 14–but which also enabled prayerful healing.
St. John’s is the name of the church. Episcopalion I believe. Another rural church in southeast Pa.
I like taking pics when they have character to them. There are some beautiful ones near us, but some not so much, and some that meet in a YMCA too. 🙂
Whatever you like, we have it. I imagine same goes for most areas of the US.
—
I treated myself today to a hair trim and beard cut, to celebrate treatment being over. I don’t spend on myself often, much prefer to give to the people I love. But I know most of you ladies will understand this. Sometimes you just need to do something nice for yourself, to feel pretty even. 🙂
I’m not saying that as if anyone isn’t always, but sometimes you feel run down and tired. You feel like you need a personal win.
Some do it with shopping, or nails, hair, or the spa even. I get a nice hair trim, beard cut back a good 2 and a half inches all the way around, straight razor edging all the way around, and a hot towel to finish. That like 8 minutes with the towel on feels fantastic. 🙂
Seriously, highly recommend that.
—-
Anyway,
I feel very good, am exhibiting no symptoms, and I’m optimistic. 🙂
I wrote a post on Facebook where I thanked all the people who have prayed for me, and helped me thru all this, including the Blogging Wanderers. 🙂 But in case some didn’t see that, I’ll thank you all here. Your friendship, love, and prayers are valuable to me, as are all of you. Regardless of the final outcome in 6 weeks, I know I have people who love me, pray for me and my family, and will continue to do so no matter what. That is such a powerful thing. Thank You.
This has all been bearable due to God’s love and blessings, and God’s people. YOU people. My family people. My church people. My Blog people.
God has become more obvious to me lately. As a result, I’m not as pessimistic about this whole affair as I was. He has opened my eyes to so many blessings, and people blessing me, that I sometimes missed before. It’s strange that cancer can be used by God to reveal Himself, yet that is exactly what has happened. I’m amazed.
Family photos: did not grow up with family photos on the walls, they went in scrap books. But saw enough of them in military houses to like it so put up a few but so many foster and adoptive children wrestled them off the walls I put them away for a few years though I think it is important for the extra children especially to see pics of themselves mingled with the family photos. Anyway, about a month ago I started putting them back up in the mud room. It is only about eight by six but the walls are quite covered. Several of the adoptees have noticed and commented approvingly.
Churches: we meet in the community center just off the library. We share a bathroom with the library but have our own sink and fridge and coffee pot in our little room that can hold fifty but we rarely have twenty in church. Our only marking is a portable sign out on the sidewalk saying Hope Baptist Church. But I like it. It is my home away from home away from Home.
Good morning, all. A beautiful day here. Snowing a bit with temps of thirty five looking at a low of twenty seven. Then we plunge down to minus three in a couple days.
Expecting husband’s sister to come for a couple of days. First time she has been here in many years, since we banned her dog. Kind of late for her to be visiting with her dad as he appears to be on the way out.
Also my Boise brother and his wife will stop in on their way to Moscow. He will be back for his four day stay on Tuesday. He comes and stays every two weeks so dad has something to look forward to, though he quickly forgets he has ever even been here.
Most of our deepest spiritual growth seems to come in hard times and through the valleys and trials.
I remember worshiping in a few small (and very old, very plain) Quaker meeting houses in NY/PA during visits with friends back there.
We have some good-looking classic-steeple churches just blocks from the beach and with ocean views, many small but classic neighborhood houses of worship. Some (many?) of our older mainline churches have long since (almost) emptied out and so we have been hopeful of finding one of those existing structures to purchase. We’ve come close, but nothing has worked out yet. Some of the churches are down to under 10 people on Sundays, but there are also other factors involved, including denomination ties, some with property ownership complications, competition with developers who have endless amounts of money to offer.
One church that could someday work for us is the mainline Presby church across the street from the beach — our pastor started out in ministry there as the youth pastor and still has close and warm ties. The congregation is more conservative that the mainline denomination it is in, and I think it may even have moved to a new Presby denomination set up specifically for churches who were exiting. There was some talk of combining our churches but ours would take the lead on that and the other church remains rooted in some practices (female elders, among them) that would be hard for them to break with, apparently (and would not fit with our denominational practices). But we’ll see, things change so it could be something in the future that may come to fruition.
