ST. PAUL’S MISSION TO MISSISSIPPI

          An article in the January 25 issue of The Living Church surprised me.  “Artwork Commemorates Rebirth After Hurricane” tells about one Bruce Cheney, rector of an Episcopal church somewhere in Mississippi.  It seems that “Father” Cheney visited Bay St. Louis on the Gulf Coast and saw the remains of Christ Church (“The building was demolished except for the bell tower.”)  He set about filling “a number of containers with thick chunks of colored glass from a large stained-glass window that had been located behind the altar before the destruction.”

          Waves of recollection crashed down as I saw members of St. Paul’s first mission to the Gulf Coast combing the Christ Church wreckage, and a couple of acres around it, picking up the remains of the church’s shattered windows.  Out of the mud, sand and  brush we extracted shards of thick glass: violet, ruby red, green, dazzling yellow, aquamarine blue and lustrous purple, carefully stacking and storing them until they could be reused.

Father Cheney used them all right, to construct a big cross mosaic that now fills a new inside wall.  A photo depicts him and his “artwork,” made possible by some local Hanover talent.  Jack