Our Oak Ridge series comes to a close today with the above photo of the marquee of Oak Ridge United Methodist Church, located just east of Oak Ridge Military Academy, near the J.L. Sawyer house. Today's marquee is fairly typical of Christian churches with a cross and information about services for the week. Also typical are the crosses that have cloth, with the color representing the current cycle of the liturgical calendar. At the moment, Christians are in the Easter Cycle (Lent-Easter-Pentecost); the purple cloth is displayed during Lent. Purple represents royalty and penitence. For Easter, April 16th, the cloth will be white, symbolizing joy and festivity. This year, Easter for the Orthodox Christians as well as the other Christian denominations all fall on the same Sunday.
On the day we were photographing, winds were strong. On close inspection, we noticed it was plastic fishing line, not divine intervention, holding the cloth in place. Are you observing Lent? If so, we hope you are finding some creative fish dishes to serve on Fridays.
One will see a cross like that adorned for Easter, but usually inside. Canadian winters (and springs) would be too harsh on the cloth.
Posted by: William Kendall | Monday, March 20, 2017 at 05:09 PM