We met inside that church a few summers ago when our church rental space was being remodeled and, for me, anyway, it felt so good to be back in a space that was constructed for worship, a church with pews, a church with stained glass and high ceilings (the acoustics! I’d forgotten how wonderful that is for singing).
The very plain Quaker houses, of course, have a physical beauty of their own.
But I think we miss a lot with our rental spaces, thinking our physical surroundings in worship, whether grand or purposely plain and simple, don’t matter.
True, we can worship God anywhere and corporate worship can take place in all sorts of settings. I’ve adapted to chairs and recessed lighting in a business park building.
Dj, I never associated it with Tara, but with other large church buildings with columns, only this is like those buildings on steroids, lol. It is so unlike other church buildings where I have been a member.
I found this 360°photo of the giant mainline Presbyterian Church building that sits across the street from the smaller Baptist church I previously attended. So you can actually see my former church in the photo. The Presbyterian has all those columns so it’s not just a Baptist thing but a style from a certain time period that was used frequently for congregations which had money to invest in such building projects.
Jo – I think I understand your daughter’s reaction, and don’t think that it is odd (I’m actually surprised that others have thought it odd), although I do think that getting angry about it was perhaps an over-reaction. Many of us expect our parents to keep and cherish those kinds of photos of us, so giving them to her may have struck her as you not caring about the photos anymore. I know that that is not what you intended, but it can be how she understood it.
Nightingale was just walking by, so I told her the situation and asked what she thought. She said that those photos are supposed to be for the nostalgia of the parents.
The building is longer than you can see here. It’s long and narrow. What looks like some kind of pole sticking up in front is the church sign from its side edge.
Loved that testimony, AJ. Yes, God uses cancer in countless lives of believers because He is always using the bad and undesirable stuff of life as a stepping stone to a good outcome for His believing children. Are we to consider heaven to be a consolation prize? No, it is the better thing, but we don’t fathom how that can be when we can console ourselves in so many ways. Confession: I bought another pumpkin pie for myself today to see me through the last week! When I bought one last week, I thought about that I had never bought a pie before just for myself (Art does not like pumpkin but Wes loves it). It is a marvelous thing to enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie daily!
AJ and Lutheran Linda will remember the plain grey walls with no cross from when they were at Hubby’s memorial service. There had been a cross years ago until the walls were painted, but it was never replaced after the painting.
Late last year, I was moved to tears (of joy) to enter the sanctuary one Sunday morning and see a large, plain cross with backlighting on the wall behind the podium area, and behind the cross, stretching out for several feet on either side, a backdrop of vertical wooden slats. (I really don’t know how to describe that. Not like wood paneling. Looks nice.) That also breaks up all the grey.
@3:37, now THOSE are columns! 🙂 Yes, probably an era of church architecture, maybe partly regional, but not necessarily denominational.
Kizzie, that’s a sweet, very simple building. I like that.
We added a (new) cross behind our pulpit when we did the remodeling several years ago; provided by one of our members, who’s now in a fierce cancer battle of her own, who is quite artistic and used some of the wood salvaged by her brother (who’s in construction) when he was hired to remove some of the old benches from the Hollywood Bowl. It’s big, simple but quite striking.
__________
And I see the “He Gets Us” campaign is now attacked by liberals who warn that it’s all a right-wing sneak-attack and trick to fool people …
I agree the columns are either regional or from a certain time period. I’ve attended a handful of Baptist churches in California and Michigan, and none had columns.
I’ll see if I can get a good picture of our present (Baptist) church on Sunday, though it will probably be a very snowy picture.
We will probably not attend church on Sunday. I did sign up to bring dessert for a potluck to be held after the annual meeting. Windchills are going to be dangerous. In our younger days we would have gone, but no more. We can watch the service. I hate to miss the meeting, though. They will have plenty to eat, so that is not a problem.
