Wednesday, August 20, 2008


Last week I visited an outdoor labyrinth at a church in Bexley, Ohio. In addition to the labyrinth, there was an interesting sculpture. Here's its description:

"This sculpture was commissioned to convey and articulate the strength, security, and solidarity which parishioners experience from St. Alban's Parish. The text directs our attention to the Divine Source of this parish's strength, and reads: "For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore thy name's sake lead me, and guide me." (Psalm 31:3; KJV)

Thomas Melville Chapin was chosen to create this sculpture, because he works with stone, which has the innate dimension of linking a sense of permanence and strength with the eternal.

White granite, sometimes called "Bethel Moonlight" because of its luminous quality at night, was selected for its pureness of appearance and durability.

The text, written in Braille, reminds us that these are inner truths. Rather than being raised in dots as is the norm for Braille, the inscription is cut in rectangles for aesthetic reasons and to suggest an old fashioned computer card or player piano roll...connoting that this psalm is a code that conveys a meaning broader than just the statement itself.

Projecting a sense of timeless eternal strength, this sculpture spans the ages--leaving an impression of primitivism as well as ultra-modernism."

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