faith and scienceCATHEDRAL AGE

WASHINGTON NATIONAL CATHEDRAL | AUTUMN 2012

Work Wonders Thanks to the dedication and foresight of its builders, the National Cathedral stands as a testament to the power of the human spirit: a spirit that seeks answers to our shared challenges, pauses in wonder at God’s love and the mysteries of creation, and adds new beauty to the world.

Your help adds to that legacy.

By giving today to support the work of the Cathedral, you can ensure its future as a living beacon of inspiration that serves the entire country.

To get started, visit www.nationalcathedral.org/support.

“For as long as there have been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star, lost in a galaxy, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe [of] far more galaxies than people.

“If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”

—carl sagan (1934–1996)

background fireworks of star formation light up a galaxy; advanced camera for surveys, hubble space telescope, nasa

CATHEDRAL AGE AUTUMN 2012

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on the cover the eagle nebula, first discovered c. 1745 by astronomer jean-philippe de chéseaux, is a soaring tower of cold gas and dust 7,000 light years away and approximately 9.5 light years—or 57 trillion miles—tall. it is also a stellar incubator, where stars are “born” and nourished to full size. the small bumps and protrusions near the center of the tower are areas where stars begin their lives. each is approximately as large as our solar system photo advanced camera for surveys, hubble space telescope, nasa (november 2004)

14 Faith in America an interview with astronaut Eugene Cernan reflections on faith in America from different religious backgrounds or perspectives

18 To Touch the Face of God Celebrating the Life of Neil Armstrong margaret shannon

24 Sustaining Support House and Home celebrating a gift by Mrs. Barbara W. Caldwell

2 Comment Religion and Science, the Cosmos and the Holy the very rev. gary hall

4 Working and Praying Together Welcoming the Tenth Dean of Washington National Cathedral an interview with the Very Rev. Gary Hall

10 The Friendship of Science and Religion a feature by guest writer the rev. dr. john polkinghorne

Contents26 Focus News from the Cathedral panel on the American Muslim experience,dedication of Mother Teresa carving, and a restoration update

30 From the Pulpit Shared Responsibility the rt. rev. mariann edgar budde

The Horizon of Eternity the very rev. francis b. sayre, jr.

The Weight of War the very rev. gary hall

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This autumn I have been reading a wonderful new book: The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, by David Haskell, professor of biology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. As a fan of American nature writing from Henry Thoreau to Annie Dillard, I find it a real pleasure to read a book by a close observer of nature who actually knows scientifically what he’s talking about. For more than a year, Haskell observed a small circle of forest, about a yard in diameter, near the university. He called this area a mandala: the Sanskrit word for “circle” used in both Buddhism and Hinduism to denote a sacred space or a figure for the cosmos itself. In spiritual practice, one uses the mandala as an aid to contemplation. In Haskell’s project, the forest mandala likewise served as the locus of sustained, focused attention.

I like many things about The Forest Unseen, but chief among them is Haskell’s refusal to be forced into false choices. He is both scientist and nature writer, so his observations of the forest are at once disciplined and poetic. At the same time, he is both a scientist and a practitioner of contemplative prayer—so he refuses to accept a dichotomy between religion and science.

Religion and Science: we have dedicated much of this issue of Cathedral Age to an inquiry into the ongoing dialogue between these two major modes of interrogating the human condition. And the Cathedral recently had an opportunity to remember the great scientific achievement of landing humans on the moon in celebrating the life of astronaut Neil Armstrong. Although Armstong’s memorial service preceded the start of my tenure as dean by a few weeks, I have watched it, heard about it, and was aware of it being a tangible example of what the Cathedral does best: bringing the country together at significant moments in the life of our nation. In these pages we not only revisit the memorial service at the Cathedral, we are also privileged to share the tellings of one of Armstrong’s dearest friends—and the last man to

walk on the moon: Gene Cernan. If ever there was an inspiring and unique case for the existence of God, Cernan’s witness to the relationship of the cosmos to the Creator is a uniquely special one to read.

Religion and science both know and reveal their own important truths, but sadly each one can also fall into an exceptionalistic trap. “Science deepens our intimacy with the world,” writes David Haskell. “But there is a danger in an exclusively scientific way of thinking. The forest is turned into a diagram; animals become mere mechanisms; nature’s workings become clever graphs.” Without reference to other ways of knowing, science can objectify the world and its processes in reductive ways. The result is not science but “scientism.”

Just as science can become scientism, so theology can become “religionistic.” The great Christian theologian Dietrich BonhoeΩer noted this tendency when he wrote of the modern disturbing tendency to use “God” to explain whatever we don’t otherwise understand. He lamented in his Letters and Papers from Prison:

. . . how wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.

“Scientistic” thinkers dismiss the holy and all its claims. “Religionistic” thinkers use science when it is convenient (it’s given us medicine, technology, and taken us to the moon) and they dismiss science when they find its implications too threatening (natural selection, chaos theory, the second law of thermodynamics).

This kind of doublethink is untenable for thoughtful, faithful people. The goal of human knowing is neither to exalt science over other forms of inquiry,

Religion and Science, the Cosmos and the Holy

right visitors admire the “creation of day” tympanum over the northwest door of the west façade photo b. thomson

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Cathedral Age is the official quarterly publication of Washington National Cathedral.

the very rev. gary hall deancanon kathleen a. cox executive director and chief operating officer

Cathedral Age is produced by the Communications and Marketing Department of Washington National Cathedral.

richard m. weinberg director of communications craig w. stapert associate director for online strategies mimi m. mcnamara senior graphic designer m. leigh harrison communications manager

cathedral chapter David J. Kautter, chair; Alexander H. Platt, vice-chair; C. Raymond Marvin, secretary; Maxmillian Angerholzer iii; Boyce L. Ansley; John D. Barker; Richard F. Bland; Dr. Ann Carol Brown; The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of Washington; Timothy C. Coughlin; Robert B. Coutts; The Hon. John H. Dalton; Cynthia Fowler; The Hon. C. Boyden Gray; The Very Rev. Gary Hall, dean; Craig M. McKee; Dr. Eric D. K. Melby; Dr. Eric L. Motley; The Hon. Thomas Pickering; Geoffrey S. Stewart; The Rev. Dr. James P. Wind; Dorothy

Woodcock

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Copyright ©2012 Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation issn 0008-7874. Cathedral Age is published quarterly by the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, 3101 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20016-5098. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, DC. Editorial comments should be addressed to The Editor, Cathedral Age, Washington National Cathedral, 3101 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20016-5098. Telephone (202) 537-6200.

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nor to use theology as a magic wand to make things we can’t otherwise explain vanish. The goal of human knowing is instead to seek to engage God, the world, and ourselves in one unified frame of meaning.

I welcome this opportunity to reflect with you on the search for this unified frame of meaning. Attending to the world as David Haskell observed his forest mandala—with empirical observation and holy regard—will open us all to what the Book of Common Prayer calls “the gift of joy and wonder” in all God’s works.

the very reverend gary hall cathedral dean

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together

Working & Praying

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of Washington; Sunday’s service then moved “from the font to the table,” with representatives from the entire Cathedral community formally welcoming the new dean among them.

In her sermon on Saturday evening, Budde described the stakes involved for the Ca-thedral and for the Episcopal Church. “We

are in a time,” she said, “when we all need more courage than we have—and that is true for us individually, as a nation, and as the people of God in the Episcopal Church. This is a humbling time and an exciting one,” she added, “on our watch so much is changing, and we don’t know what the future holds—because we are not in charge. God is in charge.”

Figures formally commissioning Hall in this work included the ninth dean of the Cathedral, the Rev. Dr. Samuel T. Lloyd iii, now priest-in-charge of Boston’s Trinity Church, Copley Square. Lloyd was on hand to present the new dean with the silver Dean’s Cross, “a sign of

authority in this Cathedral Church.”

Sunday’s Festal Eucharist service gathered Cathedral communities to celebrate what Hall described as “God’s expansive invitation” to all people. Representatives of the Cathedral Chapter, the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation Board of Trustees, Cathedral staΩ, members of the congregation, and volunteers participated,as well as representatives of the three schools on the Close, the Cathedral Choral Society, All Hallows Guild, and the National Cathedral Association.

In his sermon, Regas called for a rea≈rmation of our common humanity as a means for striving for peace. “Standing on sacred soil, I see this as one world with God’s arms of mercy outstretched to every person across the planet embracing friend and foe,” said Regas. “I hope and pray Gary Hall continues to be a peacemaker. . . . I trust that this Cathedral will courageously lead in that mission.”

The week just prior to his installation, Cathedral Age interviewed Dean Hall to learn about his vision for the Cathedral, what his priorities will be.

left festal eucharist: a service of welcome, sunday, october 28above dean hall, a service of renewal of baptism and shared ministry, saturday, october 27  photos d. marks

The Very Rev. Gary Hall was installed as tenth dean of Washing-ton National Cathedral on Satur-

day, October 27, 2012. The Rt. Rev. Mari-ann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, o≈ciated and preached at “A Service of Renewal of Bap-tism & Shared Ministry.” Bishop Budde was joined by clergy and lay leaders of the diocese, Cathedral Chapter mem-bers and staΩ, as well as friends and family of Hall in the intimate setting of the great choir. On Sun-day, October 28, a “Fes-tal Eucharist Service of Welcome” took place at which Hall presided and the Rev. Dr. George F. Regas, rector emeritus of All Saints Church, Pasa-dena, preached.

