It's been a tough week for buildings so far this week--or at least a few of the buildings in my life. One burned, and now a Presiding Bishop who is suggesting, somewhat brilliantly, that perhaps marriage to an overpriced office building in Manhattan was the way of operations for the 1950s, and not in our own day. If I worked at 815, my heart would be in my throat, but as someone who simply wants our church to succeed, I have to say that once again, our PB is on to something.
When Lauren heard that the chapel burned, she went through the modern five stages of grief, rather than the traditional Kubler-Ross five stages: 1. phone calls, 2. website, 3. local news, 4. press releases, and 5. facebook, trying desperately to find out what was happening, what it meant, how the institution was responding. At the same time Lauren was making these frantic connections, she happened to catch a friend of ours on the phone, another graduate of "The Seminary", who, when asked to comment, said: "oh, that's only a building."
I am probably closer to the 'only a building' opinion than to Lauren's. While I can sympathize with those for whom a building is a loss, and even recognize the reality of the emotional loss, for me, it's just a building. I too buried friends from that space, and I too was ordained there. But for me, it's a building--it comes, it goes.
How we react to the loss of a building, whether it is a church or a home, has to do with how we pre-reflectively conceptualize "holy space." Exactly what we mean by that term can be a little fluid, both in the sense that we think 'holy space' is probably subjective rather than objective (the mountains, or a gothic cathedral, or a white-washed Protestant prayer hall might equally be holy spaces, depending on the person), and in the sense the word 'holy' might mean anything from "liminal" to "a place where I remember a powerful thing happened to me." If anything, it seems to me that 'holy space' has grown more important in our own suburban, industrialized world--a thin space that links to the beyond.
For me, 'holy space' in a traditional sense is of minimal importance--which is probably nigh-heresy for an Episcopalian. I long neither for the great outdoors nor for some particular building. Maybe it's the nomad plains where I grew up, all dead grass and blowing sky, or maybe it's my general restlessness. But for me, the holiest space happens at about 9:30am on a Saturday, alone in front of a computer, drinking Keemun black tea, and eating smoked salmon on a perfectly toasted bagel. Now that's holy, a time of communion beyond myself, a small glimpse of the heavenly places.
