I bought a couple of pendants in Jerusalem- I've been wearing one on all of the threads from my sewing kit wound together and tied in a knot around my neck. I really really liked where it was hitting me, but I'd never seen a chain that long before. So I got a little bee in my bonnet, and decided I live 2 subway stops from the second-largest assemblage of jewelers in the WORLD: if there isn't a super fine 21" silver chain in the Los Angeles Jewelry District, it just might not exist. This is unusual b/c normally, I'll just poke around on the internet and not find what I want and just kind of settle for something else way grosser and probably more expensive. And then pay for shipping.
So I scooted on down and wandered in and out of the stalls and asked a bunch of questions and found EXACTLY what I wanted for SEVEN DOLLARS. I was bracing myself for more like $40!!
So, plenty proud, I walked some more blocks to Pete's for macaroni and cheese.* I watched my Trivial Pursuit show there a week or 2 ago, so the busboy remembered me and kept coming around to hug me and shoot the shit- and eventually when I mentioned the building I lived in he said "What!? Tomas lives there!" and he disappears into the kitchen and out comes Tomas, also known as the guy with the mohawk I have shared many an elevator with. He's the sous-chef at Pete's! His kids have mohawks too.
I finally finished reading this booklet I bought in Berlin back in Feburary. I've been carrying it around in my purse for the last month or 2 in order to force myself to read it. It about the art and architecture of the
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church It was built in the 1890's in this neo-romanesque style with all these increeedible mosaics and then bombed to bits during the second world war. They had a contest in the 50's to pick the architect to design the new church, and the design that won didn't incorporate the old church at all. But the community was really pissed at this prospect and sent like 47,000 letters to the editor (no joke) that said they HAD to include the ruin. So, the architect gave in and said that he'd work it into his new design and that he hoped the building would help future generations "have some understanding for those who experienced those terrible events, for whom the ruin testifies to the suffering which they themselves had to bear."
I can't find any really good pictures of it on the internet. None that really make me feel like I remember feeling. You can google.image the name of the church if you're interested. It's kind of like that huge stained glass rosette window has burst out of the ruin and all the exploding pieces have multiplied and reassembled themselves in the new tower and chapel.
I've been in a buttload of churches, but never one like that I don't think. The new church built next to and around it was really really beautiful too.. Entirely out of 2 layers of indigo stained glass -- at night they light it from within the 2 layers and the entire thing glows.
It made me think of the Fishbowl Chapel at USC.. I joined the Gospel Choir for a year or 2 and we'd rehearse in the little glass building. I think it's the weird skinny Jesuses that remind me of each other.
I went there- to the church in Berlin- last winter with my friend Adam and 2 of his friends from Prague. I got to the page of dates in the back of my booklet and tonight is the 65th anniversary of this night the church was bombed.
They've also got a cross there made out of nails from the roof of a church in Coventry that was burned to ash during the same war. The church in Coventry made an altar cross out of the burnt wood and in the stone behind it carved the words "Father, Forgive." Then they made these crosses of nails and sent them to churches in Hiroshima, Dresden, and Volgograd. They call it a "Symbol of the work of Reconciliation Worldwide." Every Friday at the same time (1pm in Berlin, noon in Coventry, etc) the Litany of Reconciliation is prayed at the Crosses of Nails.
There's also a statue of Jesus from the altar of the old church that kind of miraculously survived the bombing. A slab sits at the foot of it that says "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us."
I don't know what I believe about anything anymore. I don't feel comfortable calling myself a Christian, because I was raised with everything so plainly black and white, right and wrong, biblical or non. And I don't think all the same things are black and white , right or wrong as the Christians I know, and I feel wrong picking and choosing what I'd like to believe, so I don't pick any of it. I'm not white, so I must be black.
But I still really like churches and I like stories on the walls and the fact that where a lot of Christians I know would lift up the intact altar Jesus as Obvious Evidence that their God is Bigger than BOMBS and the Baddest and the Most Totally Awesome and Victorious in Battle and Gonna Kick All the Other Gods' ASSES, this Church sees it as a reminder of an "Open Wound" , and asks for forgiveness.
I kind of like that Litany of Reconciliation:
The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,
Father , forgive
The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,
Father, forgive
The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,
Father, forgive
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,
Father, forgive
Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,
Father, forgive
The lust which dishonors the bodies of men, women, and children,
Father, forgive
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves, and not in God,
Father, forgive.
*Also, on the way there, I passed some place called the
Nickel Diner that looked pretty awesome.