The weekend’s two services oΩered what Hall called “a new way” of installing a dean of the Cathedral. Saturday evening’s bilingual service in English and Spanish focused on the Cathedral’s life as a community of the baptized living out the Gospel together within the Diocese

Welcoming the Tenth Cathedral Dean An Interview with the Very Rev. Gary Hall

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transition will be an important sign of how the whole denomination can manage that transition. And so I came here because I felt it was important work, and it was work that I really feel in this last part of my career I’ve been called to do.

CA looking back over your 35 years of ordained ministry, what has most inspired you?

I’ve had some wonderful mentors. George Regas, who’s preaching at my installation, spent 28 years at All Saints, Pasadena, and was a great peace and justice advocate against the Vietnam War, a real force in the Episcopal Church’s move to ordain

women, and did the first same-sex blessings at a large church in the United States in the 1990s. George has been a big inspiration in my life. Another long-time friend of mine is Harvey Guthrie, who was dean of the Episcopal Divinity School when I was a student there in the 1970s and led that school through a transition of facing into not only the liturgical renewal in the 1960s and 1970s but the ordination of women, becoming the first seminary

CA what do you see as the cathedral’s role within the spiritual life of the nation?

I think the Cathedral has already had a significant role in the spiritual life of the nation in terms of being a gathering place for the nation when we celebrate or mourn, being a symbolic presence of a faith community in the nation’s capital—on the highest point in the District, visible from all over the city—and as a place that hosts and convenes events and conversations. One of the challenges facing all mainline religious institutions, I feel, is that we need to be more movement oriented and less institutional. By that I mean that people younger than I am

are interested in being involved in a faith community or an institution that actually has a mission and is living it out. So for me the Cathedral’s role in the spiritual life of the nation involves continuing what we’ve already been doing and building upon it.

We’re at a point right now of great ideological paralysis in our country. And it seems to me that one of the things the Cathedral uniquely can do, because of our history and because of

our location, is to be a gathering place for people of a variety of religious and political perspectives to find ways to work together to advance the common good. That, to me, is the most important next step in being a spiritual home for the nation.

CA what drew you to feel called to serve as cathedral dean?

When I read the material [for the dean search] I felt that the particular challenges facing the Cathedral right now really aligned with my skills, experience, and interests. I then chose to come here for two reasons. One is that we’re going through a period in history right now in which all elite

Episcopal Church institutions are having to rethink themselves and re-imagine their ministries and how they function. I’ve helped three other communities make that transition, and it seems to me that Washington National Cathedral is in that same place. As the most visible faith community in the denomination, it’s vitally important that the Cathedral flourish in the twenty-first century: because how this place navigates that

left the rev. dr. harvey h. guthrie, jr. center the rt. rev. james b. magness, bishop suffragan for federal ministries, blesses dean hall right the rev. dr. george f. regas photos d. marks

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not only to admit women students but to bring ordained Anglican women on the faculty. Fred Borsch, the former bishop of Los Angeles, was a great bishop and seminary dean who really is to me a model as a bishop, scholar, justice advocate, and pastor.

I’d say my most inspiring work had to do with my intersection with the gay and lesbian community in Pasadena in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s. Coming to work at a church that had a large gay and lesbian population and an aids service center, I saw up-close not only gay and lesbian couples loving and supporting each other but participated in same-sex blessings. I also sat at

the bedsides of people dying of aids. Seeing the way men and women in the gay and lesbian community supported them and cared for them—that was a transformational experience for me, my understanding of human sexuality, and my understanding for the need for the church to be strongly supportive of gay and lesbian people. I’d say that, of all the transformational experiences, that was probably one of the most powerful for me.

CA one month into your time in washington, what have your initial impressions of the cathedral been, and what do you most look forward to in the coming months?

One of my initial impressions is just how reverent visitors are when they come here. I try to walk through the Cathedral every day and say hello to the docents, and when I walk through the building I see people praying and looking around contemplatively at the space. One of the things I realize maybe more forcefully than I did before I came to work here is just how very sacred a space the Cathedral building itself is and what it means to people from a variety of religious traditions. There’s something

about beautiful Gothic architecture that is transcendent. The thing I’ve noticed the most is that people who come here—even though they may be wearing flip flops, shorts, and baseball caps—all stop to reflect, pray, and contemplate.

What I most look forward to is entering fully into the life of the Cathedral. It’s an extremely wide-ranging place. The Cathedral has a national constituency and a local constituency, it’s part of the

Diocese of Washington, and it has an international constituency because of its peace and justice and interfaith work. What I look forward to is really learning the breadth and the complexity of what the Cathedral’s ministry is and engaging in as much of that breadth and depth of it as I can.

CA what will be your priorities as the new dean?

The Episcopal Church as a denomination has not developed habits about sharply defining an identity, projecting that identity outward, and inviting people into it. I think the Cathedral—like the parishes and seminary I’ve served—has to go

left dean hall sprinkles bishop budde with holy waterright dean hall with his wife kathy and son oliver photos d. marks

through an exercise of sharpening its definition of itself missionally. What are we here to do? We see ourselves as a spiritual home for the nation, and we’ve always seen ourselves as a gathering and convening place for the nation. We now need to sharpen that definition, considering what that means and how we live that out programmatically.

My first hope for the Cathedral is that we can be a place where people

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of varying faith traditions can come together, pray together, work together for the common good, and find a new way of being together in community that would expand our theological and ideological diΩerences with each other. I’m a progressive person by nature—politically, theologically, ecclesiastically. But I realize that the role of the Cathedral is to be comprehensive in the best Anglican sense of that word. So I welcome the opportunity to work with people who think and believe rather diΩerently from how I do but are willing to gather with me around the table—and work and pray for the Kingdom.

The second task is to rebuild and re-energize our National Cathedral Association and the groups of people

we have all around the country who have supported the Cathedral and been advocates for us.

CA which historic writers or contemporary spiritual leaders do you look to for guidance?

I think we all have diΩerent ways in which we relate to the Holy. For me in my early life, it was always pretty exclusively through literature. So I went to graduate school because I wanted to study the great seventeenth-century Anglican writers: George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, John Donne, Thomas Traherne, Sir Thomas Browne. From that I morphed into actually studying American transcendentalism: Thoreau and Emerson.

“It seems to me that one of the things the Cathedral uniquely can do, because of our history and because of our location, is to be a gathering place for people of a variety of religious and political perspectives to find ways to work together to advance the common good.”

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I also read a lot of contemporary poetry, and nature writing and environmental theology have always been a very big part of my spirituality. Then, as I’ve gotten older, visual art has become an important part of my piety and spirituality.

For the past 20 years I have been an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross: Benedictine spirituality has been very much the mode in which I feel most comfortable. Joan Chittister is someone I read a lot as well as Thomas Merton, in terms of prayer and spiritual life. And one of the things I like about the

Cathedral is actually being in a place where I can participate in the Daily O≈ce with other people. Coming to a place that is a worshiping community not only on Sundays but at least three times a day is really an important part of my own spiritual formation. In fact, one of my hopes for the Cathedral is to broaden our work with the Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage. Making this a place for increasing prayer practices and making people aware of prayer practices is really important to me. I also see the Cathedral as a venue for religion and the arts. I think I’m like a lot of people

left volunteer verger torrance thomas and staff member andi mccormick present the dean’s new chasuble center congregation member erica smith receives holy eucharist right the rev. dr. samuel t. lloyd iii, ninth dean of the cathedral, presents dean hall with the dean’s crossfar right worshipers gathered in the great choir for the installation servicephotos d. marks

who find beauty—whether literary, artistic, musical, or architectural—as a way in. I think the Cathedral is already doing a lot with music and art, but whatever I can do to enhance that is high on my list. CA

more onlineListen to audio of the dean’s full interview at www.nationalcathedral.org/fall2012age

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The key to understanding the relationship between science and religion is to recognize

that both are engaged in a quest for truth. Religion can do all sorts of things for you—guide you in life and strengthen you at the approach of death—but it cannot really do any of these things unless it is actually true. Otherwise it would amount to no more than an exercise in wishful thinking. And not only are science and religion both seeking truth: I believe they do so by gaining well-motivated beliefs that arise from actual encounter with reality.

