I've been saying that we would mark this journey in little steps - today, we marked the journey with tiny fragments ... tiny fragments of glass.
One of the outstanding features of the Sanctuary of Minnedosa United Church was its outstanding and beautiful stained glass windows. There were a variety of windows dedicated to the lives of those saints who have gone before us. One window - the showpiece, was a glorious rendition of Jesus knocking at the door, dedicated to the pioneers of Minnedosa on the 50th Anniversary of the Church. Sadly, we had just finished restoring and rehanging it in the fall ...
Today I was joined in the basement by Sarah Burton, a young woman who has deep roots in the community and the Church ... we carefully picked tiny fragments of coloured glass from along the foundation walls below where there were once windows. We marked our progress, not by big glittering chunks of glass, but by find small discoloured fragments of what until a little over a week ago, were glorious works of art ... After a hard, and very cold morning of work we amassed a small box full of shards and fragments, Sarah has taken them to her mother who will in time do "something" with them, and in time Jean's creation will hang somewhere in our new home ...
While Sarah and I searched in the ice and snow and ashes for glass fragments, dozens of others came and emptied the building of all remaining furniture, the kitchen and anything else that could be salvaged. (For those who know the building, and those who don't - we were very fortunate that the renovations completed in 2004, meant that the fire stopped in the foundation of the main sanctuary and didn't spread into the Church Centre, where the new kitchen, the offices and a variety of storage spaces were ... Over the last week, we've moved and cleaned and sorted through a wide variety of things and reclaimed much that would have been lost otherwise.)
A little after noon the back hoes moved in and began to load up and haul away the debris that a week ago what a much beloved church sanctuary ... by sun down the back hoe had knocked the Church Centre to the ground and tomorrow the hauling continues ...
I stand tonight amazed at how utterly devestating a fire can be ... over and over we hope to find something - anything ... but over and over we are struck at how total and complete the fire's destruction has been ... while it spared the Centre, it consumed almost everything else ...
Today, as I said, we mark our journey not by tiny steps, but by tiny fragments ... after school my nine year old daughter Hannah helped pick out some other fragments of glass from below the heritage window ... like archeologists, we dig through debris hoping for a great treasure, but valuing the tiny shards as though they were gold ... and today, they are more precious then gold ...
On a journey just begun ... L'Chaim,
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