Three Tasmanian Panoramas

One of my favorite places I was privileged to enjoy during my time in Australia was the island state of Tasmania. It has a feel distinct from the mainland and is extraordinarily beautiful. Below are three panoramas that I've put together of a few places we traveled to in Tasmania.

This first photo is taken from the summit of Mt Amos, a peak on the Freycinet Peninsula on Tasmania's east coast. It was a lengthy, difficult hike to the top, but, as you can see, the views were worth it. The beach at center is Wineglass Bay, which has been ranked one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Second, we have a view of the Freycinet Peninsula with the Hazard mountain range from sea level. This particular vantage point was a rocky outcropping on Coles Bay, to the west of the national park entrance. As the sun set over the bay, the mountains glowed orange and red. Mt Amos is the second summit from the left.

Lastly, we come to the capital of the island, Hobart. As Hobart has the distinction of being Australia's second-oldest city, historical charm was certainly not in short supply. It is a small city, but it is enviably situated on the fjord-like Derwent River at the base of the imposing Mt Wellington. Neoclassical buildings, such as those showcased above, add another level of visual interest to the cityscape.

Tasmania was one of the most beguiling destinations I've ever traveled to, and I would jump at any chance to go back. The architectural heritage, the history, and the natural beauty of the island state add up to a place without equal.

Love justice, you that are the judges of the earth

"Love justice, you that are the judges of the earth. Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart: For he is found by them that tempt him not: and he shows himself to them that have faith in him." - Wisdom 1:1-2

One of my favorite corners of the Bible is that occupied by the seven wisdom books - Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom and Sirach. There are many finely-polished gems to be found in this region of the scriptures.

The Judgement of Solomon by Nicolas Poussin

Byzantine dabblings

Recently the combination of heat, humidity, and on-again-off-again thunderstorms have kept our usual stream of customers away from Twisters Ice Cream, my current place of employment. But, as I am now a manager - and thus do not have the luxury of being sent home on slow days - I've been doodling at work to pass the time. Naturally, my drawing schizophrenia turned toward things ecclesiastical.

The results of these doodles are shown below. The image is a section through an octagonal-planned church in a rather Byzantine style. It was inspired by the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna and Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel in Aachen. Both of these historic structures predate the East-West split of Christianity known as the Great Schism, which occurred in 1054. As such, they show a synthesis of both Eastern and Western liturgical and architectural sensibilities. The sanctuary, dominated by a simple baldachin and gilded wood reredos, is the most dominated by Western, Romanesque ideals. The domed nave and intricate polychrome stone and mosaic work is more clearly Byzantine in expression.

The nave, as aforementioned, is an octagonal volume crowned by a dome (which would ideally be given some sort of iconographic scheme). A one-story gallery rings the nave and provides access to the sacristy, vestry, entry, baptistry, chapel, and other spaces not shown in this image. The choir is lofted above the main entry, directly opposite the sanctuary. The ambo, depicted to the left of the sanctuary, is based on early Christian designs found in the ancient basilicas of Italy. 

I had no particular dedication in mind for this church, so the iconographic program is left deliberately vague. Ideally, the panels of the 'second story' would be filled with images of various saints, evoking the image of the "great cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1) in mystical union with the congregation gathered below. The penditives (the triangular spaces between the arches and the base of the dome) could be used to depict the four traditional doctors of the Western Church (St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Gregory, and St. Ambrose) and the four doctors of the Eastern Church (St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Athanasius, and St. Gregory Nazianzus). 

As with a previous exercise undertaken last year, this sketch and theoretical design was an attempt at squaring the modern desire for what might be termed a 'grand nave' where the entire congregation can be gathered together in a single space (rather than in a more traditional, disjointed nave-aisle-transept organization), with traditional liturgical orientation and majesty. We don't need all circular or octagonal 'churches in the round' to be bland, whitewashed, conference rooms. There are historical precedents a-plenty for something far more dignified and befitting of Christian worship.

UPDATE: Below are two further drawings of this concept. The first is the main elevation, showing the overall massing of and exterior aspect of the building. The style of the exterior continues the Byzanto-Romanesque aesthetic of the interior, while adding a bit of stylistic flair, particularly in the detailing of the dome. It has a certain affinity with some of Otto Wagner's designs for parish churches in turn-of-the-century Vienna. 

Though the inner dome is hemispherical, the outer dome (as can be seen above) is octagonal, following the walls. The octagonal protrusions to the left and right of the main entrance volume are the chapel and baptistry. Their relationship to the rest of the church can be seen more clearly in the plan, which is shown below.

The plan clearly shows the main volume of the nave, encircled by the one-story gallery. The gallery provides a unifying transitional space for the entire church. The small chapel, suitable for private prayer, Adoration, or daily mass, is to the left of the entrance, and would ideally be separated from the gallery space by a carved screen of some kind. The baptistry balances out the right hand side and continues the octagonal theme. In Christian art and symbolism, the number eight signifies the Resurrection and new creation. Traditionally, this symbolism was applied to baptism - resulting in a number of octagonal baptistries. This proposal maintains this laudable tradition and places the baptismal font three steps lower than the rest of the church. 

All in all, this idea is a fairly ornate one for a small parish, but combines many important aspects of our entire Christian building tradition in both the East and the West.

Treasures from the past

Last Saturday was my sister's graduation party, which had the rather obvious effect of bringing together both family and friends from the far corners of the earth. My aunt and uncle, who are currently in the midst of a move from Indiana to Florida, discovered an old trunk of my grandpa's that they had forgotten about in their spare room. Since their new space in Florida will be rather more constrained, they were kind enough to leave it in our possession.