In the case of science this is pretty obvious to most people, but in the case of religion it is less widely recognized. The New Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, proclaim that religious people believe without evidence, or even willfully against the evidence. To take a less extreme example, I have many friends in the scientific world who are both wistful and wary about religion. They recognize that science on its own is not able to give a full account of our rich and complex world and that religion oΩers an enlarged account of reality. Yet they fear that it does so by submitting to the dictates of a supposedly unquestionable authority, be it an infallible book or an infallible institution. They picture faith as involving a willingness to grit one’s teeth and believe impossible things because one is told to do so. Of course they do not want to commit intellectual suicide, but neither do I.

dna sequencing photo shutterstock

above ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) sculpture from the cathedral’s west façade, depicting creation of humankind

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I believe that I have motivations for my religious beliefs and in what follows I shall say something about one aspect of that, relevant to science. Of course the motivations for belief in science and religion are not identical, simply because the characters of the beliefs are not identical. Science and religion engage with diΩerent dimensions of reality and ask diΩerent questions about it.

both eyes openScience has achieved its very great success by the modesty of its ambition. It confines itself to considering the processes by which things happen and its basic question is “How?” Yet that is not the only question to ask if one is seeking full understanding. There are also “Why?” questions, involving issues of meaning and value and purpose. Is there something going on in what is happening? These questions are deliberately bracketed out by science as part of its limiting self-definition, but we all know that they are meaningful and important questions to ask. The kettle is boiling because burning gas heats the water; the kettle is boiling because I want to make a cup of tea, and will you have one? We do not have to choose between these

The Friendship of Science and Religion

two answers. Both are true and necessary to a full understanding of the event of the boiling kettle.

I see science and religion as friends and not foes, therefore, complementing each other and not in conflict in their common quest for truthful understanding. While the questions they ask are diΩerent, the two inquiries interact with each other

because their answers must be compatible. Saying that I have put the kettle in the refrigerator to make a cup of tea would not make much sense! Accounts of process and purpose must be congruent with each other. I like to say that I am “two-eyed,” viewing the world with both the eye of science and the eye of religion. I believe that this binocular vision enables me to see further and deeper that I

could with either eye on its own. It grieves me when some religious people refuse to accept the genuine insights of science. Those who seek to serve the God of truth should welcome truth from whatever source it comes. By no means all truth comes from science, but certainly some does.

a rational universeLet me now say something about motivations for religious belief, concentrating on an example that, interestingly enough, arises from the experience

by John Polkinghorne

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of doing science, but whose consideration takes us beyond the range of purely scientific explanation. I worked in fundamental physics, exploring with my colleagues the properties of the basic constituents of matter. A striking feature of this activity is that it is possible at all. Of course, evolutionary necessity can surely be supposed to have shaped our brains so that we can understand the everyday world in which we have to survive. But why can we also understand the subatomic quantum world, remote from direct impact on our lives and in its cloudy fitfulness quite diΩerent in character from the clear and orderly world of everyday experience? Quantum theory requires a totally counterintuitive manner of thinking.

The fact is that the universe has proved to be astonishingly rationally transparent to our enquiry. Moreover it has proved also to be astonishingly rationally beautiful. The key to unlocking the deepest secrets of the cosmos has turned out to be the seemingly abstract subject of mathematics. It has turned out, time and again, that reallysuccessful physical theories are expressed in equations that have about them the unmistakable character of mathematical beauty (economy, elegance, etc.). The marvelous deep order of the universe oΩers its investigators the reward of wonder for their labors. Why are we so lucky? It would surely be intellectually lazy just to treat this as a happy accident. Scientists exploit these opportunities, but simply as scientists they are unable to explain them.

Seeing the universe as a divine creation makes cosmic intelligibility itself intelligible. I have been describing a physical world, which in its wonderful order might be described as “shot through with signs of mind.” I believe that it is coherent and satisfying

above dna sequencing photo shutterstock opposite center medallion of the “creation” (west) rose window, washington national cathedral photo k. cobb

to see this as an indication of the mind of the Creator lying behind the deep order of the universe. Here is an example of how religious understanding can complement and extend the insights of science in an intellectually satisfying manner, setting them in a broader and deeper context of understanding.

exchanging giftsThe gift that science in its turn oΩers to religion is to tell it about the nature and history of the natural world. One of the most fruitful of these gifts has been the recognition that we live in an evolving world. Quite contrary to commonly asserted belief, when Darwin published The Origin of Species it was not the final parting of the ways between science and religion. There were many believers who welcomed his insights, and one of

these was Darwin’s clergyman friend Charles Kingsley. Kingsley said that, although God could no doubt have created a ready-made world, Darwin had shown us that God had done something cleverer than that by creating a world so endowed with fertility that creatures could be allowed to explore and bring to birth its potentiality in a word “to make themselves.” This pregnant phrase neatly encapsulates

the theological way in which to think of the fact of biological evolution. The God of love is neither an indiΩerent Deistic Spectator, nor a Cosmic Tyrant exercizing relentless total control, but the One who gives to creatures su≈cient freedom to be and make themselves.

Such a world of creaturely freedom is a great good, but it has an inescapable shadow side. The shu√ing explorations of evolutionary process will have blind alleys and ragged edges as well as great fertility. Genetic mutations not only produce new forms of life but they are also a source of malignancy. One cannot have the one without the other. This oΩers religion some help as it wrestles with its greatest

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perplexity: the presence of suΩering in a world held to be the creation of a good and powerful God. The agonizing fact of cancer is not something gratuitous that a God who was a bit more competent or a bit less callous could easily have eliminated. It is the necessary cost of a creation in which creatures are allowed to make themselves. I do not pretend that this insight removes all our perplexity, but I think it is modestly helpful.

unexpected possibilityThere is another gift from science that I would like briefly to mention. It is the recognition that reality is often surprising beyond human powers to anticipate. Quantum theory’s discovery that light sometimes behaves like a wave (that is, spread out and flapping) and sometimes like a particle (a little bullet) provides a striking example. In 1899 such oxymoronic behavior would have seemed absolutely impossible, and in fact it took the physicists many years to figure out how it could be so. Science’s encounters with the often strange behavior of reality means that the natural question for a scientist to ask about a proposition, whether within science or beyond it, is not “Is it reasonable?”—as if we felt we knew beforehand the shape that rationality had to take. Instead, the question to ask is “What makes you think that might be the case?”: a question at once open to unexpected possibilities but demanding motivating evidence if a seemingly counterintuitive proposal is to be accepted. The duality of the human and the divine in Jesus Christ is a much deeper duality than that of wave and particle, but I believe that I have motivations for my Christian belief that it is true. But that is another story (see, for example, my The Faith of a Physicist).

The Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne is a British physicist and Anglican priest. He is the author of more than 32 books.

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CA what did it mean to you to pay tribute to neil armstrong in his memorial service at the cathedral?

Standing in that pulpit and looking out at the throngs of people and the stained glass windows, the columns, and the greatness of the Cathedral was a really humbling moment for me. It truly was something I will never forget as long as I live.

I wanted to tell people about the Neil Armstrong I knew, knowing many people didn’t have that privilege and opportunity. I didn’t want to talk about walking on the moon, rather to share my feelings with people about Neil as a human being, as a guy who in one sense “put his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us.” But on the opposite side of that coin, as I said in my eulogy, he would be remembered long after all of us who were there that morning will have been forgotten. The words I ended with probably sum it up best: “Farewell, my friend, you have left us far too soon; but we want you to know we do cherish the time we have had and shared together.”

“I was privileged to sit on God’s front porch and to look back home at that small part of creation.”

FAITH

in AMERICA

An Interview with astronaut Eugene Cernan

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CA how do you think neil armstrong wanted to be remembered?

Neil was a special friend. I had done many things with Neil: we’d flown together, we’d ballooned together, we’d soared, we’d fished, we’d hunted, we’d both worked with and were very committed to naval aviation—and to the university we both attended, Purdue. What we did inspired future generations to dream the impossible, then go out and make it happen.

Neil was obviously very conscious of what he did. He knew what it meant to the country. But I believe he personally wanted to focus on the future by trying to inspire young kids. He wanted to share himself in a way that they could relate to—

not as this iconic figure who was the first human being on the moon. He had a way of delivering a presentation that I often called “vintage Neil,” as only he could do it: candidly, off the cuff, meaningful. Sometimes I would listen to him and be amazed myself because this guy had done what people on this planet had only dreamed of doing for centuries.

CA reflecting on your own life and career, how has your experience as an astronaut affected your view of humanity and the world?

I’ve always said there are two space programs: technological and spiritual. When you accelerate to 25,000 miles an hour and head out somewhere into space, and you get a chance to look back, that is

when things begin to change. That’s when you realize that you are mortal and that there’s something you don’t understand.

The horizon of the Earth, only slightly curved in orbit, now closes in upon and around itself. And right there, filling the window in front of you, you begin to see something strange and yet something very familiar. You realize you’re beginning

left capt. eugene cernan speaking at the neil armstrong memorial service photo d. marksbelow capt. eugene cernan makes a short checkout of the lunar roving vehicle during the early part of the first apollo 17 extravehicular activity at the taurus-littrow landing site. the mountain in the right background is the east end of south massif. photo nasa

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to see the entirety of our planet—Earth—as part of creation. The further you go, the smaller it gets very, very quickly until you can cover it with nothing bigger than your thumb. You can blot out your identity with reality with nothing bigger than the palm of your hand.

I’ve been to the moon twice, so I had the opportunity to challenge this feeling. Although you’re in sunlight, you’re looking back at the multi-colored blues of the ocean, white of the snow and the clouds—this planet of ours surrounded by endless blackness—not darkness: a three-dimensional blackness beyond your conception. I can’t draw a picture or show it to people, but I can tell you it exists because I saw it with my own eyes. It may be something we call infinity. I tend to call it the endlessness of time and space.