“Lord, have mercy” — that was about the most appropriate response I’ve seen on social media tonight to that video, which literally left me in tears over sin itself and what it’s done — and continues to do — in our world, in people’s hearts. Heartbreaking.
In my childhood church, the old graveyard beside and behind the century church building was frequently a playground for myself and the other children in Sunday School. We meant no disrespect, and I think the adults of the church were fine with it. However, I do dimly remember some talked of incident where some young people were partying in and perhaps vandalizing the graveyard – this was the ’90s, when horror stories of rebellious teens doing heinous deeds were panicking parents everywhere – and after that, I seem to remember playing in the graveyard was a bit more frowned upon. But the experience of playing among the gravestones proved very nostalgic – my youngest sibling had her wedding photos taken in that graveyard. Life does indeed go on.
DJ – I just posted an article about the video (which of course includes the video). Hopefully this will put to rest those disgusting rumors and innuendos about what was going on “between” Pelosi and DePape.
I included this in what I wrote on the news thread: “(For those concerned about how graphic this may be, we see Pelosi pulling away, and then DePape raise the hammer and strike, but Pelosi had just moved out of the doorway at the time, so the actual strike is not seen, but the immediate aftermath is.)”
My @9:03 was referring to the police beating tape that was released late today and was horrific. Somewhat murky and from a distance in most of the scenes, so not close-up, vividly graphic in visual detail, but shocking nonetheless — and just so horribly sad.
The Pelosi video also was shocking, of course, and should clear up a lot of the creative, alternative “theories” that were going around at the time.
Wandering Views 
Friday,it is. Photographing churches, Aj has been doing. As Yoda I am typing. (Know why, I do not.)
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I love old churches that look like churches. Our church is just an ugly building – nothing special or inviting about it at all.
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Sad about your daughter’s reaction, Jo. I hope you can get a little more information from her about why she would feel that way. It is good she did not completely hide her reaction. At least you know how she feels and can pray about it. She has a lot of input and experiences in her own life, and little might reflect reality and certainly not your heart from what you have written here. I am curious if she has your picture on her wall?
I have way too many family photos on my walls. I have too many of grandchildren photos, in frames, set about. I would like those to be on a wall but have not found a good way or place to do that right now. My fridge is also covered with them, which is great. The more generations living, the more pictures there are.
My mother did not display any photos of people on her walls, except for one very old one of her own mother when she was around 18 or 19. She did have some photos under a glass top on a desk.
I have a friend going through albums and actually throwing pictures away. She is now in a two-bedroom apartment. Since, her daughter bought her home, she can bring an album or two back to her apartment and weed through the albums. If the picture is of someone who may want it, she sends it to them. If the picture is some her children don’t know, she is throwing them away. A person just cannot keep them all. She knows her children will be tasked with doing it if she doesn’t. She isn’t someone who would use a computer to store them into like Michelle does.
What church is that in the photo?
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Our church is the old type with a steeple. It also has stairs in front and back and is too small for an elevator. Although, the old churches can be quite beautiful, they can be quite impractical for modern use. They can also be quite small. That is probably why the congregation built a new church all those years ago. A unique feature in our church is the inside ceiling. It is recessed in the middle to form a giant cross sitting over the congregation. I love this. I don’t love that the stairs are hard on some people and impossible for some to use.
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There’s a lot to be said about church architecture — the high ceilings (great acoustics), the stained glass, the beauty designed to glorify whom we worship.
The church I belong to now “rents.” It started out 30 years ago as a non-denominational church, loosely related to the Hope Chapels in this area, then became orthodox presbyterian maybe 20 years ago.
Our pastor, who’s led the church all that time and through the changes, said owning a church property just wasn’t ever a priority in the past, partly, he said, because it wasn’t known how long (or soon) it would be before Jesus returned and why “own” property here (on earth)?
So the church met in schools, and other facilities available for rent — for quite some time now we’ve leased space in a business park. It’s OK, but … It’s a business park. Four walls, low ceiling. We did remodel about 8 years ago so it looks nicer and more church-like inside than it did, but still …
That said, it is a big space with several adjacent and separate rooms for group meetings, a small library, a kitchen, nursery, offices. Single story. And the parking is sufficient and ample, which is important for a church our size (and that’s one of the things we found before when we were looking to buy a church property, most were in residential neighborhoods with very little parking). But we pay a lot for our space every month.
