Now at night, you can’t miss St. Christopher’s. Spotlighted steeples, lit stained glass windows, lamplight pouring down on the church name in red–improvements made in the last year.
During the day, the church remains hidden in plain sight, modest and nearly noosed by the freeway cloverleaf. There is no outward sign of the inward improvements of new carpet and fresh paint that have refreshed the entries and hallways with patterns and color. Venture to the sanctuary and the baptismal bowl cradled in the aisle stands high, the better to admire its streaky blue, white and clear glass. The renovated altar area’s platformed broad steps, tiled the color of sandstone, evoke majesty and awe. Are we still in Roseville?
We are. And yet some in the parish feel they worship no longer in the Roseville church they have known. Just as this summer’s massive melting of Greenland’s ice pack signals to scientists a new phase in global climate change, the altar area’s replacement with a new look moves one group clean away from familiar patterns and they melt into anger. Now, storms can erupt more quickly as one influences the other. It’s unclear how long this interior climate change will last but it feels downright uncomfortable.
I pray that climate change of all kinds might be reversed–and for clearing skies inside our church.
Allison Campbell Jensen 