This Earth, this home of ours—where we relate to past and future, love, and everything about our existence—it doesn’t move aimlessly through space. It doesn’t tumble, it doesn’t roll upon its side. It rotates on an axis you cannot see, but you know must be there. No strings are holding it up, and yet it rotates methodically, with purpose, with logic. Every 12 hours you are looking at the other side of the world. North America disappears around the corner, and then up comes the Pacific. You can look from the Eastern coast of the United States, across the plains and the snow-capped mountains into the deep dark blues of the Pacific as it rotates. Then Australia and Asia, then all of Europe and the entire continent of Africa come into view. In a few short hours in your lifetime, you are watching and looking at the other side of the world, and we’re not traveling around it anymore; we’re leaving it for a rendezvous with another body in the universe we have chosen to call the moon.

I came to the conclusion after Apollo 10, and I reinforced it standing on the

moon during Apollo 17: Our Earth is just too beautiful to have happened by accident. There is just somebody bigger than you and me who put it all together. I believe there has to be a creator of this universe, because I was privileged to sit on God’s front porch and to look back home at that small part of creation. You can address God by whatever name you want. I happen to believe all religions were created by man to define our values, to get us all to the same place—to a God, to a supreme being, our creator. That is a lasting impression that I can never forget.

CA thinking back to the gemini and apollo missions: at the time, we did not know for sure how they would go. how did you prepare for those journeys?

You’ve got to have a lot of faith. Yet you almost have to be somewhat arrogant to know you can do it, and do it well. In all three of my missions, I never took anything for granted. Before every one of my spaceflights, I had a priest who’s a good friend of mine say a quick Mass and offered Communion before we left. It was one of those things I felt I needed to do, because what I was being asked to do was almost greater than myself. Where I was going was somewhere where few other men had gone before.

CA what words of wisdom or other sources of inspiration do you turn to in tough times?

From a practical point of view, I turn a lot of times to things my dad reminded me of: “If you’re going to do it, do it well or not at all. Otherwise you’re going to have to do it over again.” Going to the moon, you only have one chance to do it right because you don’t have a chance to do it over again. He always used to tell me, and I impart this to my grandkids: “I’m only going to ask one thing of you, just to go out and do your best. You’re not going to

be better than everybody at everything. But some time, some day you’re going to surprise yourself.” Yet there was always a caveat. He said, “There’s only one person who knows what their best really is—and that’s you.” That’s something that I turn to and think about when I’m challenged with things like the responsibility of Apollo 17. I had the responsibility of the nation on my shoulders—not just the crew and success of the mission. I felt that I was challenged by the commitment and pride of an entire nation to do it well, and to come home alive. And I’m not afraid to admit it: I called on my God to give me a little help when I might need it.

CA space exploration played a very aspirational role for your generation. what should today’s generation aspire toward for humanity’s next “giant leap”?

There’s more at stake than just putting a man in space. When Neil, Jim Lovell, and I testified in front of Congress, we emphasized that it’s more than just putting a man in space. What’s at stake is the exceptionalism that young kids ought to be committed to as young Americans. Think about the fact that people in their 40s and 50s today either weren’t born when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon or were in diapers or knee pants when I left those final footprints (which will be 40 years ago this December 14). That generation and their children are thirsty for an identity with what this country did and was able to do. They want the chance. We knocked the door open, and, unfortunately, it’s taken a generation and a half to consider walking back through it.

I tell fourth graders today that, given the opportunity that someone gave me many years ago, they’re the ones that are going to take us back to the moon. They’re the ones that are going to take us to Mars.

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It will happen, because curiosity is the essence of human existence: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? We are so unknowledgeable about where it all started, where we came from, and where it’s going. I believe faith—in something, somebody, some God, some creator—is essential. The creator has given us a chance to get those answers step by step. But we’ll never get them all, because for every answer we’ll get another question.

CA the moon rock neil armstrong, buzz aldrin, and michael collins presented to the cathedral in 1974 is estimated to be 3.6 billion years old and was embedded in the cathedral’s space window. what does that mean to you?

I’m not sure any of us really understand “millions and billions and trillions.” We do know it was a long time ago, perhaps since the beginning. It’s pretty tough to define eternity. Time is the fourth

dimension we encounter when we go into space. I’ve been asked a lot about my footprints, the flag, and about my daughter’s initials that I put in the surface of the moon before we left. People ask how long will they be there, and my answer is, “forever”—however long “forever” is. I guess that’s another way of saying, “for eternity.” That moon rock represents more than the fact that three human beings brought artifacts back. It’s unique. It was the moon.

What would it be like to have a splinter of the cross that Jesus was crucified on? In a way, that rock is a symbol of creation itself. It’s the closest thing you and I can relate to “the beginning.” These are the mysteries that we live in today. The moon rock in the window—particularly because it comes from the first mission that went to the moon—is far more symbolic than anything else we brought back.

The Cathedral is not just a holy place—it also represents what America is all about. We were founded in this nation on a

belief in God, and “in God we trust.” The Cathedral represents not just a church. It represents the nation as well as our relationship as a nation to God. The rock simply puts another piece of holiness into the Cathedral.

Captain Eugene Cernan is a retired United States Navy officer and a former nasa astronaut. He has been into space three times: as pilot of Gemini 9 in June 1966; as lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 in May 1969; and as commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972, the final Apollo lunar landing.

With Apollo 17, Cernan became “the last man on the moon” since he was the last to re-enter the lunar module Challenger during the mission’s third and final extra-vehicular activity. To learn more, visit www.genecernan.com.

left  the “big blue marble” view of the earth as seen by the apollo 17 crew. this translunar coast photograph extends from the mediterranean sea area to the antarctica south polar ice cap. this is the first time the apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. note the heavy cloud cover in the southern hemisphere. almost the entire coastline of africa is clearly visible. the arabian peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of africa. the large island off the coast of africa is the malagasy republic. the asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast. photo nasa

more onlineListen to the complete interview at www.nationalcathedral.org/fall2012age

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TO TOUCH THE FACE OF

God

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opposite the scientists and technicians window, also known as the “space window,” by rodney winfield photo k. cobbabove neil armstrong photo nasa

Celebrating the Life of Neil Armstrong (1930–2012)by Margaret Shannon

Fifty years and one day after President Kennedy issued the stirring summons quoted above, this nation and the world bid farewell to the first human being to step onto the surface of the moon. The Navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut, who died August 25, was remembered at a public service televised worldwide from Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, September 13, 2012.

Joining the Armstrong family beneath the Cathedral’s soaring arches were hundreds of the astronauts and analysts, scientists and steelworkers, engineers and executives, doctors and draftsmen, technicians and tailors, whose can-do spirit epitomized a post-war generation of Americans imbued with what writer Tom Wolfe termed “the right stuΩ.” Nothing was impossible, not even going to the moon.

Also gathered together, perhaps for the last time, were the pioneers of space who had became household names: Apollo 11 crewmates Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins (St. Albans ’48); Mercury 7 astronaut and shuttle payload specialist John Glenn; 18 other astronauts; nasa administrators and executives; and Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr., Mission Control flight director. In the north transept sat row upon row of Navy midshipmen, not yet born when Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969, wearing crisp white dress uniforms with the traditional black armband of mourning.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”—president john f. kennedy, september 12, 1962, rice university, houston, tex.

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Scottish bagpiper Angus J. Sutherland, wearing a Clan Armstrong tartan, played Mist Covered Mountains as the family entered the nave. The service opened with the recorded Boston accents of President Kennedy, speaking across the divide of time.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things—not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. . .

tributes to an american heroApollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan spoke of Armstrong as “a sincerely humble man of impeccable integrity, who reluctantly accepted his role of the first human to walk on another world. And when he did,” he added, “he became a testament to all Americans of what can be achieved through vision and dedication.” As Cernan put it, “Neil considered that he was just the tip of the arrow, always giving credit to some 400,000 equally committed and dedicated Americans who just ‘didn’t know it couldn’t be done.’”

On the eve of the Apollo 11 mission, nasa had predicted that “lunar landing—that first step toward the stars—will represent more than a triumph of technology over time and distance. It will be a single moving experience to be shared in a brief bond of worldwide brotherhood. Then it is not important

left senator and mrs. john glenn photo d. markscenter diana krall performs “fly me to the moon”  photo nasaright bagpiper angus sutherland photo d. marks

who is standing there, what is important is that man is standing there.”

“No one,” said Cernan, “no one—but no one—could have accepted the responsibility of his remarkable accomplishment with more dignity and grace than Neil Armstrong. He embodied all that is good and great about America.”

The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, recalled in her homily Armstrong’s description of the defining moment when he looked out his spacecraft window. “It suddenly struck me,” he said at the 1970 Miami University commencement, “that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

Former Secretary of the Treasury John P. Snow, who knew Armstrong through his post-nasa roles on corporate boards and as a golf partner, remembered a lighter side of his friend. Waiting for him to putt, “he’d survey the line to the hole. He’d measure the dew on the green,” said Snow. “He couldn’t help but be the engineer.”

