Drive To The Cathedral

Typical Fort Worth Street Scene

The experts tell us that you can gauge the ethos and spirit of a culture by its civic architecture. What does that tell us about Fort Worth? That we're a massive, inhuman, concrete and asphalt tangle of roads.

Take that as deeply or not as you like, but I won't pretend to like it. Apparently the City Fathers didn't get the memo, spaghetti junctions went out with the '70s.

St. Vincent's Campanile

I thought all this as I drove into the metrosprawl from the country for a meeting at St. Vincent's Cathedral and it made me miss England, not that that's perfect either. 

Someone once said that the English had destroyed more historical buildings after the War (#2) every year, than the Germans did throughout the entire Blitz. Good thing the National Socialists didn't have Lancasters and B17s.

Shoot It

Somber reflections on iconoclasm aside, it was good to be at the cathedral and meet with catholic-minded orthodox Anglicans. Good people working for a good cause, to assert catholicity for our part of the Church.

And that's a bold call, not least because the Anglo-Catholic movement's been pretty much defeated. Priestesses, liturgical dancers, tutu-endorsing Etonian Primates; throw a dart at the wall and hit a unicorn. You name it, they've captured the mainstream aspect of our church. But not at St. Vincent's. 

A clergyman

No dancers, no unicorns, no tutus, no fireman's helmets, just the catholic faith seen through the eyes of Anglicanism. Some might argue that's myopic, others might say that Rome wasn't built in a day.

Your Friend,

LSP

On The Road

I drove to a suburb of Fort Worth this morning. It took one and a half hours to get there, the worst of which was through the metrosprawl. Someone hasn't told the DFW civic planners that highways running through, across and over a town doesn't make for a pleasant urban environment. Visit Venice and see its famous 6 lane highway bisecting St. Mark's Square! said no tourist brochure ever.

Seriously, after a good few thousand years of Western civilization, you'd think we could do better than turn our cities into roads. Like, what's best to live in, a city or a road? Let's think about that; road, city, city, road, hmmmm... road? 

Road trip over, I ended up at the cathedral, which is a good church, and went to a meeting. A bishop who I like very much was there and had a parrot on his shoulder. It's an aggressive beast and attacks people who try to pet it.

At the end of the meeting I drove back home through the 'sprawl to the countryside. Blue Exertion was there, taking it easy in the sun and I don't blame him. 

Later on today I'll drive to another church and, by the end of it all, feel like a travelling salesman. But hey, all in a good cause.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill it.

LSP

Emergency!!

I'd no sooner driven to Fort Worth with my old pal Colonel N, and registered for a conference, when he became violently sick and had to be carted off to the Emergency Room at Harris Methodist.

Five hours or so later he was feeling better, unlike the eastbound traffic on I30, which is like an out of control fast train to Tartarus.

Let's pray this isn't a metaphor for the Anglo-Catholic Movement in North America.

Cheers,

LSP