A Place Set Apart - 2-23-11

Belmont, North Carolina

Six years ago I had the good fortune of visiting a convent near Pittsburgh on Black Friday. Stunning was the serenity and beauty to be found on a hundred acre oasis across from a frenetic and rather bleak shopping mall. A recent experience in North Carolina reminds me again of this happy memory. Quite taken with a church spire at sunset while passing on a nearby interstate, further exploration the following day revealed another oasis of import. The Belmont Abbey and College provide an aesthetically pleasing and gentle environment for contemplation, meditation, and undergraduate learning. Since the late 19th century, an order of Benedictine monks has offered a Christian undergraduate education, even monastic life to those men called to it.

A few hundred yards from an interstate off ramp, one finds an inviting campus entrance. An imposing basilica on the left gives a pleasing visual boundary, even a sense of reference and enclosure to the cozy college campus. The ornamented brick structure from the 19th century is surprisingly modern in its interior feel. This is compensated for by a fine set of traditional gothic stained glass windows filling the nave and transepts. At 9 AM the luminosity of the windows is uplifting, even inspiring.

A couple hours given to wandering the compact campus proved an excellent investment in our experience. A most gracious receptionist in the imposing terra cotta administration building told us of a newly built chapel on the other side of campus. Taking an hour to make a five-minute walk to the chapel, we found plenty of fine things worthy of photography. Beyond the province of our cameras was the gracious hospitality and friendliness we found in staff and students alike. It’s hard to conceive of the good fortune of those able to study and live in such a benevolent cozy community.

What we thought to be the chapel proved to be a student commons, interesting but certainly not sacred ecclesiastical space by any stretch. With helpful redirection, we did find the chapel behind a dormitory quad. This proved to be one of the most stunning buildings I’ve encountered in fifty countries.

Little more than twenty-five by thirty feet this cedar and glass structure is essentially perfect. Its natural materials are their own ornamentation. Its citing in deciduous forest allows bright sunlight in winter and cool shade in summer. The forest provides most of the interior decoration of the chapel. The quiet dignity of the building and its citing allow the edifice to fulfill its mission superbly, functioning as a 24/7 adoration chapel. Students and faculty are committed to offering intercessory prayers therein at all times.

I’ve seen several larger chapels of this type on university campuses, magnificent structures, yet feeling quite secular in nature, devoid of altars or Christian symbology; used primary as wedding chapels or music venues. The St Joseph Adoration Chapel nears architectural perfection in integration of design and function.

Walking in, intent on photographic its interior I was wrested from my role as a photographer to a compelling one as supplicant. The holy sensibility arrested my touristic ambitions and soon a reverent, nearly numinous affect came over me. Discretely, I did get a few interior images from the back of this wondrous space. I simply could not leave the place to the vicissitudes of memory alone. Leaving, I couldn’t but feel good about Generation X. With these young students and staff in faithful devotion to something larger and more benevolent than themselves, this generation will do just fine.

We made time to stop for a pleasing lunch in The Daily Grind. This student venue was surprisingly gentle in its energy and suffused with courtesy, even to us older tourists wandering through this intimate little world. The universe felt decidedly friendly to us today.

A Legacy of Color and Place 2-10-11

Belmont, North Carolina

A compelling aphorism of ancient times states, “Plant a shade tree under which you will never sit.” The idea is truly generous gifts are those requiring significant effort on our part but from which we will never be a direct beneficiary. Those who underwrite the development of a botanical garden are such people in spades. Often they will never get to see how their visionary gifts will bloom in the lives of people yet unborn.

Daniel Stowe is a name completely unknown to me until I saw it recently on a brown Interstate tourism sign. A botanical garden named after him is down a country road some ten miles further on. Only today did I make the effort to actually get off the Interstate and make the ten-mile trek to see what was named after a man unknown to me. Having fourteen hours before needing to be at an airport twenty miles away, I was quite unhurried and unscheduled. Expecting a country road I was a bit surprised to find myself instead passing through an admixture of prosperous suburbs, once prosperous suburbs, non-descript commercial metastases, and eventually pleasing open country.

Finding a most agreeable entrance and a surprising well-manicured road leading through ponds and native gardens, I found myself arriving at a visitor’s center that could have been on the grounds of Peterhof in Russia or a large olive estate in Italy. How could this grand structure be out here in the North Carolina countryside? Who financed this and why isn’t anyone here? Quite taken with the building, I roamed around taking a series of photographs of the exterior before the sunlight gave way to forecast rain and drear. As it was, I had about thirty minutes of bright morning sun to capture the essence of this fine visitor’s center and the surrounding gardens with their fine gates, trellises, and promenades.

Seeing only a couple of gardeners working, I never saw anyone else, save one woman alone who spoke minimal English and wanting only minimal conversation. I again wonder how it is I find myself alone in a world class treasure. I’m reminded of the time not so long ago when I was alone in the epic Frederiks Kirke in Copenhagen while the organist rehearsed, listening to sublime melodies under the third largest rotunda dome in the world. There’s much to be said for this kind of solitude. It is enriching beyond words.

With the sudden loss of sunlight and the absence of color in early February, it became a bit of a game to catalog the textures of the surprisingly diverse evergreens placed in a labyrinthine series of garden ‘rooms.’ Extensive ponds, fountains, and walks added interesting compositional elements to my images. After ninety minutes of ‘collecting’ this intriguing place I wandered back to the visitor’s center, figuring it would have an interesting interior. I was bowled over to find its central ceiling contains a vast dome of stained glass, reminiscent of the great stained glass once housed in the Baltic Exchange in London before terrorists blew it up in 1991. The present dome was salvaged from a large Baptist church no longer wanting it. Huh? I did not begrudge at all making a donation to this amazing garden. I did learn, after all, that Daniel Stowe gave four hundred acres and $14 million to establish these gardens a little over ten years ago. What was my $12? Employees present in the visitor’s center were hanging a photo show and invited me to bring a camera tripod inside and have a go at it.

“Inside’ proves to be an 8,000 square foot orchid house with an impossible collection of orchids and bromeliads, all in vibrant bloom. The house reminds me of the great Victorian glass houses to be found in European cities. This new orchid house is presently venue to a two-month color burst special event. The clouded-over sky provided perfect light to ‘collect’ hundreds of images of these wonders of horticulture, all finely displayed in the context of waterfalls, pools, and terraces.

I’m reminded I need to always pay attention to those brown highway signs. Some of them lead to paradise. And sometimes the staff of paradise will offer you a plate to join them for a grand luncheon in a great hall with a grand piano played nearby. I have Daniel Stowe to thank for his vision which showed me what paradise can look like, even in the middle of winter.