Michael Collins, retired Air Force Major General and command module pilot of Apollo 11, read the intercessory prayers, thanking God for his friend and colleague “who with courage and humility first set foot upon the moon. Following his example,” Collins

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prayed, “save us from arrogance, lest we forget that our achievements are grounded in you.”

fly me to the moon A highlight of the service came when Grammy-winning Canadian jazz musician Diana Krall, wearing a gold moon-shaped necklace and accompanying herself at a grand piano in the great choir, crooned wistfully:

Fly me to the moon let me swing among those stars let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

Frank Sinatra’s 1964 hit had been played by astronaut Gene Cernan aboard Apollo 10 and by astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 landing.

Another memorable vignette was a glimpse of former Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton, a member of the Cathedral Chapter, seated behind the lectern mouthing the words to the Navy hymn, Eternal Father Strong To Save, along with the Navy Band Sea Chanters.

The service concluded with the singing of America the Beautiful in an arrangement by Canon Michael McCarthy, director of music. The soaring unison melody, sung first by the Cathedral Choristers, culminated with the Metropolitan Opera Brass and organ joining the congregation for the last verse.

Finally, nasa Administrator and former astronaut Major General Charles F. Bolden, Jr., presented Neil

Armstrong’s widow, Carol, with the American flag that was flown at half-staΩ over Mission Control at the nasa Johnson Space Center in Houston on the day her husband died.

After the bishop’s benediction, beseeching God to “nerve [those gathered] with the courage of the astronauts,” the assemblage poured out onto the sun-splashed Walker Court.

fragment of creation from beyond the earthPresiding over these proceedings from its perch in the south clerestory wall high above the main floor was the Cathedral’s famed Space Window. On this day, glorious morning sunlight poured through its deep midnight hues, redolent with the eternal silence of space.

Many of those attending Armstrong’s memorial, including Aldrin and Collins, had also been at the Cathedral on July 21, 1974, for the dedication of the Cathedral’s Space (Scientists and Technicians) Window. Apollo 11 had returned to Earth with 50 pounds of rocks gathered on the lunar surface, samples of which were made available for scientific research, education, and public display.

To mark the fifth anniversary of the first lunar landing, the crew of Apollo 11 presented to the Cathedral a sliver of moon rock about the size of a Kennedy half dollar, weighing only 7.18 grams (~.25 oz.). “This fragment of creation from beyond

left michael collins reads intercessory prayers right neil armstrong’s widow carol armstrong (center), her stepson eric (right), and daughter molly van wagenen (left) photos d. marks

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The Space Window, gift of former nasa Administrator Thomas O. Paine, symbolizes both spiritual and scientific connections to the mystery of the cosmos and is one of the best-loved stained glass windows at the Cathedral. It is also unique in appearance, departing from the traditional three-panel concept by filling all three lancets with one design. Photographs taken during the Apollo 11 mission provided inspiration to St. Louis artist Rodney Winfield for the color palette. A thin, white line among the dark spheres and tiny stars suggests the trajectory of a spaceship. The inscription “Is not God in the height of Heaven?” (job 22:12) appears at the window’s base.

A small round piece of white glass, shining from the center of a deep red upper sphere, contains a 2 ⅜" sliver of moon rock as its centerpiece. Sealed between tempered glass and steel in an inert nitrogen environment, the basalt chip is approximately 3.6 billion years old and contains the previously unknown mineral pyroxferroite. “Piece 230 of Apollo 11 rock no. 10057,” as it was officially cataloged, is the only moon rock given by nasa to a nongovernmental institution. Neil Armstrong and fellow Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins presented the sample—”a fragment of creation, from beyond the Earth”—to the Cathedral on July 21, 1974, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of their first steps on the moon.

Since that time, the Space Window has become deeply embedded in the nation’s memory. In January 1986, as the nation struggled for ways to grieve in the hours after the space shuttle Challenger exploded on lift-off, hundreds of mourners made spontaneous pilgrimages to the Cathedral and laid wreaths of flowers beneath the window as a memorial to the scientists and technicians that it was designed to honor. America also came together again at the Cathedral during the national memorial service for the seven-member crew of space shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated upon reentry to Earth’s atmosphere on February 1, 2003.

top detail of lunar rock in the space window photo k. cobbcenter armstrong, aldrin, and collins present the cathedral with the lunar rock, 1974 photo cathedral archivesbottom senator john glenn, astronaut, attends the memorial service for the crew of the space shuttle columbia, february 2003 photo d. marks

The Space Window

more onlineView recently discovered archival footage of the 1974 service formally dedicating the Space Window at www.nationalcathedral.org/fall2012age

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the Earth [is] to be imbedded in the fabric of this house of prayer for all people,” said Armstrong, in presenting the gift authorized by President Richard Nixon.

we came in peace for all mankindFive years earlier, in words nationally broadcast during the first moon landing, Dean Sayre had said that “the discoveries we are now making in the universe only enhance our sense of God’s creation. . . . That we can now retrace within our lives, and within our knowledge, the finger of God who made it all, only enhances the majesty of the Almighty.” Fully in agreement was the scientist Wernher von Braun, who was also quoted by the press at that time. “In words that might have been spoken by Dean Sayre,” as it was reported, “von Braun has said, ‘Through science man tries to harness the forces of nature around him. Through religion he tried to harness the forces of sinful nature within him.’ [He] concludes that man’s increasing knowledge of the universe only confirms our belief in the certainty of its creator.”

The father of modern space flight, von Braun was present in the Cathedral with Dean Sayre for the Space Window’s dedication in 1974—and eulogized there after his death in 1977. Some three decades earlier, in 1945, he and 500 fellow scientists had surrendered to a confused and startled American Amy private. “We knew that we had created a new means of warfare,” he said years later. “Only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible,” he explained, could the “assurance [of peace] to the world be best secured.”

Congress would later create the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (nasa) in 1958, stating “that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.” Transported from defeated Germany to America, von Braun and his rocket team worked with the U.S. Army, then nasa, to build the Jupiter missile, then the Redstone rocket that launched the first Mercury capsules, and later the powerful Saturn v rockets that hurtled the Apollo missions toward the moon.

Then on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong declared calmly from the surface of the moon, “Houston: Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed!” A≈xed to the ladders on the descent stage of the Apollo 11 lunar module, Eagle, which remains on the moon, is a plaque reading, “We came in peace for all Mankind.”

shipmate, stand relievedFrom the Sea of Tranquility on the moon to the depths of Earth’s oceans, Neil Armstrong was a Navy man to the end, asking to be buried at sea. On board the Navy missile cruiser Philippine Sea, a Navy signalman flashed the traditional Navy farewell: “Fair winds and following seas. Shipmate, you stand relieved; we have the watch.”

And from Gene Cernan, the last man to walk the lunar surface, came a last salute to the first man to walk on the moon: “As you soar through the heavens beyond where even eagles dare not go, you can now—finally—‘put out your hand and touch the face of God.’ ”CA

above members of the u.s. navy ceremonial guard hold an american flag over the cremains of neil armstrong during a burial at sea service aboard the uss philippine sea (cg 58), friday, september 14, 2012, in the atlantic ocean. photo nasa/b. ingalis

more onlineWatch the entire service online at www.nationalcathedral.org/fall2012age

24 cathedral age 

The trip to see one of the Cathedral’s most significant donors from the past two years takes us to Kensington, Md., one of the leafy inner suburbs ringing Washington, D.C. We are met in the living room of a charming, low-slung home by Mrs. Barbara W. Caldwell, the contributor in question, who ushers us immediately to a sunny, screened-in porch looking out on fruit trees and blue hydrangea bushes in a well-kept lawn. It’s a colorful, peaceful setting that makes clear the importance of home to Mrs. Caldwell, who has lived here for decades. That in turn makes more significant her gift of her parents’ former house to the Cathedral.

Growing up, Mrs. Caldwell and her family lived on 34th Place, N.W., close to the Cathedral in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Some of Caldwell’s earliest memories are of a newly completed Bethlehem Chapel (it was finished in 1912) and the construction site where neighborhood boys such as her younger brother, Charles, would play. “I walked by it every day on the way to school!” she says. “Everybody that lived in Cleveland Park—all the children—used to go by Woodley Road and look over there where they were building.” On the steep trek up Newark Street after visiting the ice cream

sustaining supporta community of cathedral friends

House and Homewith a recent gift, deep-rooted memories are sure to create new ones

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man, the mostly unfinished Cathedral site already inspired curiosity and wonder.

In retirement Mrs. Caldwell’s younger brother served as a dedicated Cathedral volunteer, first in the bookstore and later as a greeter. He passed away at he age of 91 in August 2010, having made thoughtful bequests for the Cathedral’s preservation and its grounds. Mrs. Caldwell, in turn, made a gift of nearly $713,000 in his honor: the family house their parents built in the late 1930s. (They moved in following the Pearl Harbor attacks, she recalls, sharing a victory garden with the neighbors.) “I didn’t want another house, believe me!” Mrs. Caldwell explains, laughing. “I used to say to him, ‘I don’t know about you, but if I have the house it’s going to go to the Cathedral.’ And I’m sure he felt the same way.”