And interesting how churches once had cemeteries attached. A Quaker church I belonged to (2 churches ago) had the cemetery next to it, the founding pastor was buried there as were many church members. Our pastor now often says it was a way for believers to be reminded of both life and death, the deeper meanings of our faith and our journey on this earth, that it is a temporary one.
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Good morning. That is a lovely church building.
I wonder if Jo’s daughter’s reaction could have been a form of transference in that she is not wanting to accept that her mother has gotten old enough to pass along belongings like that. It is a reminder that she, too, is getting older. And she has firm ideas about how the generations are ‘suppose’ to do things. It is not your problem at all, Jo. “Sorry that I did not know how you’d feel . . .” should be sufficient. Really, it is odd. Not calling your daughter odd, of course, but just this partivular response.
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I visited an old Anglican church in Virginia years ago surrounded by gravestones. It was hard not to laugh as the children came out of Sunday School and played among the stones.
Was it dishonoring? Or reminding us that life goes on among the standing stones?
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It can be awkward, I think, passing on items — I remember when my mom would occasionally do that, ask if I wanted this or that from my childhood when I’d be visiting, I’d say, well, no, not really. Sometimes she saved them anyway, usually in the garage, so I eventually wound up with some of it. One thing I missed finding was my beloved old baseball glove.
But we didn’t really display “family photos” on our walls either when I was growing up (we also had a very small house). But my friend K, who had 2 daughters, has ALL their photos, at every age, along with pics of her parents (including one of their meeting the pope of years ago), lots and lots of photos of everyone, now grandkids, too, on their walls. I’m guessing (?) her own daughters maybe don’t?
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Life goes on, I’d say, Michelle 🙂
Reminders, all of it.
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Abby is so excited to see Annie every morning, trying to lick her face and make her play.
The cat, not so excited.
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Morning all. It is predicted to be the warmest of the coming days but will reach only 34 maybe. Then that pesky arctic front will hit us with a hard punch! My sinuses are already feeling it this morning!
Pip has gotten into the garbage for the first time…she is now in time out in her kennel. I walked into the kitchen to see trash strewn all over and she knew she was in trouble. I had changed the bag in the can under the counter and hung the filled one on a knob to take out after I clean our bathroom. She somehow knocked it off the knob and had a grand time in my short absence! Dogs!!!!!!
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Thanks friends, it helps to be understood and not condemned
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Sometimes having a daughter is like constantly falling onto a land mine with a simple question.
OTOH, sometimes having a daughter is like having a buddy who can also laugh at your husband with you–and then you can get away with it.
As I continue–will this ever end?–having emotional crevices of a different sort revealed through inner healing, I’m astounded at how [poorly] I viewed myself and how I was blinded to truth.
When we have issues with our daughters, sometimes its helpful to ask the Lord to show us if we had similar issues at the same ages/circumstances, and then to hop back one generation to our relationship with our own mothers.
That has turned up a shocking pattern through four generations of the women in my family–all at age 14–but which also enabled prayerful healing.
At least for me.
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Hey, let’s all take photos of our churches on Sunday and share them. That could be fun. 🙂
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St. John’s is the name of the church. Episcopalion I believe. Another rural church in southeast Pa.
I like taking pics when they have character to them. There are some beautiful ones near us, but some not so much, and some that meet in a YMCA too. 🙂
Whatever you like, we have it. I imagine same goes for most areas of the US.
—
I treated myself today to a hair trim and beard cut, to celebrate treatment being over. I don’t spend on myself often, much prefer to give to the people I love. But I know most of you ladies will understand this. Sometimes you just need to do something nice for yourself, to feel pretty even. 🙂
I’m not saying that as if anyone isn’t always, but sometimes you feel run down and tired. You feel like you need a personal win.
