FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, COLORADO SPRINGS

Building Aesthetics: t t t t. Before todays service, I had never even heard of congregational churches. Apparently they are a fairly liberal christian religion with no central leadership like the Catholics or Protestant sects. Their church is a kind of squat-heavy stone building with an imposing orangish/red shingled steeple. I really liked the interior, which was set up in a half-moon orientation, and it made you feel like you were part of the action, where everyone was on equal footing.  A few rays of light strategically fell right on the lectern.  I was told that the church recently spent a ton of money restoring their organ, and it was really beautiful. I just wish organ music was more pleasant to the ear. 

Creepy Glazed Eyes: t t t t. People today were very nice and seemed thoughtful. I had a long chat with the woman sitting next to me after the service and really liked her. She was a private music instructor at nearby Colorado College. The minister forced us to interact twice during the service, and at the time, I was really annoyed by it. The second time I almost left the service. "Turn to your neighbor and discuss a superpower you would like to have," he said. It was too early in the morning for this bull-shit I thought. I was so uncomfortable that the only superpower I could think of was to be invisible. But later I reflected that it was nice to be pushed outside my comfort zone. And I learned a few things from the woman, like that skin hydration starts from the inside.  

Hassled by Members: t t t t. People were nice and there was no pressure to join. They did do the thing where they asked people at this church for the first time to stand up. I chose to remain seated. People who stood were recognized and given applause, although awkwardly the woman who stood near me was overlooked by the minister. Whoops! No applause for you! To date this church had the most diversity with many African Americans, Hispanics, gays, and people of all ages. 

Religious Time Management: t t t. The service was generally well laid out with a bit too much time wasted on ritual and religious pledges. The minister, though well spoken and thoughful, came across as  a bit too eager, and at times, insincere.  In addition to giving the sermon, he sang in the choir and led a song with his guitar. My hokey meter went crazy when we were asked to make a small box with our hands and whisper a concern into it. Next we were told to lift our concern laden hand box over our heads and slowly let it go. Unfortunately for me, my concern that I was investing too much time in hokey ritual landed right on my head! The sermon revolved around one line in the bible concerning having the faith of a mustard seed, which, if I understand it correctly, means that having only a spec of faith could be all we need. And understanding that faith is really just hope and optimism to the extreme degree, I don't think you could argue that one. That is of course unless we are being asked to have faith that the end of the world is nigh. I also kind of wish that the writers of the bible might have foreseen our future shift from agrarian life and used the more universally understood "sand" as the metaphor. 

Misinformation: t t t t. "Jesus was sent here to unite us". I think this statement begs the question: How well did he do at this? I think any dogma that implies if you don't believe in it, bad things will happen to you is sure to divide not unite. Not being an expert in religion though, I don't know if this is the fault of Jesus or with how others have interpreted his teachings. Surely Jesus wouldn't have thought that his predecessor Buddha was spending his afterlife in hell.   

Presence of God: t t t. At one point the minister recognized an older man in the choir who would soon be allowed to legally marry his partner of 38 years. It almost brought me to tears. The happiness and joy in his eyes as the congregation applauded was quite beautiful. I found out from the woman I was forced to talk to that the church actually changed its policy concerning gays during the 90's and began a new policy of acceptance. I really admire that decision, which I'm sure angered some in the congregation. But that feeling that everyone was welcome was palpable in the santuary. It also reminded me that people and institutions do in fact change. 

Overall Inspiration (total score): t t t. Though not at the time, with hindsight I appreciated the church pushing me out of my comfort zone by forcing me to talk to my neighbor. I suppose if anything good is ever going to happen on this planet it will start by strangers having meaningful conversations with each other.

GRACE AND ST. STEPHEN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, COLORADO SPRINGS

Building Aesthetics: t t t t. For a large church, Grace and St. Stephens is pretty well designed. The outside is made of stone and features giant gothic spires. The inside has lovely squared wooden pews, polished concrete floors, and amazing stained glass throughout. The sanctuary doesn't get a ton of natural light, but the stained glass lets in just enough to make the inside, though quite large, feel intimate. Probably the most beautiful feature is the hand painted wood ceiling above the apse, which reminded me a lot of the churches in Ethiopia. The biggest aesthetic strike for me was the gold accents throughout the church. Gold makes me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps it's the bourgeois nature of the substance, but I've always found its use off-putting. It just feels like a lazy design element. 

