DEAR GOD...

I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax, And if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in

It's you....

~ XTC

I've always liked and related to this song. There is one thing about my atheism that I find interesting and a little weird, I love churches. I love highly ornate catholic churches and I love the austere protestant churches. I love store-front iglesias de dios and synagogues. They are all so different and interesting. I suppose it comes from my art history background and being immersed in the symbolism of all that art. The mind reels at all the time and energy and money that went into creating those interiors, the statuary, the sculpted altars, the stained glass, and that's just the inside!

My father's family is catholic, my father was an altar boy almost until the day he married my mother. Needless to say, we were raised catholic. Our church was in Manomet, St Bonaventure's. It was a boring church, none of the archaic or gothic about it. Well except for the priest, Father Higgins. But that's a story for another day. Sometimes my dad would mix it up and take us to St Peter's, the church he grew up in, or to St Mary's out in North Plymouth. I remember those churches being dark and very mysterious.

St Peter's has those magnificent columns and vaulted ceilings while St Mary's was all dark wood inside with a very large (and somewhat creepy) crucifix hanging over the altar. To the right of the altar was a votive offering consisting of red and blue glasses holding candles. You could put an offering in the box and light one for somebody who had died or was sick or just needed a little something extra. And the plaster wall behind these votives was black with the soot from so many years of being lit, over and over again. I loved going to St Mary's, it had an old-world charm about it because the parish was primarily Portuguese and Italian immigrants who worked for the Plymouth Cordage Company.

Alas, times, and the churches with them, have changed. Both St Peter's and St Mary's have become more user-friendly. They have renovated their interiors to be more welcoming and less oppressive. Gone are the dark woods and soot covered walls, and in my opinion, a lot of the mystery.

I started this post to introduce some pictures I took of a greek orthodox church down in Hyannis in July. They have an annual festival and I was excited to be able to see the inside of the church and all the artwork therein. One of the prettiest I've ever seen.