Some do it with shopping, or nails, hair, or the spa even. I get a nice hair trim, beard cut back a good 2 and a half inches all the way around, straight razor edging all the way around, and a hot towel to finish. That like 8 minutes with the towel on feels fantastic. 🙂
Seriously, highly recommend that.
—-
Anyway,
I feel very good, am exhibiting no symptoms, and I’m optimistic. 🙂
I wrote a post on Facebook where I thanked all the people who have prayed for me, and helped me thru all this, including the Blogging Wanderers. 🙂 But in case some didn’t see that, I’ll thank you all here. Your friendship, love, and prayers are valuable to me, as are all of you. Regardless of the final outcome in 6 weeks, I know I have people who love me, pray for me and my family, and will continue to do so no matter what. That is such a powerful thing. Thank You.
This has all been bearable due to God’s love and blessings, and God’s people. YOU people. My family people. My church people. My Blog people.
God has become more obvious to me lately. As a result, I’m not as pessimistic about this whole affair as I was. He has opened my eyes to so many blessings, and people blessing me, that I sometimes missed before. It’s strange that cancer can be used by God to reveal Himself, yet that is exactly what has happened. I’m amazed.
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Love that idea Michelle. 🙂
Send ’em in all, I’ll post them.
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Family photos: did not grow up with family photos on the walls, they went in scrap books. But saw enough of them in military houses to like it so put up a few but so many foster and adoptive children wrestled them off the walls I put them away for a few years though I think it is important for the extra children especially to see pics of themselves mingled with the family photos. Anyway, about a month ago I started putting them back up in the mud room. It is only about eight by six but the walls are quite covered. Several of the adoptees have noticed and commented approvingly.
Churches: we meet in the community center just off the library. We share a bathroom with the library but have our own sink and fridge and coffee pot in our little room that can hold fifty but we rarely have twenty in church. Our only marking is a portable sign out on the sidewalk saying Hope Baptist Church. But I like it. It is my home away from home away from Home.
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Good morning, all. A beautiful day here. Snowing a bit with temps of thirty five looking at a low of twenty seven. Then we plunge down to minus three in a couple days.
Expecting husband’s sister to come for a couple of days. First time she has been here in many years, since we banned her dog. Kind of late for her to be visiting with her dad as he appears to be on the way out.
Also my Boise brother and his wife will stop in on their way to Moscow. He will be back for his four day stay on Tuesday. He comes and stays every two weeks so dad has something to look forward to, though he quickly forgets he has ever even been here.
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Since I won’t be at church Sunday, here is the Google 360°street view. Across the street is a very large local cemetary. Roll the picture around to view the parking lot, the education building, and the giant church building. I was intimidated by the size of the building, but inside it has a small town atmosphere with many friendly people who love the Lord and know the Bible.
https://www.google.com/local/place/fid/0x88f5a86d53d61cfb:0xe9f9b24f37a09b91/photosphere?iu=https://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?panoid%3DhRmh9Z1cOmDK1Jw89JZ2mA%26cb_client%3Dlu.gallery.gps%26w%3D160%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D65.86719%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100&ik=CAISFmhSbWg5WjFjT21ESzFKdzg5SloybUE%3D
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There is a six-lane highway in front of the church, too. It is right past an entrance to Interstate-285 which is the loop around Atlanta.
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Most of our deepest spiritual growth seems to come in hard times and through the valleys and trials.
I remember worshiping in a few small (and very old, very plain) Quaker meeting houses in NY/PA during visits with friends back there.
We have some good-looking classic-steeple churches just blocks from the beach and with ocean views, many small but classic neighborhood houses of worship. Some (many?) of our older mainline churches have long since (almost) emptied out and so we have been hopeful of finding one of those existing structures to purchase. We’ve come close, but nothing has worked out yet. Some of the churches are down to under 10 people on Sundays, but there are also other factors involved, including denomination ties, some with property ownership complications, competition with developers who have endless amounts of money to offer.