The proceeds from the house sale will help to preserve the Cathedral. “My brother was the one who chose preservation,” Mrs. Caldwell observes. “He was very specific about it, and in fact he used to say to me, ‘That’s where they need it. You have to keep that going.’ He traveled a little bit, and he loved going to the cathedrals in Europe. And he used to speak about that in connection with the Cathedral here.” Both siblings, after all, had seen the National Cathedral being built over their lifetimes: towers rising, gardens growing and changing across countless seasons. “You could just watch it go,” she says, marveling a little, memories still vivid of seeing such a place being built practically in her back yard—and now, with her help, being restored for new generations to appreciate. Moreover, Mrs. Caldwell emphasizes that nothing could be easier. “All I had to do was sign my name,” she says, “and I knew that it would mean a lot to him.”

Few if any can consider the Cathedral’s construction from Mrs. Caldwell’s exact perspective, but anyone can appreciate the question that it raises: what memories will today’s children have of their National Cathedral a century from now? Thanks to generosity like hers, there will be an answer.

—M. Leigh Harrison

left washington national cathedral as seen from the intersection of 36th street and woodley road, n.w., during construction in the 1930s-much as neighborhood children would have seen it. right bratenahl house, the cathedral dean’s official residence, shares the same vantage as the photo opposite images cathedral archives

Perhaps the best-known example of a home associated with the National Cathedral is Bratenahl House, named for the Very Rev. George C. F. Bratenahl (dean 1916–1936) and his wife Florence, who designed it. Walter Lippmann, who purchased the house in 1945 from Mrs. Bratenahl’s heirs following her death in 1940, returned ownership of the house to the Cathedral in 1967. Cathedral clergy did not live at Bratenahl House again until 1985, however, when it became the residence of Canon Provost Charles Perry and every succeeding dean.

You don’t have to live next to the Cathedral to make a diΩerence with your gift of a house or other real estate. As Mrs. Caldwell has found, any gift of personal property can make a significant contribution to the Cathedral’s life and work. There are many ways to prepare your donation to the best-possible financial advantage. Some types of gift can even provide income for you or your beneficiaries now, such as the Charitable Remainder Unitrust. More information about the options is available online at cathedral.plannedgiving.org.

The Cathedral can help make arrangements convenient and successful for you. To learn more, email Marty Stiffler (mstiffler@cathedral.org) or call her at (202) 537-5796.

Setting A Constructive Example

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focus

Restoration UpdateThe Cathedral’s Restoration Task Force (rtf), established in September 2011, approached the one-year anniversary of the August 23, 2011, earthquake by developing a comprehensive set of recommendations prioritizing capital needs for the Cathedral and nearby buildings under its control. The rtf’s report took into account seismic damage from the earthquake as well as pre-existing facilities and fine arts projects, deferred maintenance issues, and newly recommended items.

The task force presented to the Cathedral Chapter in its meeting on October 1, 2012, and the Chapter accepted its recommendation to proceed with two large projects: restoration of interior vaulting in

Mother Teresa of CalcuttaOn Thursday, October 25, Washington National Cathedral held a special service of Choral Evensong to dedicate a carving of Mother Teresa located in the Cathedral’s Human Rights Porch. Sculpted by Chas Fagan and carved in place by Cathedral stonecarver Sean Callahan, this depiction of Mother Teresa completes a set of mould termination stones—carvings set on either side of the archway over a portal—with a companion carving of Rosa Parks. The Human Rights Porch has been dedicated to “individuals who have taken significant, profound, and life-changing actions in the fight for human rights, social justice, civil rights, and the welfare of other human beings.”

The Rev. Dr. Samuel T. Lloyd iii, ninth Cathedral dean and now priest-in-charge at Trinity Church in Boston, gave the homily during Evensong and participated in the dedication; the carving had been designated “in thanksgiving” for Lloyd’s ministry by the Cathedral Chapter, citing his advocacy for compassion and other ideals associated with Mother Teresa during his years as dean. Other

participants included the Rev. Msgr. V. James Lockman, rector of the Church of the Annunciation in the District of Columbia.

Dean Gary Hall offered remarks after the formal ceremony, recognizing all the participants and specially praising Fagan and Callahan for their craftsmanship. “Thanks to Chas and Sean,” he said, “two of the greatest women of the twentieth century become part of the very fabric of this spiritual home for the nation—a place where shared memories of our struggles and ideals can endure for centuries to come. Mother Teresa’s service to the poorest of the poor recognized the dignity of every human being. Rosa Parks emphasized that, with that dignity, must come equal rights. It’s only fitting that they look across from each other now, as part of a doorway through which we all must pass.”

The carvings of Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa join those of Archbishop Óscar Romero, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and former Cathedral Dean and Bishop of Washington John T.

Walker. The ribbed vaulting converges above the porch in another carving, a half boss, inspired by the prophet Amos’s call “to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” (5:24).

left dean gary hall, cathedral chapter chair david kautter, former dean samuel lloyd, chas fagan, and sean callahan (with son)  photos d. marks (left) and c. stapert (right)

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n e w s f r o m t h e c a t h e d r a l

the nave of the Cathedral and restoration of the exterior (particularly flying buttresses) of the apse.

The interior restoration, which is expected to take 18 months, will involve a series of scaffolds designed to reach the high vaulting in the great choir, crossing, nave, transepts, and balconies. The goal of the restoration work is to inspect the entire vaulting, remove any loose mortar, and make the requisite repairs. Certain deferred

maintenance issues—notably the need to remove stains caused by water intrusion—will be addressed, and new side lancets for the Isaiah clerestory window will be installed. The protective netting currently hanging in the nave, installed to catch debris that might have shaken loose after the earthquake, will be removed as the repairs are completed.

Looking Up Local Washington writer Jeff Sypeck, author of Becoming Charlemagne, has released a book of poems giving voice to the National Cathedral’s best-loved and most fanciful carvings: its gargoyles and grotesques. Rooted in folklore and myth, inspired by medieval history and the Cathedral’s restorative grounds, the witty and lyrical musings of Looking Up awaken some of Washington’s most enigmatic residents, as in the poem “Façade”:

Behold the form: We found our faith in spires. From balustrade to buttress, by design We build upon the base of our desires. The ape of human order we divine, And carved creation lightly gives us praise. On day and eve, proportion we impose: The perfect sun sets perfectly ablaze A thousand perfect petals on the rose; An arch constrains the brunt of outward pride. One hymn we hue: “Ennobling words are dear In thee, all sacramental modes preside In thee”  as from the fading close I hear a thing to tempt us out of rite and rhyme,  a sole cicada singing out of time.

Seventy-five percent of proceeds directly support the building’s preservation. Copies are available online at shop.cathedral.org.

Work will also begin to restore the exterior of the apse, and this too will combine earthquake repair with completion of deferred maintenance issues. A series of large scaffolds will be erected to provide the first up-close look at damage to the flying buttresses that ring the apse, one of the earliest-constructed portions of the Cathedral; once assessed, the appropriate repairs will be completed. The scaffolding will also provide access to begin a Cathedral-wide project of repointing (replacing deteriorated mortar joints). The 65-foot Te Deum windows located on either side of the high altar will be restored, curing the ongoing water intrusion problem that occurs during driving rain. The entire apse restoration is expected to take at least two years.

Progress on these projects should be visible in the coming months, although no starting dates were available at time of publication.

The transformative $5 million lead grant from the Lilly Endowment, announced on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake, officially launched the Cathedral’s active phase of restoration. Between $16 and $20 million is still needed to complete that work, however, depending on whether the restoration can be tackled as one continuous project or as a series of smaller jobs. Another $40 million is needed to address the other long-term and deferred-maintenance needs of the Cathedral and its buildings on the Close.

above netting in the nave photo c. stapert

phot

o b.

tho

mso

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the Cordoba Initiative; and Dr. James J. Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

“Washington National Cathedral has a long history of gathering people for conversations like this one, where we honor our common life and our common understanding of the One who is in our midst and how that understanding impacts our public life,” said Hall in his opening remarks. “That includes a long history of engagement with Muslim communities about interfaith relationships. Our goal is to build on the work done and to develop a mutual respect for minority and marginalized groups through a shared theological

The Muslim Experience a panel discussion on american muslimsA special public panel on October 23 addressed challenges that Muslims in the United States continue to face, including suspicion and discrimination, and considered the role that faith communities might play in combating Islamophobia. Following an intensive, high-level summit also held at the Cathedral, the panel’s discussion came at a pivotal moment in international relations between Americans and nations where the majority population is Muslim—particularly in the aftermath of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

The panel was co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress (cspc) with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Very Rev. Gary Hall, newly appointed tenth dean of the Cathedral, moderated. Other participants included Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State (also chair of cspc and member of the Cathedral Chapter); Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Association for Muslim Advancement; Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of

commitment to working together for a just peace and a sustainable climate for the flourishing of all human life.”

Hall affirmed a belief “that there is ample room for people of all faiths in this country” and added that, “given the opportunity, we can change the hearts and minds of those who disagree with us by gathering together pragmatically and not ideologically. We need to move through common action to discern and make real the common good. The question before us tonight is how to move forward.”

