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.