NYC Holy Week on a Pepperdine boondoggle. JD Rockefeller Jr had portions of European abbeys reconstructed in upper Manhattan in a medieval environment, far removed from downtown noise - a beautiful retreat marking a liturgical calendar - called The Cloisters.
Surrounded by cobblestone, the site is a remarkable throwback to the middle ages: herb gardens, cloisters, chapels and extensive collection of illuminated manuscripts. 
JD Rockefeller Jr was an early liberal, theologically speaking, supporting Union Seminary and the building of St John the Divine Cathedral, which celebrates a wide variety of religion in its chapels, ever expanding and purposely never complete.
Michael really wanted to see the Cloisters and the boys, hopefully, made connections to visited sites in Europe, like Mont St Michel in Normandy, where the water ebbs and flows according to tide, illustrating the creation act:
Michael really wanted to see the Cloisters and the boys, hopefully, made connections to visited sites in Europe, like Mont St Michel in Normandy, where the water ebbs and flows according to tide, illustrating the creation act:
“Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
We decided to attend St George's Episcopal for Tenebrae, though perhaps too spent after heavy sightseeing to appreciate the tragic quiet of the elders robed in black,
carrying a black-veiled cross.
Oceans have been domesticated as wonderful vistas for play in modern times, registering as chaos, formlessness, before industry tamed them; the abbey here - the earth itself - becomes an elaborate life raft; the liturgical calendar a cathedral in the shapelessness of time.
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We decided to attend St George's Episcopal for Tenebrae, though perhaps too spent after heavy sightseeing to appreciate the tragic quiet of the elders robed in black,
carrying a black-veiled cross.
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Two days earlier, we attended Bach at One, a world class Bach program begun 5 years ago at Trinity Church in Wall Street.
or more precisely St Paul's Chapel,
where we heard the choir practice.
The church next to the Twin Towers, achieving miracle status for surviving 9/11, was a triage site and memorial 
retold in this moving children's book
On March 23, 2016, we were treated to 3 cantatas sung feet away in the first Episcopal church in America, where George Washington prayed at his private box following his inauguration nearby.
Church and State fused in a new way now, starkly remembered inside and at the nearby 9/11 memorial of water flowing in a grave-like pit - not a spring of life, let alone fountain of youth. Certainty here is of loss; eternal hopelessness anchoring the names etched along a communal tombstone,
an overall vector unlike the gravestones of adjacent St Paul, pointing upward; worship alive next door.
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I leave with this 1956 shot of Manhattan, reminding me of similar scenes of LA's city hall of my childhood,
and the bright yellow of forsythia, reminding of Ithaca grad school days. April is the Spring!
Christ Church followed King's service in Cambridge, our music director taking cues from the Ralph Vaughn Williams era of the service's history. It was very moving to participate in the evening, creating something together. 
BTW, I bought a pricey panettone from an Italian pastry chef, but found not much difference in quality? Our favorite thus far dates to a Trader Joe's purchase in the '90s in which whole chestnuts were encrusted on top and throughout.
Auntie Ev couldn't make it, due to her new nursing job placing her at the bottom of the pecking order, but grandpa flew in from IL, which was a mean feat at nearly 90! Michael and Jack enjoy Aunt Stephanie's exuberance and humor.
We were greeted by snow the next day! Michael approves.
The old
Carolyn's dad met us halfway in Springfield at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum just celebrating its 10th year.
A profoundly moving experience with a degree of dramatization just shy of a Disney-level of simulated fantasy, the museum delivered the narrative of slavery, highlighted (excaberated) by ongoing tensions in nearby Ferguson.
Artifacts, such as this beautiful Union drum and the bed Lincoln died in, on special loan from another musuem.
Former slaves enlisted in Union regiments, reminding of a civil war which launched the modern era in Japan where, in some ways, culturally speaking, the 'South' won. Former peasants, like these black slaves, became the new army, infuriating disenfranchised samurai, who were the professional military in feudal times.