The panel discussion remains available for viewing at www.nationalcathedral.org.

above left dean hall moderating the evening panel discussion in the nave right participants of the summit photos d. marks

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Christmas Stamp Unveiled On October 10, Cathedral Dean Gary Hall joined Canon Kathleen A. Cox and U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors member Louis J. Giuliano to unveil the United States Postal Service’s Christmas 2012 Forever Stamp, “The Holy Family.” The ceremony took place in Bethlehem Chapel, the first worship space in the Cathedral, which was completed a century ago this year. Usually associated with the Flight into Egypt—part of the traditional Nativity story—the scene on the stamp shows Joseph leading a donkey that carries Mary and the infant Jesus, guided by a star shining in the twilight of a desert sky. Directed by Canon Michael McCarthy, the Cathedral’s girl choristers sang to harp accompaniment at the special first-day-of-issue ceremony.

n e w s f r o m t h e c a t h e d r a l

right dean hall presents the 2012 “holy family” christmas stampfar right lynn rozental joins the cathedral’s development team photos c. stapert

New on StaffLynn Rozental began her work as director of philanthropy in September. In this capacity she works closely with the dean, executive director, and volunteer leadership to identify and build strong relationships between the Cathedral and the donors who make possible its work, focusing on the most promising opportunities to lift up the Cathedral’s national mission while also providing support for special initiatives.

Rozental comes from the George Washington University, where she had served since 2009 as a director of major gifts for the medical school and developed creative new ways to engage medical school alumni in the lives of current students. Previously she had been director of individual and foundation relations at Safe Kids Worldwide and assistant director of development and communications at the Textile Museum. She has also held senior positions at a number of organizations devoted to historic sites, holding an A.B. in history from Bryn Mawr College and an M.S. in historic preservation from the University of Vermont.

left canon jan naylor cope blesses—and is blessed in return—at this year’s blessing of the animals above many dogs attended this year’s event photos d. marks

Blessing of the Animals On Sunday, October 7, the Cathedral observed the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment, with its annual Blessing of the Animals service. Lois Wye from Washington Animal Rescue League (warl), Victoria Strang

from Humane Society of the United States (hsus), and Lisa LaFontaine from Washington Humane Society (whs) participated as special guests. Animals were available for adoption courtesy of whs and warl. Cathedral Jan Cope is shown at left with a very affectionate adoptive dog.

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e xcerp t s of ser mons from wa shing ton n at ion a l c at hedr a l

Today we honor and give thanks for a man who knew that everything worth striving for, every dream we pursue, every adventure that beckons, every challenge that calls forth our greatest eΩorts, cannot be accomplished alone. No one goes to the moon alone. No one accomplishes anything of lasting value in any realm of human endeavor alone.

In reading the many public tributes to Neil Armstrong,

it’s obvious that we all assume that the defining moment of Armstrong’s life was walking on the moon, those amazing two and a half hours. How could it be otherwise? It was after all a first and giant step. Yet he tended to downplay the personal impact of the experience. Once when, speaking to a group of students, he was asked perhaps for the millionth time how walking on the moon changed his life, he replied that because of the moon he got to go to a lot more press conferences at which people ask how the moon changed his life. But he went on to say that when he was a kid the same age as the students asking questions, no one had

ever flown a plane at supersonic speed. There was no space program. Going to the moon was pure science fiction. In the first half of his lifetime—everything changed.

Last week, Canon Vance Wilson—headmaster of St. Albans, a school of this Cathedral—addressed the students in their opening chapel, drawing their attention to the beautiful stained glass window known as the Space Window. “Gentlemen,” he said, “how about beginning this school year with a dream? Ever thought about being the first human being to walk on Mars? Why not? You wouldn’t be the first St. Albans graduate to do the impossible. You better get started soon, though. If you leave today, it’ll take you the entire school year.”

Without question, walking on the moon confirmed for Armstrong the importance of a dream, a compelling vision that propels us as individuals and a species where we have never been. And it pleased him whenever his example, in the words of his family, “inspired young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.”

SHARED RESPONSIBILITY  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. matthew 5:5

the rt. rev. mariann edgar budde, september 13, 2012, national

memorial service for neil armstrong photo d. marks

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes her so important,” the fox told the Little Prince. “You are responsible for your rose.” —antoine de saint exupéry, The Little Prince

Today we honor and give thanks for a man who knew that everything worth striving for, every dream we pursue, every adventure that beckons, every challenge that calls forth our

greatest efforts, cannot be accomplished alone.

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THE HORIZON OF ETERNITY  When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? psalm 8:3–4

the very rev. francis b. sayre, jr., fifth dean of washington national cathedral, at the service for the dedication of the space window, july 21, 1974 photo cathedral archives

i - liftoff

“Let us go over to the other side.” Such was the bidding of Christ to his disciples upon the shore of the Galilee lake. “And they launched forth upon the deep.”

So simply, so unerringly does the Bible portray that primordial urge in man that requires him to trace out with his stubby finger the wondrous shape of Creation. Never may the human spirit be content to sit by the lake; man must up, to follow his maker across the deeps, questing after those invisible things that God has given him to find, that have to do with who he is, and what he is meant to be, and the holiness that is in all things.

Never mind the storms; never count the cost; reckon not the doubt, nor the fear: for it is writ upon the code of his genes, that Abraham should journey to the unknown land which God would

show to him; that Jacob upon his pilgrimage should dream of angels connecting his faltering step to the mighty tread of eternity; that Vikings should sail the Northern seas; and Polynesians discover the Southern isles; that patient minds should insatiably probe the marvelous texture of connection, the infinite skein of facts that are woven into the miracle that surrounds us.

Not upon this planet until the present generation has this heaven-bred curiosity broken through the terrestrial envelope that hitherto condemned us to the perspective of a fish at the bottom of its bowl. Our praise of God this day is

But that cause, I suggest to you, for Neil Armstrong, was not exploration for exploration’s sake, but for the survival of the only planet we human beings call home. The defining moment for him, it seems to me, judging from the way he chose to live his life after Apollo 11, was when he looked out his spacecraft window. “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” The earth was his rose, and it’s our rose, too.

Thus as we honor Neil Armstrong today with our words and prayers, I invite you all to imagine that peculiar sensation he would describe of watching

the Earth become smaller and smaller; to see in your mind’s eye the thin strips of green around oceans of blue, and to remember that all the world’s populations live on those strips, with the small patches of brown quickly disappearing from your view. You can no longer see all that divides us as a species, only our common fate as those who call this beautifully spinning planet home.

You and I are responsible for our rose. In his child-like wonder and quiet determination, Neil Armstrong wanted us to know that. He urged us to work together, as we must, to solve the heart-breaking challenges and consider the breath-taking possibilities of our species.

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There in that tiny piece of stone is writ, all unweathered and unworn, the history of the origins of everything, including us. Billions of years, recorded and decipherable for us to read! But yet much more: for these rocks are only the first little doors to mansions infinitely wider still.

Thus it must have been, five years ago, when these three men who are the emblems of all mankind ventured a quarter of a million miles into the nearer borders of God’s unbounded majesty, and there beheld across the barren vacancy of the lunar waste, the lovely blue and tan and white of rising Earth, shining in the sun.

Then did one of those men stoop down and pick up a rock. God’s might; God’s mercy: it was a sign of both. These are the same men who come now to oΩer at his altar that stone, in praise and thanksgiving to the everlasting glory of that Creator God.

iii - splash down

When the astronauts of Apollo 11, and the brave men who followed on succeeding missions to the moon, brought back some chunks of lunar material, it was not just bits of rock they returned to Earth, but, in an exciting way, the very horizon of eternity!

Anyone who sees one of those stones—pilgrims to this Cathedral in all time to come will see the ancient piece of moon embedded in the window we dedicate today—cannot but sense something of the awe those Christmas shepherds felt when they saw what they took to be the eΩulgence of heaven, hovering over the field where they lay.

For there in that tiny piece of stone is writ, all unweathered and unworn, the history of the origins of everything, including us. Billions of years, recorded and decipherable for us to read!

thanksgiving for that immense act of courage which at last succeeded in breaching the chrysalis, and sending us on wings of daring to the first stepping-stone of universe, where five years ago this very day, members of our race made the first human footprints upon the moon.

The sun that lit their faces on that day, and the stark landscape around them, was also the brightness of a new day for mankind; he had climbed another rung on the ladder of heaven.

ii - sojourn beyond earth

Think of Mike Collins, disappearing totally alone to the far side of the moon, his hope of ever seeing Earth again dependent utterly upon those long chains of calculation by which we encode the knowledge we accumulate and the safety we predict.

Remember Buzz Aldrin calling for a moment of silence in the interplanetary chatter so that all who watched that night might be still and know that ’tis God who sustains, though a man “take the wings of the morning” and “climb up into heaven,” as the psalmist says.

And in the mind of the commander, Neil Armstrong, what solitude of responsibility lent poignancy to his unspoken prayer! It’s God who gives grace to withstand the limitless capacity of disaster; ’tis he who guards the minutes and the hours and the days of hope. His angels keep the spirit warm, even as one strives with all one’s might to fend oΩ fear and make no mistake whatsoever.

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But yet much more: for these rocks are only the first little doors to mansions infinitely wider still. Beyond the moon: the planets next and beyond the solar system—what after that?

