The sound of the bells’ dance echoes above the line of red tiled buildings surrounding a copula, the rising façade of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, from the top of whose stucco walls, a rounded pinnacle houses the bells which roost like birds in their crevices. Across the plaza, the steeple of the Episcopal parish, like the head of a pen, peaks above the oak trees swaying in the wind. Between the chatter of wide-eyed tourists, a solemnity holds on to a certain historic atmosphere of reverence, which, like the buildings, has become characteristic of the town.
St. Augustine, the product of Spanish conquest, inherited the inquisition. Its founders arrived with the conviction that the only trustworthy individuals were those who went to confession. The Mission of Nombre de Dios set about converting the natives who never asked for salvation while the Catholic Church saw to the colonists’ mandatory devotion to faith. Today, a lavishly furnished Cathedral stands where the continent’s first parish once stood, the result of tithes and offerings, money paid, as the Church once claimed, to assure one’s place in the grace of the Lord.
Upon entering the heavy oak doors, leaving behind the Florida heat, my senses encounter a staleness resonating off the plaster walls and worn wood of the pews. The vaulted ceiling, with its crimson tapestry, gives the rafters a black, scorched appearance. I feel small. Reverberating from the towering walls, chanting of the ghosts of monks passing centuries in penitence makes my heart rise and suddenly the feeling of isolation. I shrink into one of the pews, a golden bust of the crucifix stares down at me, not with warmth of compassion, but a hollowness that comes with manufactured items. Framing it, gold spiraled columns stand behind an altar of marble. Here, many sought peace and guidance; I only felt my heart choking me.
In an alcove, a shrine to a praying saint, candles flicker in a line, lit with the hope that maybe, as long as a candle burns in their name and the offering is paid, the souls of the departed may continue on to eternal bliss, as if they could not reach it by their own light. My aunts come to light candles for my grandmother, for whom the priest, standing over her grave, prayed for forgiveness, prayed that God may understand that she tried her best to save the souls of her protestant children.
Across the entrance to the altar, a sign hangs from a brass chain with words chiseled into it as if written in stone: “Do not enter sanctuary.”
Who may enter then? Who is worthy? A boy around my age once approached me on the street and asked, “Do you know about the Bible?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Jesus?”
“Yes.”
“Do you accept him as your lord and savior?”
“No, I have my own beliefs.”
“Then you are comfortable with going to hell,” he said.
“How do you know that is where I will go?”
“Only those who accept Christ enter Heaven.”
The conversation continued on to questions of why I refused Christianity. When I explained that I followed Buddhism, he asked, “What is Buddha doing for you, he’s dead?” I fought hard not to inform him of another historic obituary he should have been familiar with, and, in retrospect, I should have.
He only saw things in shades defined by a book composed by the hands of men some centuries after the passing of his savior. If I lied, I am thus a liar. If I used the Lords name in vain, blasphemous. Thought a woman looked attractive, adulterous, at least according to another group of Christian crusaders, who, though the Bible decries “thou shalt not judge,” found pleasure in labeling others’ sins. Their justification: the word of God taken out of context and, might I say, a poor familiarity with the dictionary.
So who deserves salvation? Those who come to church every Sunday and put something in the offering bowl certainly look better to those who throw their theology at passerbies and who cannot fathom the existence of a good person outside their congregation. In a country founded by those who sought religious freedom, people are still judged by those who claim not to judge and, with best intentions, fail to acknowledge that a soul is in one’s own keeping.
Though the mission has become a cemetery at peace with squirrels who watch from the roots of trees as a blue heron waits for its dinner and the Cathedral now only sees a congregation of the willing, the spirit of religious fervor set by the Spanish continues. The Crusades never found their end. The candles in the alcove flicker as the door of the cathedral opens with a breath of wind that ceases with a muffled click.