One church that could someday work for us is the mainline Presby church across the street from the beach — our pastor started out in ministry there as the youth pastor and still has close and warm ties. The congregation is more conservative that the mainline denomination it is in, and I think it may even have moved to a new Presby denomination set up specifically for churches who were exiting. There was some talk of combining our churches but ours would take the lead on that and the other church remains rooted in some practices (female elders, among them) that would be hard for them to break with, apparently (and would not fit with our denominational practices). But we’ll see, things change so it could be something in the future that may come to fruition.
We met inside that church a few summers ago when our church rental space was being remodeled and, for me, anyway, it felt so good to be back in a space that was constructed for worship, a church with pews, a church with stained glass and high ceilings (the acoustics! I’d forgotten how wonderful that is for singing).
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Janice, that church just looks “GEORGIA.”
Very stately, almost Tara-like with the columns. Tara had columns, right?
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The very plain Quaker houses, of course, have a physical beauty of their own.
But I think we miss a lot with our rental spaces, thinking our physical surroundings in worship, whether grand or purposely plain and simple, don’t matter.
True, we can worship God anywhere and corporate worship can take place in all sorts of settings. I’ve adapted to chairs and recessed lighting in a business park building.
But … sigh.
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Dj, I never associated it with Tara, but with other large church buildings with columns, only this is like those buildings on steroids, lol. It is so unlike other church buildings where I have been a member.
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What is going on here? I don’t remember writing those posts today. Am I losing my mind????
(Quite possible, or at least it feels that way at the moment!)
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Are columns maybe a Baptist “thing”?
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michelle?… (as mumsee would say)
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Probably not, necessarily.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_architecture
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I can not even find photos of the other small church buildings I worshipped in!
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I think I am losing my emotional mind . . . I think I’ll get my haircut . . . (planned) and forget all my problems as the locks fall away.
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The real, I have noticed and appreciated that change in you. It has come through in your posts.
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I found this 360°photo of the giant mainline Presbyterian Church building that sits across the street from the smaller Baptist church I previously attended. So you can actually see my former church in the photo. The Presbyterian has all those columns so it’s not just a Baptist thing but a style from a certain time period that was used frequently for congregations which had money to invest in such building projects.
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https://www.google.com/local/place/fid/0x88f507b235ad44ed:0xcd8d0d2857546ddf/photosphere?iu=https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipMJvF71ahjX2iJnhK78AGOqkZ-7VXFQYgannrbE%3Dw160-h106-k-no-pi-30-ya17.636023-ro0-fo100&ik=CAoSLEFGMVFpcE1KdkY3MWFoalgyaUpuaEs3OEFHT3FrWi03VlhGUVlnYW5ucmJF
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I notice that both 360° photos have lovely blue skies and puffy white clouds!
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Jo – I think I understand your daughter’s reaction, and don’t think that it is odd (I’m actually surprised that others have thought it odd), although I do think that getting angry about it was perhaps an over-reaction. Many of us expect our parents to keep and cherish those kinds of photos of us, so giving them to her may have struck her as you not caring about the photos anymore. I know that that is not what you intended, but it can be how she understood it.
Nightingale was just walking by, so I told her the situation and asked what she thought. She said that those photos are supposed to be for the nostalgia of the parents.
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Let’s see if this works. This should be a photo of our church building, which used to be a Masonic hall.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipNi104Ly-U0VPD7FwUX2MURYYZvgZbDeuDRzgQ=s1360-w1360-h1020
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It worked!
The building is longer than you can see here. It’s long and narrow. What looks like some kind of pole sticking up in front is the church sign from its side edge.
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Loved that testimony, AJ. Yes, God uses cancer in countless lives of believers because He is always using the bad and undesirable stuff of life as a stepping stone to a good outcome for His believing children. Are we to consider heaven to be a consolation prize? No, it is the better thing, but we don’t fathom how that can be when we can console ourselves in so many ways. Confession: I bought another pumpkin pie for myself today to see me through the last week! When I bought one last week, I thought about that I had never bought a pie before just for myself (Art does not like pumpkin but Wes loves it). It is a marvelous thing to enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie daily!
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AJ and Lutheran Linda will remember the plain grey walls with no cross from when they were at Hubby’s memorial service. There had been a cross years ago until the walls were painted, but it was never replaced after the painting.