Let the sliver of moon given here be an emblem, then, in this house of prayer, of that more wholesome vision which distance lends of the judgment of eternity. The little stone is very old: 3.6 billion years, we are told. How old is God who made it all? The little stone is dense, basaltic residue of some fire akin to that of a star. Out of

what dark mystery came the first great explosion of Being? There is also in the bit of rock you have seen here today a new mineral discovered, unknown to Earth. Perhaps God has some fresh new thing to tell us by the courage of these adventurers who brought it to this place.

If so, it can only be word of His love, who deigns to share with us so much, and one by one to open to our eyes the secrets of His making and to our hearts the treasure of His holiness.

“First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.” So begins the title story in Tim O’Brien’s book about American soldiers in Vietnam, The Things They Carried. The title story begins with a matter-of-fact list of what might be found on a soldier’s person during the Vietnam War—but over the course of The Things They Carried the list expands and grows to include all sorts of meanings: their own hopes and fears, the history and ideals of the nation they represent, the unresolved conflicts of people back home. As we move more deeply into the narrative, the soldiers are seen to carry not only their own burdens. They carry along with them the burdens of an entire people as well.

Today, November 11, is Veterans Day. Though it’s not a church holiday, Veterans Day is an important occasion in our national life. And even though veterans and the wars they fought were not part of the recent electoral discussion, I’ve been thinking

a lot about veterans this fall. Late last month, the great George McGovern, presidential candidate and decorated World War ii bomber pilot, died, and many obituaries reprinted his most memorable quote, said at the height of the Vietnam War: “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus also appears fed up with those who place burdens on others they’re not willing to take up themselves. He is “fed up to the ears” with religious functionaries dreaming up obligations for others. The scribes—religious bureaucrats

THE WEIGHT OF WAR  “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” mark 12:38–40

the very rev. gary hall, veterans day, november 11, 2012 photo d. marks

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As Christians, as people of faith, how do we make sense of the burdens borne by the modern soldier?

of Jesus’ day—live oΩ the sacrifices of others. In that sense they are like the old folks who send young soldiers into battles they’re not willing to fight themselves. In the present day, we have just concluded a presidential campaign in which the ongoing war in Afghanistan was rarely if ever mentioned. Our twenty-first century wars have been largely hidden from people like me. The wars we fight today are wars that we, and those with our privileges, have dreamt up for others to die in.

We are gathered on Veterans Day not only to acknowledge our veterans but to express our gratitude for what they have given us. But how best do we do that? One way to express our thanks for those who have served in our recent and ongoing wars is to try to understand the reality of what they face on a daily basis. I have recently finished reading a powerful new novel about the war in Iraq: The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, an Iraq war veteran. A great novel on its own terms, it’s also an important way for people like me to understand a combat experience that carries challenges most of us never think of. All war is hard, the novel makes clear, but contemporary soldiers are being asked to do things we haven’t asked them to do before: as both nation-builders and fighters, they have to drink tea with people they may also need to shoot. The resulting internal conflict can be soul-destroying.

As Christians, as people of faith, how do we make sense of the burdens borne by the modern soldier? When we think about the things they carry, about the burdens we place on the men and women who go

to war on our behalf, we should think as well about someone else who carried a burden for us, about another young man who walked up a hill carrying not a rifle but a cross. I am not trying to turn soldiers and veterans into Christ figures. I realize that they’re real, complicated people like you and me. But I am suggesting that they are important to us because, as they symbolize both our aspirations and our pains, they remind us of someone else.

As Christians, we know something about sacramental sacrifice. As Christians we know what it is to project our dreams and our enmities onto another. As Christians, we know on Good Friday what going to the cross cost Jesus, and as his followers we know after Easter what it means to live life in gratitude for the sacrifice made by another. As Christians we find life’s purpose as thanksgiving for the gift of Jesus’ life on the cross. And as Americans, we can never be too far away from the knowledge that we can live our lives in peace because soldiers—from Valley Forge to Gettysburg, to the Somme and D-Day, to Pork Chop Hill and the Tet OΩensive to Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan—have been willing to take up a burden on our behalf.

Today’s Gospel takes place as Jesus teaches in the temple, and in it Jesus follows his attack on the scribes by pointing to a widow—the poorest of the poor in his day—as she quietly makes an oΩering of two copper coins, “all she had to live on.” The widow’s quiet, sacrificial oΩering shames the pretensions of those who make a show of their flamboyant benevolence. At the center of Jesus’

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REQUIRED BY UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICEstatement of ownership, management, and circulation

1. Publication title: Cathedral Age 2. Publication number: 0008-7874 3. Filing date: 9/20/12 4. Issue frequency: quarterly 5. Number of issues published annually: 4 6. Annual subscription price: $507. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: 3101 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016: contact person: Richard Weinberg, telephone: (202) 537-6200 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: same as above 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor: publisher: Washington National Cathedral, address same as above; editor: Richard Weinberg, address same as above; managing editor: n/a 10. Owner: Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, address same as above 11. No known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities. 12. Tax Status: The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during preceding 12 months. 13. Publication title: Cathedral Age 14. Issue date for circulation data below: Midsummer 2012 (“Faith and the Election”) 15. Extent and nature of circulation average no. no. copies of copies each issue single issue during preceding published nearest 12 months filing datea. total number of copies (net press run) 33,917 35,000b.-c. total paid circulation (by mail and outside the mail) 32,161 32,911d.-e. total free or nominal rate distribution outside the mail 733 733f. total distribution 32,934 33,684g. copies not distributed 983 1,316h. total 33,917 35,000i. percent paid 98% 98%

teaching there is always a dual call to outward compassion and inward humility. He calls us, by example, to be both generous and humble, to be less like the scribes and more like the widow, because that’s the way God is. In loving us in Christ, God oΩers us “all she had to live on.”

As we gather around Jesus’ table on this Veterans Day, invited by God to know ourselves as people loved because of who we authentically are, let us do so giving thanks for the men and women who have

served our country not only by carrying our burdens and living into new and challenging ways of fighting our wars. Let us give thanks that in their lives and service we glimpse an image of what it means to oΩer everything you have to live on so that someone else might thrive. We cannot all replicate that oΩering. But we can all acknowledge it and respond by helping our soldiers and veterans shoulder the things they carry. Amen.

Explore more spiritual insights in our online archive, featuring on-demand sermons from Cathedral clergy and guest preachers as well as full-length video of services at www.nationalcathedral.org.

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For 61 years, each graduating class at St. Albans School has donated a stained glass window to the school. These windows present a vivid testimonial to the changing tastes in American art during the twentieth century.

The theme for the class of ’71 win-dow, “Space and Technology in a Changing World,” was chosen by a committee of seniors formed by the class president, George Goodrich, with Chaplain Craig Eder as advi-sor. Rowan LeCompte, designer of many chapel and Cathedral win-dows, was asked to recommend an artist.

Miss Jimilu Mason, of Alexandria, was LeCompte’s enthusiastic recommendation. Mason is the sculptor of the o≈cial marble bust of President Lyndon Johnson, to be placed in the Capitol.

The class of ’71 gave Mason the creative task of depicting in glass the experience of man’s conquest

of the moon. This was an experience which was closely shared by the school since Michael Collins (sta ’48) was a member of the Apollo 11 crew.

Mason chose clear, bubbled glass for the representation of the astronaut. He stands in contrast to an etched black sky pierced by the image of the distant Earth in cobalt blue glass veined white with a special acid. Below the astronaut, one sees footprints of space boots as the figure moves on with his probe stick. On both sides of the solitary man are small, irregularly shaped pieces of brilliantly hued glass. These colors were inspired by studies of a microphoto of a slender slice of moon rock magnified. Symbolically, the colors represent man’s eΩect on his

environment: bringing the color of life to a cold, grey planet.

The glass maker responsible for the construction of the window was Dieter Goldkulhe of Reston, Va.

St. Albans School’s Space and Technology Window

passages…

above st. albans’s space window, present day photo j. roskosh center cathedral age, christmas, 1971 issue, depicts the window then

turning the pages of cathedral age

On Friday, June 4, 1971—three years before the dedication of the Cathedral ’s Space Window—a lesser-known window of the same theme was dedicated in the Lane-Johnston gallery of St. Albans School. An article by Eliza Watts from the fall 1971 issue of Cathedral Age, excerpted here, describes how the window came about.

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Spirit

There are as many connections to the National Cathedral as there are people in our nation—what’s yours? Join Diann and Craig in making a lasting legacy.

For more information about the options, call Marty Stiffler at (202) 537-5796 or email mstiffler@cathedral.org.

A Lasting Legacy

“We love and support the Cathedral because it is a national cathedral—a house

of prayer that belongs to people across the nation. And, as native Hoosiers,

we have included the Cathedral in our wills because of that ministry and

because Indiana limestone was never cut or shaped in any place more

beautifully than Mount St. Alban.” diann and craig mckee

Workers place blocks of Indiana limestone in the choir, 1928 cathedral archives

Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues, NWWashington, DC 20016-5098(202) 537-6200www.nationalcathedral.orgfacebook.com/wncathedraltwitter.com/wncathedral