Angels In The Architecture

Jesus is not an angel; those who die are not transformed into angels although folk spirituality has created that impression. You could debate at length the nature and make-up of a heavenly host, which perhaps includes both angels and the saints in glory, all mixed together in a chorus of celebration.

The rat sighting reminds him of the angels, and he briefly wonders if he should tell Lottie about them, but he decides to wait until after they get off the subway and are surrounded by streetlights, only a few blocks away from her apartment.

In a car driven by your beatnik mother, who went to high school with both Simon and Garfunkel, singing along to a Paul Simon solo hit on the radio, lines about seeing angels in the architecture, amen, hallelujah. Your grandmother in the passenger seat, since she had refused to ever get a license, pursing her painted lips, her neck decorated with loops of pearls, saying nothing.

Maybe he will tell Lottie about the angels, one day. He should have asked his grandmother: what was it about manmade tunnels and tracks that was so alluring to the imagination? Did she ever mistake an overgrown rodent for a thing with fiery wings and unfolding tongues, some biblical horror with multi-paned eyes like stained-glass windows? Was that why she feared cockroaches and things that never die? But his grandmother, a woman of few words, never spoke of such wild things, and he never asked.

Br. Jim Woodrum follows the angels toward a deeper appreciation of why our church buildings matter and how they can help us to become one with the angels. This Monastic Wisdom refection accompanies and illuminates our Lent 2020 offering Signs of Life.

With such diversity in the angel ranks, I wondered anew about the angels lining the walls of the churches we visited on our pilgrimage. Who were these angels in the architecture, and what was their mission? Every part of these churches seemed to point deeper into the mystery of God, with the angels beckoning me to follow.

In a subtle yet very real way, every church has angels beyond those carved in wood or illuminated in stained glass. The architecture itself acts as angels do: sharing messages which enlighten our prayer and worship of God.

The altar is the focus of our sanctuary, as it is of all sanctuaries. In our church, the high altar is adorned with an unusual architectural feature: a baldacchino, a canopy arching high above. Here, another angel in the architecture points us to the deeper mystery of God taking place before our eyes.

Los Angeles boasts among the richest troves of public Art Deco architecture in the nation. With its well-crafted bold geometries and bright colors, the style emerged at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, France, and made its way around the world. Art Deco suited brashly booming L.A., whose architects often added their own embellishments.

A few weeks later, he showed me his pitch deck. What really attracted me to it was the architecture. I love buildings, I love learning about how the built world is made, and I loved talking about these ideas with Thiago. 2b1af7f3a8