On Beech Avenue, which is my favorite street in the city, there stands the majestic old Calvary United Methodist Church. Its ornate stone spires stand in keeping with the brownstone and brick townhouses on that leafy street. I've always wanted to get inside, but the place is locked up tighter than a bank vault--perhaps with the exception of Sunday mornings.
But today, when business called me to that part of town, I spied a side door standing open. Workmen were painting, or cleaning, or doing plaster work of some kind. I don't really know what they were doing. I was only interested in sneaking past them into the building to see a sight I thought I'd never see: the Tiffany Stained Glass Cathedral of the North Side.
The workmen's boom box was screaming, "I want you to want me. I need you to need me..." The ugly song from my childhood was sorely out of place in that darkly reverent space. It was like taking a bite of a chocolate chip cookie and discovering that it's oatmeal raisin. And yet, once inside, the grandeur of the old church seemed to envelope and muffle even the impious noise of the classic rock station. The music was still rattling around in the big room, but I no longer heard it. Cheap Trick's one and only hit could buzz like a fly in the background, but it could not finally threaten the sacred hush of the place. (Ah, all our hurry, and all our noise, and all our fury passes! All our passions and all our troubles will pass, as will all our turbulent days. But eternity rolls forever forward--in perfect silence!)
The Tiffany stained glass windows were glorious to behold, but of course, it takes something better than a cell phone to capture their beauty. They mostly depict triumphant scenes from the Jesus myth: resurrection and ascension.
