06 November 2007

Bosom of the Lord



The Arlington Assembly of God, Flanked by Culpepper Gardens and Big Pink

I don't know if the blessing of the giant Jesus figure on Route 50 helped to save my life that day I fled Washington ahead of the regular troops. After all, just a few years later I was one of the regular troops. Maybe the blessing just helped to get me home.

Blessings are good. I was with a Congressional staff delegation in Rome one time, heading east to do some fact-finding on the Balkan War that was raging at the time, and we happened to be in the square in front of Saint Peters, where Pope John Paul was blessing the throng of pilgrims in about fifty languages.

I am not a Catholic, so I figure the blessing would only get me to the head of the line of heathens, but Grandma would not countenance raising her children Catholic. I confess to a certain attraction to the theatrical side of their holy rites. Ditto for the Anglicans, since in my undoubtedly imperfect understanding, they are just Rome Lite.

The schism was about some King's marital problems more than doctrine, as I understand it, and I can certainly sympathize with him.

The robes and panoply are a comfort, I would think, though the parts of the ritual with which I am unfamiliar make me a little nervous.

John Kerry got in trouble about taking communion in a Catholic church on a denominational issue that I did not fully understand at the time. Not that I am running for anything in particular; rather it is what I am running away from that concerns me.

There is a lot of comfort in the shadow of Big Pink if you need solace or fellowship. Literally, we are sheltered in the bosom of the Lord. I take great peace in the gigantic block of green across Pershing from Big Pink. It is a remnant of the Cathcart property, or maybe the Henderson estate. The Buckingham properties wrap around it to the east and north, and there are some single-family homes that line the north end of it, on 2nd Street, looking across at the towers of Culpepper Gardens.

They are a figment of someone's optimism from the early 1960s, un-charming little brick places that have nothing in common with either the low brick of Buckingham or the square boxes of Arlington Forest. The State Department House on the corner closest to Big Pink is a continuing problem.

Discussion at poolside revealed that some diplomat bought the property years ago, and never came back, renting the place to a succession of wild young white professional people who wear football jerseys on the weekend, and drink more than we do in Big Pink.

They are young enough to still go out in the evening. On return from the taprooms of Georgetown at around three in the morning like to entertain us with their raucous laughter.

It is not much of a problem in the high summer, with the windows buttoned up, but in the Spring and Fall with the windows open, it is precisely like the kids have moved back into the house and are partying like mad at your bedside.

I would like them to shut up, but have tempered my views. You are only young once, after all, and the noise and alcohol are how young people get together. They will be querulous old geezers like me soon enough.

The noise normally dies down before dawn most party nights, and the churches behind them assume their weekly prominence.

Route 50 at the Buckingham neighborhood can service just about any need for spiritual fellowship. The Unitarians are directly across the Big Road from Big Pink; they are secular tinkerers with social issues, and were instrumental in building the Culpepper Gardens Assisted Living Center for the aged to the northeast of Big Pink.

The residents do not make much noise, even if the towers are ugly modern things which were quite controversial at the time of their construction. The Unitarians can't see them from across the road, and I imagine they get a lot of satisfaction out of the sense of having done good.

We use the multi-purpose room in the basement for our polling station, and have now voted against a whole slate of candidates there.

The neighborhood is a virtual smorgasbord of spirituality. East of the Arlington Hall campus is a conservative Synagogue where a County police cruiser is always parked. Korean Baptists share space with the Danish Lutherans at Faith, and the handsome stone Bethel United Church of Christ does triple duty with the Buenas Nuevas Mennonites and the Pentecostal Luz Verdaderas next to the old formal entrance to the Buckingham neighborhood.

I like the churches to the west, since they have effectively preserved a whole block of open verdant space. The United Methodists anchor the Henderson Street end of the block, fronting the Forest to the West, and the Assembly of God sits directly across from Big Pink. The Methodists are aging, if my trips to the annual flea market are any indication, and the original fellowship hall has been taken over by the Vietnamese.

The Assembly thrusts the Cross up higher than my fourth-floor unit, above the trees, and greets me each morning, the first thing illuminated by the dawn's early light.

I know nothing whatever about their doctrine, except that there are at least a couple of them. The morning belongs to the old residents of the area, and the afternoon and evening the Pentacostal Romany Christian Church and the Iglesia la Nueva Esperanza congregations take over.

I don't know how the partnership works, but there are bills to be paid, and they do not call church mice poor for nothing. The Hispanic worshippers have vibrant services and the joyful noise is just that.

I assume it is that congregation that runs the feeding program that draws the single men from the Buckingham Village each day at 5:00pm sharp. I have often been tempted to visit and see what they serve up in the kitchen. Comfort food, I imagine, from Central America, with rich spicy smells and lots of carbohydrates.

The young men troop in groups across Big Pink's parking lot, and with them come the homeless who camp out in what is left of the woods, and at the edge of the parking lot between church properties.

I assume Rene Vaques, 60, was one of them. His mattress was still down in the bushes next to Route 50 where the cops left it after removing his body. I checked when I walked to the annual condominium association meeting last night. We rented the Unitarian's fellowship hall for the occasion, to talk about Big Pink and how to replace the pipes that are rotting out and flooding some of the units.

I can only assume that the churches are having the same problems, since all the buildings around here are more than fifty years of age. The nice thing about the annual meeting is that they serve wine, which is an ancient tradition.

You would think it would be counter-intuitive to let people drink when you are telling them that their assessments are going up again. Oil is more expensive, hundreds of windows need to be replaced to save energy, and the vast parking lot has to be re-paved. The financial reserve is low, and a special assessment could be looming. Our people on fixed incomes are very apprehensive.

One woman on the fifth floor took her three minutes to say that she has put all her furniture up on blocks against the impending Flood, and sits in her unit most days just waiting for it.

There was no rioting, which is a little surprising, considering how bleak the picture could be. But we have a certain sense of community in the building, and the annual meeting is Big Pink democracy in action.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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