Road Trip ‘25
It was everything a summer road trip should be.
Reunions with family. The opportunity to hold the new baby in my arms. Long interstate drives winding through endless East Coast traffic.
My sister and I mixed our family visits in with family history stops along the way. We stopped at churches and cathedrals where our grandfather, and his father, and even his father had stood a hundred or more years ago, carefully placing a stained-glass window they had crafted in place. We took pictures, met the people who enjoyed those windows each Sunday, and learned about their history – and more about our own.
I’ve been making these stops to visit church windows for ten years now all over the country. Seeing the artistry has been a thrill. But another facet of this strange hobby has been observing the culture of these places of worship – and observing the unique marks of change a century of generations has brought each of them.
From a grand and lavish church with a gilded interior, that now stands in a humble neighborhood with boarded up windows… to a downtown chapel remade into a performing arts center…to a number of churches that remain remarkably unchanged - at least, at first glance.
On this trip, we stepped into a picture-perfect church on the tip of Long Island, established in 1717. The homes around it spoke of age, tradition, careful grooming, and money.
Unchanged I thought – until I read the two signs out front. The church’s sign incorporated a pride rainbow, and ended with the words “Practice Compassion”. The historical marker standing next to it told the history of the church, ending with the words “here stood the stocks and whipping post.”
I realized that even though this church had seemed the least influenced by the passage of time, it had in fact, changed the most. Through the generations here, the church had led the community through the moral arc of their universe to find change for the better, to find compassion and the true voice of God. It showed me a small light at the end of the tunnel we are in now – the possibility of transformation from judgement and cruelty, to goodness and hope. The reminder of the yin and yang – that from the darkness comes the new light. Things might turn out all right, after all.
Guide us, Lord, through the harshness of the culture we find around us, and help us to be your voice in a way that might begin to create a new light of compassion in the darkness. Amen
Diana is a founding member of Peace Church, and a Designer who carries on her family tradition on the glow of a computer screen, instead of a window.