Day 9 - October 24

A warm October evening--unseasonably warm.  Walking to my car after work, I was inundated with the moist, sweet smell of decaying leaves.  Suddenly I was not in Michigan but in California, seven years old, walking along Palm Avenue to catechism after school, scuffling leaves with my shoes in the mildness of an early winter afternoon.  

Research suggests that, of the five senses, smell is the most closely linked to memory.  It is a powerful link; the fragrance of damp leaves pulled me back over half a century into the past. 

Along the sidewalk I passed a building that was once fragrant with the presence of God.  Built in the 1920s, it is reminiscent of the medieval churches in England, with mellowed stone and towers and climbing ivy.

Some years ago the dwindling congregation of Bethlehem Lutheran voted to sell the building and relocate to a rented downtown meeting room.  Contractors began renovating the church building for elite condo living, near to downtown and the hospitals.  But the economy fell, and no one bought.  After a year of halfhearted work, the contractors left too.

Now the church sits empty, the once manicured lawns unkempt, the shrubs overgrown.  The most poignant sight is the doors.

Ivy is beginning to seal them shut, and branches stretch long fingers across spaces that were off limits when the groundskeeper was still around. 

If we opened the doors, would the fragrance of God flow out like a breath of warm air?  Do the angels still worship behind the locks and windows covered with ivy?  I don't know, but the scent of sadness is palpable as I walk by.