Friday, December 23, 2011

alight upon the season...

we know where we are...
we float a lit cross to let others know that they have arrived at a juncture...
the red star on a green cone is incidental, inscriptive of a seasonal adaptation...
and beyond the lights, it is not so dark over there after all...

Saturday, December 10, 2011

esoteric corners


In a time when the idea of attending a place of worship seems a quaint and almost antiquated activity, such places still continue to exist and flourish with their own dedicated followers, often tucked into residential neighbourhoods where they sometimes crouch inconspicuously on quiet corners and where their architecturally diverse edifices do not overwhelm the scale of the houses on their streets...
I have always admired the minimal nordic variant of art deco styling of the church above on the corner of East 19th and Prince Albert Street built by the local Danish community in the 1930's as the first Danish Lutheran Church in Vancouver - Saint Ansgar's congregation has long since moved out of the city to another location...


The Shiv Mandir-Shree Sanatan Dharam Ramayan Mandali of Fiji has served as a Hindu temple for the last 30 years after being a Presbyterian church when it was raised in 1908 on the corner of Napier Street and Salsbury Drive...

Hidden behind the trees on a high corner above 810 East 13th Avenue is the mysterious Russian Synodal Orthodox Church with its small but distinctive blue onion dome and gilded icon above the entrance doors...

Around the corner from the bustling produce stalls of Norman's on Commercial Drive and Graveley Street is the slightly forlorn looking Chinese Grace Mennonite Church housed in an old apartment building...

And in a tranquil pocket above Clark Park on the corner of East 18th Avenue and Fleming Street stands the always immaculately maintained German Saint Markus Lutheran Church bestowing its touch of Teutonic flavour to our multi-ethnic neighbourhood...