Tim Woodcock writes: Last week I started to make some notes for a blog post about the gorgeous vacant church at the corner at Kingshighway and Washington, which I have long admired and been puzzled by. I was intrigued by the recent addition of a sign outside the Second Baptist church that says a national Gospel Hall of Fame is “coming soon.” But early on Tuesday morning, a fire swept through part of the building, leaving the future of the building plan in doubt – or at least making any future renovation even more complicated and expensive. Second Baptist is not just any old disused church building. It’s an entire complex that fills up a city block in one of the most desirable parts of the city; it includes gardens and cloisters that connect the various buildings. As a piece of architecture, it would not look out of place on an Italian hillside. It is a building beautiful enough to stop a passerby in his tracks, as was the case for me on a recent Sunday, when I was biking home from c...

A very good piece in the Post-Dispatch  by Nassim Benchaabane offering an overview of how houses of worship locally are handled reopening for services. It mentions a couple of our neighbors in the CWE, the Cathedral Basilica and Central Reform Congregation. It’s quite a long piece. Even if you don’t read it in its entirety, be sure you scroll done to the bottom for a beautiful photo essay by Robert Cohen.

Karen Kelsey (aka the butterfly lady) writes: This comic appeared in the Post-Dispatch, Monday, April 27. I couldn’t resist sharing it with my 2PC family! MACANUDO by Liniers

The photo below is from a recent Post-Dispatch story, “Priest fills St. Louis County church with photos of congregation to unite, despite pandemic.” It profiles the Rev. Bob Evans of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Maryland Heights, who has filled his church’s   pews with images of more than 400 photos of members of the congregation. "I saw an Italian priest who did this and I wanted to do this in my parish," said the Rev. Bob Evans, who celebrates morning mass in front of photos of parishioners on Saturday, April 4, 2020, at Holy Spirit Church in Maryland Heights. Evans asked parishioners to email him family photos so he could see them during live-streamed mass. Photo by Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Today I received a link from a monk with whom I work to an interesting piece titled, “We are All Monks Now.” The school where I work, St. Louis Priory, is under the auspices of a monastery of about 25 monks who follow the Rule of St. Benedict, th...

Tim Woodcock writes: Today is the start of Passover. Here is a fascinating news article about what Passover looks like locally this year, given the current situation with coronavirus. https://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/a-pandemic-passover-st-louis-area-jewish-faithful-mark-holiday-in-a-year-different-from/article_a6225cd9-460e-5057-9ef9-714dd44a0d65.html This line in the Post-Dispatch article particularly jumped out at me: “We sing ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ during the Seder, meaning next year there will be freedom. But this year it also, to me, means next year we will be together again, next year I will get to see you, next year this will be over.” Nancy Quigley adds : In an article by Alana Newhouse (NYTimes, April 5) titled “The Power of Passover During a Plague,” she describes this religious observance as “an agglomeration of a long and global inheritance,” a story which must be told to the children. The Haggadah is a sort of narrative for Passover and i...