Take One: The Riad Hamad Memorial

Posted by editor on Monday, May 12 @ 03:00:18 MDT

Civil Rights in Texas--General

Rough cut from yellow pad.

By Greg Moses

On the way to the St. James Episcopal Church of Austin Texas, the bus is happy to drop you into knee-high grasses and wildflowers along East Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, treating you to an unexpected nature walk. Yellow, white, purple, and brown blooms all smile up toward the sun which has not yet turned into the summer harshness that burns even the breeze into hiding.

Then, across the overgrown sidewalk along Webberville Road scurry creatures so tiny and fast they leave only traces behind. A magic tangle of cedar and mesquite whispers invitations to bow your head and step inside. But the caw, caw, caw of something overhead brings your eyes up to a pair of crows nipping in mid-flight at a passing hawk.

So it is a delightful revelation when you walk into the St. James sanctuary to see that two of its walls have been given over to glass, and you don't have to leave behind the marvelous green thicket of this wild Texas oasis as you pick your seat upon a wooden pew.

Separating the converging glass walls is an altar with three crosses coming down. The highest cross is imaged upon a red tapestry, broad enough to hold an image of the world projected upon a scallop shell. Next cross down is thin, brown, and wooden, suspended by cables. And then supported from the ground up by a brass post is the third cross, in brass. Heaven to earth, global to local. Trinity applied. Three, two, one.

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