Kenilworth Union Bell Tower

Written by: Julia Smolucha

At 4:30 p.m. on January 19, Kenilworth Union Church’s Bell Tower tolled its bells in memory of the 400,000 who have died from COVID-related illness in the United States. We rang the bells along with other churches across the country, including the Church of the Holy Comforter across the street. Join with us as we remember those who have been taken by this pandemic.

Stewardship to the Third Power, III: Home

November 20, 2022

Churches, said one architecture scholar, churches “stand out in total opposition to the narrowing and flattening of human experience, the deviation into the trivial.” Do you see what she means, that when we gather in a place steeped in the beauty of holiness we leave behind the narrow, flattened world of pedestrian experience, we forsake this deviation into the trivial for a world which reaches up into the vertical, toward God? Doesn’t it happen to you when you enter our sanctuary? Your spirit unfurls, your eyes reach up, sometimes even God comes near. I don’t think it is too much to say that without their churches, our cities would be too flat, boring, and two-dimensional to endure. Someone said that a church is not a building to worship IN but a building to worship WITH. Yes?

Stewardship to the Third Power, II: Neighbor

November 13, 2022

What Isaiah wants us to know is that the worship of God is not internal, private, contemplative, and vaporous; but external, public, pro-active, and dense as lead. Look, I’m glad you pray your prayers. I’m glad you talk to the Almighty on a regular basis. I’m glad you read your Bible. I’m glad some of you fast during Lent. And I’m really glad that you come to divine worship every Sunday. But according to Isaiah, that’s not really what true religion is, or at least not all it is. The proper worship of God has its boots on the ground, goes to work, and dramatically enfleshes its existence. Proper worship puts the pedal to the metal, the rubber to the road, and the hammer to the nail, sometimes quite literally.

99% Invisible

November 6, 2022

Maybe I wear my grandmother’s antiquated clip on earrings as a visible reminder of the invisible companionship she offers me, years after her death. Maybe you wear your grandfather’s watch. Maybe you sit in your grandmother’s pew. Maybe you intentionally or unintentionally adopted your mother’s mannerism. Maybe you speak aloud your brother’s favorite phrases or find a way to keep your friend’s inside jokes alive. All in an attempt to make visible the invisible. The saints are 99% invisible and yet their presence is part of this life in distinct and indisputable ways.

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