A PreConcert Ramble in a Cathedral

Our son's chamber music group held their concert last night at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Trenton,  New Jersey, about an hour's drive from our home. I had to drop him off at 5 p.m. and the concert didn't start until 7. One thing I did to while away the time was to take some photographs of the cathedral with my cell phone. Two photos worked out pretty well and reflect the beauty of that sacred space.

This is a segment of a stained glass window of St. George, the patron saint of England. He was born in Turkey to Christian parents. A Roman soldier, he was martyred in 303, the year that began the the "Great Persecution" against Christians. The late afternoon sun really showed off the vivid blue helmet, the red halo and the determined look on his face.

This is the Cathedral's Synod hall, where the orchestra held a potluck reception after the concert. Check out the ceiling: like much of the Cathedral property, it has the look and feel of a parish in the English countryside. Instead, the Cathedral, surrounded by a blue-collar urban neighborhood, wasn't built until the 1930s.

As I waited for the concert to begin, waited to hear my son and his friends make music, I thought about how people built this a beautiful space in which to worship, and how the Beauty, of which my phone captured just a sliver, reflects the Beauty of the One who called us into being from nothingness.