Holy and Sacred or Unwhole and Scared?

Beautiful churches are nothing new to me. Old hat, ho hum, there goes another marble column, yawn. Growing up in London and getting yanked through major art galleries and museums when I was too young to appreciate them and without any guidance, mind you, my eye was assailed with levels of beauty that set such a high bar, it's been hard to impress it since. The wonders of Venice, Rome, Florence, Japan and Moscow, in my early adult years seemed like nothing to write home about. I was already jaded by the big, glorious, grand, ancient, gold, marble, height. Thanks anyway.

On the living room and bedroom walls at home my mother hung small framed reproductions of her favorite paintings, had a couple of plaster busts of famous classical composers on the mantlepiece. Music and art surrounded me. It was just an every day part of life, I thought nothing about it, took it for granted completely, later scorning the classics for modern and a little embarrassed that we had only reproductions instead of originals, freakin' little snob that I was becoming.

I also remember feeling tired quite often as I slogged through museums on rainy summer school vacation days and I was probably hungry too. Eating wasn't something I did more than once or twice a day, as a result of tight budget at home and my own laziness about cooking. I have since learned that when one is tired and hungry, life's impressions sit differently on the dusty cushion of one's perception. As a teen, I trolled through galleries and museums mostly to fill time, quell boredom. I found myself looking more at the other people than the exhibits. At that time I used the word beautiful almost exclusively to describe clothes, women or scenery. ( The Swiss alps still top my list for natural splendor.) Beauty was strictly relegated to visual experiences where I was still very focused. And eventually, the pains real life began to seep through the surface and I had to learn to grow up.

I began to seek refuge in churches when my soul began hurting, finding comfort in the familiar designs and smells of the interiors, whether the church was in London, Singapore or Northern California. Just sitting there and not talking to anyone, I silently wept, longing for a sense of connection with something to assuage my profound despair and suffering from inevitable disappointments, loss, deprivation and cruelty. It was only then that I opened to the true aspect of beauty, that which brings with it a deep peace.

In the London of my early years, paintings of religious scenes from the Italian Renaissance were nothing more to me than framed wall coverings in a gallery. I simply didn't care for images of Jesus, Mary or any of the saints and martyrs. Now though, blue robed images of Mary holding the baby Jesus could set me off on a weeping binges that relieved much grief, though I didn't know then that tears were a sign of pain that is being healed. But even without that Universal Eternal Mother figure's presence, the lacy linens, flowers, candles, dark wood panels and pews, marble floors, columns, touches of gold, deep reds and blues in stained glass windows. all of these soothed the ache. In their midst, I transformed from scared to whole for a while. The musky fragrance of incense can still do that for me; it makes the inner and outer places feel somehow more holy and my nerves (as my mother used to say) settle for a few moments.

I expected that by this stage in life I'd be "settled and secure" meaning that I'd have been with a loving partner in a longterm career marriage; you may recognize that only-in-the-movies ideal, where the woman is wife and mother, revered for her homemaking skills and is the heart center of the household, while the devoted husband and children live successful careers outside the home, to which they return regularly with respect and affection, reporting on their accomplishments with confidence and cheer. The ideal wife and mother glows, feeling somehow that her life has not been lived in vain. All the scrubbed floors, ironed shirts, baked pies and Sunday roast dinners have amounted to something after all. Perhaps you do, but I don't actually know anyone who has that type of life. Yet in some part of my worldly mind, it's something I think I should have created for myself and have failed at. I realize now how I continue to punish myself for this failure. And, well, it hurts too much, and I'd like it to stop.

Tomorrow, a close friend is flying off to Italy, home of Renaissance religious art and as I think of her whizzing through guidebook destinations, bargaining for souvenir trinkets, scribbling postcards, reporting that everything is just wonderful, will I secretly envy her or will I know that I can stay home and enjoy the same beauty from my desk side, without having to go through the hoopla of airports and jet lag, foreign currency and language barriers ? I'm not sure yet, but
sometimes it's really nice to have " been there and done that" and let it go. Confession, in or out of the church feels good.