Creepy Glazed Eyes: t t t. I felt pretty indifferent to the people at church today. They seemed nice enough, but nobody I'd hang out with socially. There seemed to be a lot of seniors at the service, and some were so feeble that the priest had to come to their pews to give them sips of Jesus' blood directly. And maybe it was just me, but the all white church clergy wearing white robes has bad associations.

Hassled by Members: t t t t. I got a couple of friendly hellos after the service and was made to shake strangers hands during the service and say, "Peace be with you", a kind of clunky way of saying, "have a good day". I'm not sure any actual "peace" changed hands.

Religious Time Management: t. The Episcopalians get the award for longest service so far, at an hour and thirty minutes, which is to say, about 45 minutes too long. The order of service was actually a booklet rather than a pamphlet or flyer. I appreciated its detailed minute to minute account of the service, but by page 16, I was over it. I like to sing at church as much as the next guy, but ten hymns is too many, and none of them stirred anything in me. A lot of them were the kind of songs that were just words that as an afterthought were put to music. Also, I'm not sure how I feel about religion embracing technology. The head priest (called a rector) must have had bullet points for his sermon on his i-phone, as he kept glancing at it, or perhaps he was anxious about getting a call on some old chairs he put on Craigslist. As with the Catholic service, I don't like being made to kneel. In today's instance, the woman in front of me wasn't kneeling because she was older, so I was awkwardly right at her back.   

Misinformation: t t. "Leprosy is just like cooties". I thought this was a hilarious joke and it initially caused me to respect the rector and his brilliant sense of humor. The problem was, he wasn't making a joke. This was his idea of a great analogy. He elaborated on the comparison over the course of the next several minutes, and by the end one thing was clear: this guy was traumatized as a child by being given cooties. If only he had gotten the shot! He said in all seriousness that cooties was the most painful experience of childhood. He must have grown up in a house like Ricky Schroder in Silver Spoons. His second most painful experience was when the toy train that ran through his living room stopped working. Throughout his analogy I kept imaging the rector having a conversation with someone actaully suffering from leprosy: "Father, you don't know what it feels like to have your limbs continue to fall of," the suffer would exclaim. "Oh, but I do my son. When I was just a small boy I was given cooties by a mischievous little girl in my 3rd grade class!" 

Presence of God: t t. Episcopalians attempt to straddle the gulf between Protestants and Catholics. I found myself appreciating their formality, especially the high pulpit in which the priest prothletised from. In this instance, I was taken in by the theatrics of a guy looking down on me and telling me what the bible means as he squinted and rocked back and forth. It reminded me of Father Maple preaching from his ship pulpit in Moby Dick. I also appreciated the episcopalian declaration of faith that was recited during the service. It's nice to know where people stand on the crucial issues of our day like the resurrection of the dead and baptism.

Overall Inspiration (total score): t t t. Though the actually sermon and service did nothing for me, I was inspired by the church itself and some of the rector's theatrics.  

MEET OUR NEW BUDDY FLYNN

The search is over! You can't volunteer at a rescue organization for long and keep coming home empty-handed. Meet our new dog Flynn, named after the character on Breaking Bad formerly known as Walt Jr. Flynn is purebred Brittany Spaniel. Brittany's are bred to be bird hunting dogs and typically have high energy, but our guy is a lover and would prefer to nap at our side, or in an ideal world, on top of us. He's only five months old, but is super smart and is learning very quickly. He sleeps in a crate without complaining, goes to the bathroom outside, and only jumps up on us 73 times a day. His breeder gave him to the shelter because he may have a luxating patella, basically a loose knee cap. We are keeping an eye on it, but it doesn't seem to stop him from chasing squirrels.

SAINT MARY'S CATHOLIC CHURCH, COLORADO SPRINGS

Building Aesthetics: t t. Saint Mary's is the largest of the many Catholic churches in the Colorado Springs area. It is grand and, in my opinion, overdone. The inside was pretty, but not cozy, boasting a mismatched combination of gothic and art deco styles. The large baptismal pool near the entry smelled like flatulence, and the smell embedded itself in my olfactory. It was like having mass next to the hot pots in Yellowstone!  