And what a treasure it is! It is chock full of memories from a time that my grandma never talks about and that my dad knows very little about. It's all quite fascinating. There are two albums full of old photos of my grandpa in his youth. One of them is an entire scrapbook of his tour of duty during the Korean War. The photo below shows my great-grandmother and her seven children. My grandpa is the one seated on the car.

Most intriguing to me were the objects of religious significance. There was a stack of funeral prayer cards about four inches thick. They were interesting because of the genealogical information many of them provided, and because of the religious artwork portrayed (since my grandma's family were Greek Catholic). There was even a prayer card for John F. Kennedy included in the collection.

I also discovered three prayer books. One was my grandpa's Sunday Missal from his youth (presumably from his First Communion). Another was a similar Missal from when my grandparents got married. The third, and most interesting find, was a prayer book from my grandma's First Communion, which was written in both English and Old Church Slavonic. It was enlightening to read through some of the liturgy and prayers of the Eastern Churches.

This trunk of things will be a treasure for the family for many years.

YOLO and the Wisdom of Solomon

I have written before on the stupidity of the word YOLO and the phrase it stands for (You Only Live Once, for those whose residence is beneath a rock). Of course, it's easy to just get flustered and rant about such philosophical silliness (and we often do), but it's much more important to look at such a phenomenon within the broader context of what ails modern society.

YOLO, whether spoken, tweeted, said in other words, or simply implied, now passes as a rationale for an action. Carpe Diem has apparently become passe, and we as a culture needed a new catchy saying to prop up our foolish spontaneous actions. Carpe Diem, YOLO, and whatever else we think of next, are quite simply indicative of a society obsessed with self and the flimsy psychological notion of self-fulfillment. In our post-Christian world, it is quite easy to convince ourselves that we can come to total fulfillment (whether spiritual or otherwise) through our own actions, independent of any other. This fits in nicely with our Americanized ideals of complete and utter autonomous individualism. But, like the bizarre Calvinism of Lady Gaga discussed in another post, this thought process is simply an old heresy dressed in new clothes.

In this case, we must draw a comparison to the Pelagians, the special nemeses of St. Augustine, who taught that man was born without Original Sin, and thus had the capacity to attain perfection without the grace of God, by simply following the good example of Christ. The not-so-subtle frame shift here is from God to humanity. We become the masters of our lives and set ourselves up as totally self-reliant and self-fulfilling. Echoes of this are heard in YOLO today: You only live once, so why not be reckless, stupid, lazy, lustful, begrudging, etc. You are the master of your life, after all. You are answerable to no one. Enjoy your total freedom!

The Wisdom of Solomon, one of my favorite books of the Bible (sorry Protestants, you're missing out!), opens with the author exhorting his readers to seek and follow the Spirit of Wisdom, which of course comes from God. In the second chapter, there are the following words which quite simply hit this nail squarely on the head.

"For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. For we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been, for the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts; when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air. Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works; our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat. For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

‘Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither. Let none of us fail to share in our revelry; everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this our lot. Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow or regard the grey hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.

‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training."- Wisdom 2:1-12

There's just so much to soak in from this passage. It's as though the author had some sort of privileged window on 21st Century America. It shows especially clearly a holistic view of how our current culture has "reasoned unsoundly" and found itself in a variety of philosophical predicaments. Let us progress through some of the more interesting points:

• Reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts - Rather than seeing our reason as a faculty endowed to us by our creator, in union with certain universal absolutes, our culture tends to reason more from personal emotion and feeling, resulting in a bizarre relativism that says that two conflicting viewpoints can both be true.
• Make use of creation to the full as in youth - Disregard for our natural environment is symptomatic of a culture that is self-absorbed. 
• Let none of us fail to share in our revelry - Need I flick on the TV to Jersey Shore? Mindless revelry and a lifeless culture of meaningless relationships and substance abuse is a hallmark of a culture that has lost sight of virtue and fallen into fruitless self-satisfaction.
• Let us oppress the righteous poor man - The plight of the poor in our world is perhaps without equal in all of human history. 
• Let us not spare the widow or regard the grey hairs of the aged - This point has two related aspects - the physical and the mental. We have an increasing disregard for the old in our society. Euthanasia is on the rise because authentic care for the elderly is too difficult. On the other hand, as we continue to dismantle the traditions that bind us together, we insult the wisdom of all of those generations who came before us with a casual sweep of 21st Century pride.
• But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless - When might makes right, the weak suffer the most. The most glaring offense in this category is abortion, which perverts the relationship between mother and child into one of power and domination. 
• Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us - This is only becoming truer by the day. Christ and His Church are inconvenient to society because they often stand in direct opposition to the world and its ways.

Like I said - a lot of good stuff on which to reflect. YOLO is, as I said, a mere symptom of such a society envisioned by the second chapter of Wisdom. A society that has become so absorbed in self it has forgotten both God and neighbor in a whirlwind of revelry, worldly might, and contempt for the truth that sets us all free.

Walking into Church

One of the little rituals of Catholicism that I've come to grow in appreciation of is the simple act of dipping one's fingers into the holy water and making the sign of the cross upon entering a church. It's a small thing, and it speaks softly - but they are important words. It says in a physical way that I have entered God's house and I acknowledge God's presence. Genuflecting toward the tabernacle before sitting in the pew is of the same species of ritual - small, simple, but oh so important in the way that we relate to Our Lord. These small rituals say to us very clearly: "You are standing on holy ground."

It's all to do with the Eucharist of course. When you know that the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord is reserved within the tabernacle of a church, it only makes sense to thus acknowledge Him.