A CAMPFIRE IN MY BACKYARD

ALL SOULS UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

This is my new plan. Every week I'm going to attend a different church in the Colorado Springs area and grade them according to a list of criteria I created ranging from building aesthetics to the amount of misinformation that was handed out. The best score for each catagory will be five crosses (t t t t t). Colorado Springs has a reputation as a breeding ground for religious zealots, and I'm very curious just how far the rabbit hole goes. This week I attended All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church. Full disclosure: I am a Unitarian Universalist (UU) at heart. That being said, I find huge disparities from one UU church to the next. The church I attended regularly in downtown Portland, OR was excellent. The one in Bozeman, MT started each service with a group hug. Here are my thoughts about All Souls in Colorado Springs. 

Building Aesthetics: t t t. All Souls has a very intimate feel. The exterior is made of wood, brick, and stone, and the interior is filled with lots of warm wood. Large stained glass windows also makes their space inviting. I found the use of powerpoint during the service distracting, and it irritated me that the church used the PC platform instead of Apple (if any denomination should embrace the "Think Different" mantra it should be them). The oversized projector screen also blocked a beautiful nook of the church. 

Creepy Glazed Eyes: t t t t t. Most members aired on the side of intensity rather than creepiness, due in large part to their proclivity toward critical thinking. Conversations ranged from the history of rock music to the virtues of Scandinavian planned communities. The creepiest person at the service was the minister's onstage sidekick who led the songs.

Hassled by Members: t t t t. The church didn't make me stand up and introduce myself or anything, but a slippery fellow named Charles did get me to divulge my home address and email under the guise of an upcoming potluck. People were quick to ask if it was my first time at a UU church, though their motivation was not conversion but rather curiosity if I'd heard of the religion.

Religious Time Management: t t t t. The service was less than an hour long, not even enough time to get butt cramps from the wooden pews. The sermon was a good length, but included a 7 minute slideshow featuring the church garden that was awkwardly not set to music, so everyone watched in silence. 

Misinformation: t t t t t. At one point the minister quoted an old Arab adage saying, "you should always carry two pennies: one to buy bread for someone in need, the other to buy yourself a flower". No Arab country that I'm aware of uses the penny. If the saying originated in Jordan, then they would recommend always carrying two qirsh or dinars, depending on the price of bread and the type of flower. 

Presence of God: t t t. If God was here today, he was probably a bit bored. Not much new spiritual ground was covered. My hokey meter did go off a few times: once when a song mentioned not only "mother earth", but also "father air" and "brother fire", and another time when the "web of existence" was mentioned. The minister did have a good sense of humor. When someone sneezed she said, "Bless you. Just doing my job". 

Overall Inspiration: t t t. I felt very comfortable sitting in the church surrounded by a motley crew of most varieties of white folks. People here seemed good natured and thoughtful. The sermon was a bit lacking, though in her defense, the minister admitted that her brother had recently committed suicide. The closest I came to God today was during a song entitled, "We'll Build a Land". I've always liked Rumi, and the closing thought of the service was this: "Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself."  

OUR BEAUTIFUL NEW HOUSE IN COLORADO SPRINGS

Yes, the rumors are true. Julie and I have settled down in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We have spent the last month traveling around the US trying to ascertain what place was right for us and our somewhat shallow roots. Here are our thoughts on the handful of places we visited.

Portland, Oregon: has become too cool for us, people are annoyingly PC, and it is a very politically homogeneous culture. It also rains 9 months out of the year. Port Townsend, Washington: a somewhat hidden gem on the Olympic penninsula. If we were ten years older we would have settled in this beautiful spot. It is located in the "rain shadow" of the Olympic range and gets half as much rain as Seattle.  San Luis Obispo, California: seemed too perfect. How interesting can life be if your surroundings are always at room temperature with a gentle breeze? Also, I'd like to be able to buy a house without resorting to selling cocaine to finance it.  Albuquerque, New Mexico: looks exactly like it's portrayed in the series "Breaking Bad". The town has some pockets of culture, but they are surrounded by bland suburbs or bleak ghettos. Julie had a job waiting for her here which she ended up turning down even though she had no other offers. That sums up Albuquerque. It is a place where you might turn down a job offer in a rough economy because something about the town screams "get out of here" like the preacher in There Will Be Blood. Bozeman, Montana: too small and too familiar. A beautiful place that was an important part of my past, but not my future. Flagstaff, Arizona: the Bozeman of Arizona with a few more shady characters. A decent town to get a flat tire in.

Colorado Springs, Colorado: the little town we didn't see coming. We were only meant to be stopping by on our way to check out Denver. We ended up staying a week and signing a lease on a house. In no particular order, this is what drew us to this place. It is beautiful. The town sits in a valley adjacent to the Rocky Mountains which serve as the backdrop. CS is a largish city that is easy to negotiate and is located only an hour from the big city of Denver should we ever want to attend a baseball game or go to IKEA. You can ride scooters all over CS, and if they are 50cc or less, you can use the bike lanes. Colorado Springs has about 300 sunny days a year, which by my count is nearly every day. CS has a healthy mix of politics, from the hippy wicca suburb of Manitou Springs, to the more conservative military industrial complex. People love to be outside here, and the town is blanketed with running trails and dog parks. It is a very dog friendly town, with a handful of bars that let you bring your dogs. People love to run here, and there are many clubs where people run and then have dinner and drinks together (they call it hashing). There is a mega fundamentalist church here called Focus on the Family, which plays a large roll in giving CS a reputation as a conservative town. From what I gather, this keeps the cool kids away and helps keep housing prices low. A house in the old downtown area where we live goes for around 200K. The same house in Denver would easily go for 300K. There are many areas of CS with old houses with a ton of character. There also seems to be jobs here. And lastly, an old gypsy woman told us that we should settle here.       

THE STRANGEST THING HAPPENED TO ME AT THE ZOO

OK, I made this happen by putting food on my head, but it was still pretty unusual. The giraffes at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo can be hand-fed, and if you are slightly more adventurous, head-fed. I thought my little stunt would create a handful of imitators, but alas no one seemed to find it as entertaining as I did. The zoo is located in Colorado Springs, and is the only mountain zoo in the US, sitting at an elevation of 6800 feet. Oh, and by the way, Julie and I recently relocated to Colorado Springs.

THE BEAUTY OF CATHOLICISM

I think the most beautiful churches in the United States are the Spanish mission churches of New Mexico and California. My two favorites are Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico and San Miguel Arcangel in California, both of which are pictured above. I never met Jesus, but something tells me he would have favored their simplistic design as opposed to the mega-cathedrals of Europe. It reminds me of that scene in Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade where the holy grail turns out to be the simple wooden one and not the jewel encrusted gold one.