The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in uptown Manhattan, the fourth
largest church in the world, and unfinished 120 years after its
construction began in 1892, is a hodgepodge of Gothic, Romanesque, and
Byzantine styles. It’s also a hodgepodge of theologies, like many
Episcopalian churches, but it has groovy celebrations such as the
blessings of bicycles in April, bees in June, and animals generally
(from a tortoise to a yak) early in October.
The Cathedral’s most recent extravaganza was the Procession of the Ghouls that came this year on Oct. 26: Organ music accompanied a silent horror film, and “an impressive parade of ghoulish characters” created fun for all. What a blessed country America is, where some think ghouls are fun, and where we can still speak, write, and vote freely. I've seen some real ghouls abroad, and once partied domestically with those known as Communists. Younger Americans who have no firsthand experience with ghouls may folks with such experience are paranoid, but they should read Church Behind the Wire (2012) by Communist-turned-Christian Barnabas Mam, who survived killing fields that filled with blood during the 1970s after the U.S. let the Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia.
I have visited what were once the killing fields, and the torture chamber that helped to populate them: Security Prison 21, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. The roosters there wake up what is once again a quiet neighborhood, but documents in the archives contain pleas from prisoners like this one: “I would be happy to grow rice with my wife and children on a collective farm. … Please save me, just let me live.” That did not happen, and his skull may have been one of those housed several miles away in a ghoulish 10-story platform holding hundreds of skulls.
Read more: http://townhall.com/columnists/marvinolasky/2012/11/13/its_a_mistake_to_say_historys_evils_couldnt_happen_here/page/full/
The Cathedral’s most recent extravaganza was the Procession of the Ghouls that came this year on Oct. 26: Organ music accompanied a silent horror film, and “an impressive parade of ghoulish characters” created fun for all. What a blessed country America is, where some think ghouls are fun, and where we can still speak, write, and vote freely. I've seen some real ghouls abroad, and once partied domestically with those known as Communists. Younger Americans who have no firsthand experience with ghouls may folks with such experience are paranoid, but they should read Church Behind the Wire (2012) by Communist-turned-Christian Barnabas Mam, who survived killing fields that filled with blood during the 1970s after the U.S. let the Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia.
I have visited what were once the killing fields, and the torture chamber that helped to populate them: Security Prison 21, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. The roosters there wake up what is once again a quiet neighborhood, but documents in the archives contain pleas from prisoners like this one: “I would be happy to grow rice with my wife and children on a collective farm. … Please save me, just let me live.” That did not happen, and his skull may have been one of those housed several miles away in a ghoulish 10-story platform holding hundreds of skulls.
Read more: http://townhall.com/columnists/marvinolasky/2012/11/13/its_a_mistake_to_say_historys_evils_couldnt_happen_here/page/full/
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