Creepy Glazed Eyes: t t. People here did not strike me as creepy, but they also didn't strike me as  happy or friendly either. One thought I kept having during the service was that most of the people here would probably be annoyed by Jesus if they met him on the street after leaving church. I also had a hard time understanding how the mostly conservative looking congregation makes sense of what amounts to, at its heart, the radically socialist dogma of Christianity.

Hassled by Members: t t t t. No hassle here. No order of service either, which made following along with all the unfamiliar rituals and songs rather difficult. 

Religious Time Management: t t. Catholics do like their ritual. Lots of group recitation, standing, kneeling, chanting, and even strange hand-holding. For an outsider, it is not easy to fit in if you don't know what you are supposed to be doing at any given moment. The priest was Peruvian, and not always easy to understand. The mass had two separate reading from the bible, and not being familiar with the context, I had no clue what they were about. I've never understood why churches read little excerpts from the Bible without offering context. They might as well be reading from James Joyce's Ulysses:

The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited (page 266, section 261). 

Yes, that is what random passages from the bible sound like to the overwhelming majority of us!

Misinformation: t t. Morality is a tough thing to preach. People tend to preach morality as objective truth, and that can cause problems. Case in point: the priest asked what we would do if we were homeless and found a bag with $50,000, and yes, the "right" answer was that obvious. My first thought however was, "if I find a bag with that much money, it is almost certainly drug money. I'm homeless, life has kicked me around pretty good, and then I stumble on a bag of drug money. I'm using that dirty money to turn my life around, and I'm pretty sure God would be happy I did." Apparently the priest's example was based on a real incident in Boston, and after he returned the money, the homeless man said that God was his sole provider. In my thinking, your sole provider just tried to hook you up, and you didn't understand the gift. And the drug dealer you returned the money to, not believing his luck, probably went out and blew it all on coke and hookers. On a separate note, the bulletin we grabbed after the service urged congregants to opt their children out of sex education in public schools, because, though not noted on the pamphlet, God loves famine and overpopulation.

Presence of God: t. I felt nothing at church today. Nobody seemed to be singing along to the music, and I never knew where to find the lyrics anyways. At one point a soloist sang "Praise Thy Lord", and I could  almost envision Jesus putting on headphones. At other churches I've felt something during  the rituals, but today the rituals seemed too calculated and overly theatrical. It has been a while since I've been to a Catholic mass, but I have to say communion feels pretty bizarre with perspective. I like symbol and metaphor as much as the next guy, but seeing a church full of people waiting in line to drink the "blood" of a guy they respect is weird. I have a reverence for writers like Melville and Thoreau, but I don't need to physically or spiritually consume their bodies to learn from them. During communion I just kept thinking of True Blood.      

Overall Inspiration (total score): t t. I gave this church two crosses because I really want to reserve one cross for services where I am uncomfortable and feel like the mass is intentionally misleading. I did not feel either of these things were true about Saint Mary's. I was just bored and uninspired. 

NATIONAL MILL DOG RESCUE

Today I met around thirty great reasons not to buy a dog from a pet store. I started volunteering at a fantastic organization called National Mill Dog Rescue (NMDR), located in rural Peyton, CO. They rescue dogs that have spent their whole lives living in small cages at puppy mills. To their "owners", they are just a commodity. It was pretty heartbreaking to see how mistreated and neglected these animals were, and with fairly lax rules for breeders, most of it isn't even illegal. At NMDR, these animals are given love for the first time in their lives. The intake process starts by giving them a name, then they have a quick photo session to document their current condition. Next they are given a bath, and many years worth of urine and  filth are washed away. Many of the dogs had infestations of flees and ticks. Those that need it are groomed. Some of the dogs were so matted it was hard to tell what breed they were (see the fifth picture). The last stop is a vet check. Most of the dogs had never seen a vet before. The bottom photo shows the vet inspecting a wound on a dogs leg where the string that was used to restrain her in her cage had actually embedded into her leg. The second to last photo shows a miniature pincher with a massive untreated tumor on his neck. Volunteer vets perform any surgery the dogs need, and if a specialist is needed, no expense is spared to nurse the dogs back to health. After years spent working for non-profits with great sounding missions yet fairly self-serving agendas, I am happy to give my time to one that actually is making a difference in this world.