man builds chapel in own home

[RPM]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05190/535229.stm
My favorite quote: "I needed this on 9/11. The church was locked."


"These things brought you closer to God. They're part of our culture, our history," said Marshall, 60. "You used to walk into church and something special happened. It rarely happens anymore."

Marshall now gets that feeling in his own home in Crafton, in the chapel he added three years ago.

The 12-by-29-foot- vaulted space contains eight large statues, seven stained-glass windows, four small pews and nearly two dozen smaller statues, candelabras, fixtures and other items, including holy water receptacles, Communion bells and two wrought-iron votive candle racks.

Adding to the contemplative mood is a stereo playing traditional hymns and Gregorian chants. Overlooking it all is a tiny loft that holds a 1950s Hammond organ. Marshall has been a part-time church organist since he was a teenager and has sung in choirs since age 10. He currently sings in the men's choir at Epiphany Church, Uptown.

[BlondieK143]

1. WOW.

That's impressive.

[WildClarySage]

2. Personally, I would have added a sunroom instead...

[RPM]

3. yeah - if god is everywhere

you can be just as close to him in a sunroom as in that mausoleum.

:eyes:

[soothsayer]

4. cool, now they can't arrest him there!

Love those church lights. Just gorgeous.

[Deja Q]

5. I needed emotional support on 9/11 too. Didn't have the money though.

And even my MCC church is *-friendly.

[Coyote_Bandit]

6. If he needs the bucks

he can rent the space out for small wedding ceremonies.

[ClintonTyree]

7. With all the other things he could have spent that money on.....

that might have helped a few people, he instead built a monument to his own superstition and stupidity. What a guy! This will better mankind, how? :puke:

[oneighty]

8. I wonder if

the mother church collects royalties? Are private chapels tax exempt? Does the local zoning board approve? Does God approve?

Do I care? Not really.

180

[Heidi]

9. OK, I'll be the "odd man out" here.

I don't have a problem with him spending his own money on adding something to his own home to honor something that's special to him. In fact, other than the expense involved, I don't see how it's much different than the Buddhist altar that Mr. Heidi and I have. :shrug:

[RPM]

10. no - it's cool.

having an altar, or a meditation area, or a chapel, or whatever is cool. but i wonder if your altar occupies a 12-by-29 room. Or is it a bit more modest?

the point that many are inelegantly making above, as i see it, is that while a free democratic society allows us to spend our monies as we see fit, the dictates of the conscience of a devout christian should move away from proud, boastful, extravagent expenditures such as this and toward modest displays that glorify god and lift up his people (somehow i think a private chapel with tens fo thousands of dollars spent on it has done nothing but inflate this guy's ego with a news story spot). Anywho, didn't Judas & Jesus have a falling out over the expenditures of Christ - vis-a-vis the use of their limited funds to buy ointment instead of feeding the poor (or was that just made up for Jesus Christ Superstar)? I'ts much teh same conundrum.

I don't know much about buddhism, would an extravagent monument violate the tenets? Or would such a display be OK, but the person who builds it's motives perhaps be improper? Just curious.

[Heidi]

11. We practice a kind of Tibetan Buddhism . . .

and it's a philosophy, rather than a religion. Tibetan Buddhism as taught by the 14th Dalai Lama doesn't ask anyone to renounce their religion in favor of Buddhism. We just practice the Four Immeasureables: love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity, which are the essence of Buddhism.

I certainly think such a display would be OK in Tibetan Buddhism, as its iconology is jam-packed with giant ornate statues of the Buddha. That's not our style, though.

Here's our altar, which is more of a meditation place than a conventional place of worship:

[RPM]

12. that works for me!

IMHO, yours is a fitting, modest, non-boastful use of space to set your mind to the matters at hand.

that man's chapel is the polar opposite - perhaps it is a place which puts him in the mindset, but it seems the chapel has taken a life of its own, supplanting the spiritual matters it should be inspiring in the first place.

Thanks for sharing! :hi:

[Heidi]

14. I look at that guy's chapel . . .

and figure that the whole scenario could be part of his learning curve about vanity or whatever, just as wearing pointy, high-heeled shoes for many years was part of my learning curve about vanity. I'm barefoot and happy now, but it took high heels to teach me the way. :shrug:

[Lannes]

13. Mel Gibson did the same thing.

[RPM]

16. well then - it must be ok

he is the hallmark of sanity...

or am i confusing him with Tom Cruise?

[tanyev]

15. OK.

Royalty used to do that too, so they wouldn't have to go to a lot of trouble just to worship with the great unwashed.