Late last year, I was moved to tears (of joy) to enter the sanctuary one Sunday morning and see a large, plain cross with backlighting on the wall behind the podium area, and behind the cross, stretching out for several feet on either side, a backdrop of vertical wooden slats. (I really don’t know how to describe that. Not like wood paneling. Looks nice.) That also breaks up all the grey.
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AJ – I am very happy for you. ❤
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This is a good explanation of what Matthew 18 means and doesn’t mean. . .
https://gentlereformation.com/2023/01/24/the-many-odd-uses-and-abuses-of-matthew-18/?fbclid=IwAR2N-Ma5m2pgUP16MRbD–kZLVhVKFLwlCHTBdnEvqYdNpW4m6FHvTOlC8M
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@3:37, now THOSE are columns! 🙂 Yes, probably an era of church architecture, maybe partly regional, but not necessarily denominational.
Kizzie, that’s a sweet, very simple building. I like that.
We added a (new) cross behind our pulpit when we did the remodeling several years ago; provided by one of our members, who’s now in a fierce cancer battle of her own, who is quite artistic and used some of the wood salvaged by her brother (who’s in construction) when he was hired to remove some of the old benches from the Hollywood Bowl. It’s big, simple but quite striking.
__________
And I see the “He Gets Us” campaign is now attacked by liberals who warn that it’s all a right-wing sneak-attack and trick to fool people …
Well, it got people talking, that’s for sure.
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I think I need a haircut, I’ve had long hair most of my life and it’s approaching that again … But my stylist likes to cut it “too” short …
I want it “just right.” — Goldilocks
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I agree the columns are either regional or from a certain time period. I’ve attended a handful of Baptist churches in California and Michigan, and none had columns.
I’ll see if I can get a good picture of our present (Baptist) church on Sunday, though it will probably be a very snowy picture.
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This was the church I was ‘dedicated’ in, it still looks much the same (if this link works) — Pillars. Baptist.
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Well, it’s the map. lol
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Click on ‘View larger map’ and the pic will be there.
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I like your church building, Kizzie. The members have redeemed that space!
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We will probably not attend church on Sunday. I did sign up to bring dessert for a potluck to be held after the annual meeting. Windchills are going to be dangerous. In our younger days we would have gone, but no more. We can watch the service. I hate to miss the meeting, though. They will have plenty to eat, so that is not a problem.
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“Lord, have mercy” — that was about the most appropriate response I’ve seen on social media tonight to that video, which literally left me in tears over sin itself and what it’s done — and continues to do — in our world, in people’s hearts. Heartbreaking.
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In my childhood church, the old graveyard beside and behind the century church building was frequently a playground for myself and the other children in Sunday School. We meant no disrespect, and I think the adults of the church were fine with it. However, I do dimly remember some talked of incident where some young people were partying in and perhaps vandalizing the graveyard – this was the ’90s, when horror stories of rebellious teens doing heinous deeds were panicking parents everywhere – and after that, I seem to remember playing in the graveyard was a bit more frowned upon. But the experience of playing among the gravestones proved very nostalgic – my youngest sibling had her wedding photos taken in that graveyard. Life does indeed go on.
AJ, praying for you.
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DJ – I just posted an article about the video (which of course includes the video). Hopefully this will put to rest those disgusting rumors and innuendos about what was going on “between” Pelosi and DePape.
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I included this in what I wrote on the news thread: “(For those concerned about how graphic this may be, we see Pelosi pulling away, and then DePape raise the hammer and strike, but Pelosi had just moved out of the doorway at the time, so the actual strike is not seen, but the immediate aftermath is.)”
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so nice to see Roscuro here, welcome back.
I am walking like a little old hunched over old man today. Knee and leg are better, but I hurt my back.
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My @9:03 was referring to the police beating tape that was released late today and was horrific. Somewhat murky and from a distance in most of the scenes, so not close-up, vividly graphic in visual detail, but shocking nonetheless — and just so horribly sad.
The Pelosi video also was shocking, of course, and should clear up a lot of the creative, alternative “theories” that were going around at the time.
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… or not, of course.
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