Move Over Chartres Cathedral!

Yes, we’ve been hearing a lot about France lately. They elected a new President who may or may not turn Europe’s economy around. Some very smart guys have been inspired by the Eiffel Tower to create a micro material with walls as thin as human hair, coated with nickel, 99.9 percent air, and somehow it has turned out to be the strongest and stiffest ultralight material ever (National Geographic (which never lies), June 2012)!

The very author of this blog is struggling to learn the French pronunciations for a very beautiful piece of choral music based on Psalm 24 by Lili Boulanger who, according to Wikipedia, was a Parisian-born protégé. Yes, definitely, she surely was!

And who among us wouldn’t leap at the chance to enjoy some French culinary offering on any old day at any old time!!

On top of all that, it’s the French, after all, who gave us Chartres Cathedral, surely France’s ultimate gift to the world for its beauty, soaring architecture, and majestic stained glass windows. A UNESCO World Treasure. Your author has visited this Cathedral and can vouch for its sheer, awesome, unbelievable beauty. (Can it have been made by human hands! Yes, it was---by mightily inspired and talented human hands).  

Chartres Cathedral, Northern Rose Window

But, here’s where our Sedro-Woolley Central United Methodist Church comes into the picture. Humble as our little sanctuary is, Chartres Cathedral doesn’t have much on us right now! We have our own “majestic stained glass windows!" And we think they are as beautiful as any in the famed cathedrals!

Central United Methodist Church Windws, May 16, 2012

We ask you? What could be more downright, positively, over-the-top lovely than Skagit Valley rhododendrons in May? In the beautiful poetry of Isaiah 6:3, we read 

 "…the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Yes, it is.

Our Pastor Marilyn never fails to inform and inspire us with her sermons, but truth be told, on the past couple of Sundays, it’s been a little hard to concentrate, given the visual spiritual feast before us.

We are reminded of the familiar “Hymn of Promise”, which many here in our county call “The Skagit Valley Hymn” because, after all, we have a love affair with bulbs and the flowers thereof!

“In the bulb there is a flower;

In the seed, an apple tree;

In cocoons a hidden promise;

Butterflies will soon be free!

In the cold and snow of winter,
There’s a spring that waits to be;
Unrevealed until its season,

Something God alone can see.”

Behind the familiar words lies a metaphor about a spiritual "spring" that applies to all of us---a spring that waits to be even though we ourselves may not be able to see it at the present time.

Love spring!!