The National Cathedral
(of the Boy Scout God)
July 23, 2005
The National Cathedral occupies the highest point in the District of Columbia.. Its great spired mass can be glimpsed from much of the city. On Theodore Roosevelt Island I looked over the Potomac and there up on the hill, over Georgetown, I could make out the gray National Cathedral..
To my joy, when Emily and I arrived at the Cathedral and elevatored up to the seventh floor to look out the observation windows, we were able to look down and see the Naval Observatory and, just to the left, the large house where the vice president lives. I was gratified finally to be able look into what was diligently blocked from the roadside. That to me was the perfect use for a great Cathedral.. a vantage from which one can look down on those who want to be obscure.. bringing all powerful hidden things to the light.
The funeral of Ronald Reagan provides a common touchstone for tour guides in Washington. Since so many people watched it on television, guides can point out where different things happened and count on interest. The Rotunda of the Capitol is where his body lay in state, and over a million people filed past.. so I learned last week. And in the National Cathedral a guide explained how his funeral service had taken place right there. I did not watch the funeral, but I can almost piece it together from these scattered references.
Reagan’s funeral reminds me that the point of this cathedral is not social leveling.. those tall spires are no grand statement of soaring spiritual values, but rather an extension of the national pretense of our capital. Instead of Greek and Roman columns, casting one’s mind back to the Classical past, the National Cathedral employs a gothic architectural style.. and I think I would be correct to call it not just “gothic” but “English gothic” since it so closely resembles English cathedrals such as the cathedrals of Westminster and Canterbury. If our political past is cast into the Classical mode, then our national religious mode is generally European and specifically English.
Of course it is important to emphatically note that the federal government did not construct this cathedral. It was built by the Episcopal Church and, according to a guide, entirely through private donations. It was not completed until 1990, although begun back in 1908. Although it is not a government-built structure, it is made available for important state functions.. such as presidential funerals. Its interior certainly provides the grandeur that one expects for a great event.. the ceiling seems impossibly high and the colors from the stained glass windows throw colored tints onto the otherwise gray and cold stone walls.
Along the high vaulted ceiling are two rows of flags.. and as you might guess they are flags for every state. A guide explained that each Sunday a special prayer is made for one of the states, as well as the District of Columbia and the country as a whole.. which makes 52 weeks. In one section of the interior Emily and I were amused to find that the kneeling cushions were decorated with the names of American greats. You could kneel in prayer upon William Cullen Bryant or James Madison or Orville Wright.
It felt to me like the “National” part began somewhere to pull against the “Cathedral” part. There are indeed Christian symbols and designs everywhere, but it was hard for me to treat this as a place of worship. I did see a couple of people kneeling in the recessed sanctuary, yet for the most part people used their cameras and came and went.. If there is any reason for a hushed and hallowed feeling in these walls it is in memory of the funerals of leaders such as Reagan or Eisenhower.. not because of any inherent religious mystery. It is a church without faith, but still willing to traffic in the age-old symbols.. in order to, you know, provide the proper elevated feeling for state functions.
The church turned out to be a stop for several boy scout troops who bustled inside the nave and sat restlessly listening to their guide. Maybe it should be renamed the National Cathedral for the Boy Scout God.. since this is a generalized patriotic god, one who dwells in a cathedral “for all faiths.” It is a complement, but no challenge, to the powerful city it stands above.
