Daily Archives: December 30, 2012

Anne LaMott on the death of her beloved cat

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As we prepare for Margery’s death, some words from Anne Lamott (from Help, Thanks, Wow)

Now it turns out that my cat is going to die later today. She is struggling to breathe. I had hoped and prayed that she would slip off in the night and that I would not have to have the bet come by to put her down. I said, Help. Also, I gave her a lot of morphine, what had to have been an overdose, which she just slept off. All I wanted was for her not to die miserable and afraid. That’s all.

It is nighttime now, and Jeanie passed an hour ago, miserable and afraid.

When the vet came, we tried to gently get her out from under the futon, and she went crazy, and the next ten minutes were so awful that I won’t describe them. Suffice it to say that she did not go gently into that good night. It broke my heart. But she had been suffering, and is suffering no more. She had an amazing run of love with my family. She was a proud little union cat, and also a model of queenly disdain with a bit of grudging affection for most people, and pure adoration for me.

Was my prayer answered? Yes, although I didn’t get what I’d hoped and prayed for, what I’d selected from the menu. Am I sick with anxiety, that I did the wrong thing? Of course. Sad? Heartbroken. But Jeanie hit the lottery when she got me as her person for thirteen years, and the bad death was only ten minutes. So let me get back to you on this.

Certainly the same could be said of Margery. Had we not noticed her that afternoon in Sewanee, or had we accepted the first vet’s opinion, Margery would have died as a kitten. She’s had a good life. She’s been loved and loved us and she’s endured all of the other cats we’ve brought into her life. She’s brought us joy and she’s enjoyed shrimp and calamari, and all manner of other things, including a nap on a sunny day on a screened-in porch in Madison.

Renovating and Rethinking Sacred Space

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An article in today’s New York Times entitled “Building Congregations around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes” explores the latest innovations in church planting among Evangelicals. Several things to note.

1) that the number of new evangelical churches has gone up every year since 2006 (despite the fact that attendance at services is on the decline

2) a quotation from Warren Bird of the Leadership Network:

For new leaders coming out of seminary, “the cool thing is church planting,” Mr. Bird said. “The uncool thing is to go into the established church. Why that has taken over may speak to the entrepreneurialism and innovation that today’s generation represents.”

3. An interesting detail in the description of the National Community Church in Washington. It has 3000 members and yearly turnover of 40%.

Readers of this blog know that I am very interested in some of the new forms that are emerging in Christianity, in outreach to young adults and millennials, and in the role of sacred space in mission and ministry. One of the important things about sacred space is that it roots us in the tradition and connects us with the divine. There’s a sense of permanence there that runs counter to the ideas expressed in all three of the points I numbered above.

The articles below offer several different approaches to sacred space; the renovation of space to fit in with current liturgical principles, the creation of new sacred space, and appreciation of sacred space that has been around a very long time.

An Episcopal Church in Allentown, PA won an award from Faith & Form, the quarterly journal of the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture (IFRAA), part of The American Institute of Architects, for his leadership of the award-winning liturgical renovation of Grace Church in Allentown, PA. IFRAA will bestow the 2012 Religious Art & Architecture award next June in Denver, Colorado.

Designed by its Rector Patrick Malloy who is now Dean of General Theological Seminary, it is intended to reflect the liturgical principles of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. In classes on worship and architecture, Dean Malloy:

invites students to explore the intersection of architecture, art, and liturgy, and how they meet to shape the experience of sacred space. “I wished to provide a context in which students could consider how space and the liturgies we celebrate in those spaces interact. How might liturgical spaces be designed to inspire a community’s ways of celebrating? Those who plan liturgy, too, must conceive of the liturgy spatially: how it will inhabit the space.”

There’s an article on the church’s renovation available from the Diocese of Bethlehem. And more about the awards, including information on all the winners, is available here.

On a very different note, Notre Dame (Paris) is celebrating its 850th anniversary this year

Design for the new Roman Catholic Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Kenan Malik writes about St. Etheldreda Church, perhaps the oldest Catholic Church in England. As he says, “An ecclesiastical gem soaked in blood and history.”