Churches and Libraries

When I was younger my family used to clean the church we attended. It was an eccentric looking church, it looked like a elongated Hershey Kiss. As my parents used to wash the bathrooms, mop the kitchen, vacuum the alter, my sister and I would play games amongst the pews. It was an Orthodox Church so it still had the alter which separated the priest from the congregation, like pre-Vat II Catholic Churches. When it was full there was a sense of awe. But because I was so familiar with it it lacked that sense of awe. That pew over there, yeah, that's where my sister hid last Thursday. But the alter still preserved its mystery, it was strange to see my mother go behind it, women aren't allowed behind it. I would not go behind it, well only on the rare occasions I was an alter boy. The church was small, it fit about 70 people more on Easter. The choir was my favorite part it had that sense of mystery the alter contained, but it was more accessible. All the music stands made it a place of mystery, I can remember going up there a couple of times and singing. I remember the church better than any of the houses we lived in during that period, there weren't many three. Funny really, I think I miss that church. I went back when I was home but it was locked. I didn't bother coming back for mass, I wasn't there for that, just for the church. I once slept in the church with a teen christian group, and I can remember the adult leader, Andy if I remember correctly, telling us that we should become aquatinted with the church that we should see it as the house of god and we should be comfortable there. I was already very comfortable with it. Of all the things I did in that church, I can never remember yelling. I am sure I did yell so as to be heard over the sound of the vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner was this old thing that was just one big pipe and you plugged it into holes in the floor. Despite my familiarity with the church it still demanded an air of respect. Now when I walk into churches I have the same respect, you never yell in a church. There is simply something about it that lends itself to contemplation no matter how commercial the church. At school they would take us to this church twice a year to sit and go to confession if we so desired. It was a Catholic church, ugly plain looking thing, damn you Zwingle. It wasn't able to inspire the same respect. I understand that a church is not a building, and that we, or rather Protestant Christians should not be tied to material things, but once you strip religion down to its pietistical core, you strip religion of what makes it beautiful, and all you have left is the bullshit mysticism. There is a lot of beauty in the tradition of the Orthodox and Catholic faith, its a shame that it is so nutty.
As I was exiting the library tonight I realized that even though only the librarian and I were left I whispered goodnight. Libraries inspire the same awe especially the older libraries. The modern looking libraries lack the same umph especially when they look like they were build by FLW. It would be nice if libraries eventually replaced churches as places of worship, where people would have to go one day a week and read something or their souls would burn in hell. It probably wouldn't work it would end up being one giant reading group examining the depth's of the latest Brownesque book. People have a way of ruining things, making them familiar, removing the mystery.