March 12, 2020 at 8:55 AM
Starbucks in the Deco District
San Antonio, Texas
A scout leader named Henry Cohen lived near my
parent’s farm. Cohen means priest in Hebrew or so I am told, and Henry Cohen
and his family might have been the first Jewish people I met. Henry, however,
had converted to the Mormon Faith. He worked on my father’s conversion and he
gave my father a copy of the Book of Laban. Dad had no time to read it. Left on
the kitchen table, I found it and read chapters, hardly understanding why golden plates could be so important.
We met the Cohens through the boy scouts and
Henry took Matthew, my brother, and I along for camping trips with his unit,
including his sons David and Levi. He always had a boyish smile and the bemused
look of a philosopher who got the joke of life. His plentiful hair he combed to
the left, adding to his boyish look.
He believed that everyone was a winner in one
way or another, and he cheered on his scouts, no matter what. He really
believed that we would discover some power inside ourselves that no one could
possibly see. We lost in the relay race, coming in dead last, and yet he yelled
out our names as loudly as he could, making sure we finished.
Henry liked to talk at his dinner table and my
father liked to listen. My parents liked the Cohens and they often worried
about Henry, especially since he was frequently unemployed, or so it looked to
my mom and dad. He landed a job fixing photocopiers. He had to drive the miles
to Detroit, eighty miles away. My father, Edward, made the drive himself so he
knew how those miles could be hard, especially in the winter when the roads had
perfect conditions for black ice.
I was thinking about Henry Cohen and his family
when I walked across Huebner Road in Stone Oak, Texas, wondering how to visit
the Latter-Day Saints Temple for San Antonio, Texas. The building surmounted by
Moroni blowing his trumpet looked too small to service a community of twelve
thousand people, a growing population centered by the temple. Moroni as a human
buried the plates found by Joseph Smith before dying in battle. He emerged
again as an angel, making certain Smith knew where to dig. I knew I could walk
into the Vatican if I wanted to and be sure of a welcome and permission to
explore. But could I just waltz into this temple and gaze at the stained-glass
windows?
Any gate in the world can be approached, and I
walked into the compound, surrounded by a high fence, ornamental iron painted
white. I sat outside an office building on a limestone bench and watched as
Mormons walked into the interior, a soldier in Army camouflage, a family
dressed in work clothing, a pair of sisters dressed in simple attire. I
attracted not the slightest attention. I was amazed by the panoramic view, from
east to west, viewing the expanse of San Antonio, the towers of downtown
looking like miniatures. The planners selected the high ground on the edge of
the Edwards Plateau, up around twelve thousand feet above sea level.
I could have sat on that bench all day, admiring
the trees newly in leaf, enjoying the shade, a cooling breeze on a March early
evening, hotter than eighty degrees Fahrenheit. A pair of sisters left the
office and ascended the marble staircase to the temple level, walking so
casually that I felt invited up the staircase myself. I found an elevator
hidden in the wall that held up the earth upon which the temple perched. A
collection of Amigo scooters awaited under the porch of the office building, so
surely older people needed help to access the temple.
The five-acre ground amazed me, the lawn
carefully manicured and flowers in bloom. I took a seat on a bench of hewn
limestone block and stared east at hills covered with live oaks and houses. A
fountain welled up and fed an infinity pool. A youthful sister helped an older
sister descend the glorious, broad staircase to the temple’s main entrance. I
looked at the stained-glass door. Knock and it will be opened says the Good
Book. I opened the main door and saw a man in an immaculate white jacket and
white tie standing at a reception desk. On a sofa sat two sisters keeping
company, ready to respond to what needed to be done.
I spoke first. “Hello, I’m not of your faith and
yet I wanted to pay a visit. I’m hoping you’ll tell me if that’s possible”.
“I’m sorry. We are open by appointment. A bishop
must make arrangements for your presence here”.
“I understand. I’ll show myself out”.
One of the sisters approached. “Hello, thank you
for visiting. Please, feel free to sit in our waiting room, have a drink of
water and sit”.
“Thank you. I appreciate the courtesy”.
“The grounds are free for you to walk about
while the gates remain open. Please enjoy”.
“I am grateful”.
I stepped into the waiting room, a small room
with seating for twenty and two beautiful paintings, one of Jesus Christ. I
refreshed myself with a sip at the fountain. I knew I had to catch a bus in
fifteen minutes, so I stepped out.
A man with the bluest eyes ever offered me his
hand, “I am Terry Orgill, President of the Temple. I wanted to greet you
personally”.
I’ve been told my eyes are bluer than blue but
how could my eyes be that blue? “Thank you. I appreciate your hospitality”.
“We are glad to make you welcome. However, we
are here to conduct ordinances, ceremonies for our ancestors, baptisms and
sealings. Admittance to the temple is limited to those referred by a bishop. Do
you have any questions? Looking up Mr. Orgill, I see that he serves as director
of a sales company and runs for public office on the Libertarian ticket.
“I see. I might have many. But I have to catch a
bus across the street from the temple”.
“Call me if you want to talk. Look us up online.
We have impressive archives stored for your review. You can even walk through
the Temple in Rome enjoying three hundred- and sixty-degree views”.
He kidded not. Every temple, more than two
hundred, has a splash page on the Church of Jesus Christ Temples site, even
listing every president of the San Antonio temple since the dedication. Yes,
and what would one expect of a religious movement founded upon the discovered
plates of gold, unearthed by Joseph Smith, documenting the life of a high
society in Pre-Columbian America and the genealogy that misses not a single
birth?
The Texas sun shining from a partly cloudy sky
had made the air burning hot. The Uber driver who drove me over to Rissho
Kosei-Kai Buddhist Center teased me, “This is winter still. It’s only
eighty-four degrees. Wait until summer. I’ve seen it top one hundred and ten
degrees. I’ve seen it. Haven’t felt it. I stay in my nice air conditioned car”.
The sangha occupied a converted ranch house on
what looked to be a tract carved from a larger ranch, now gone to seed, the
small thicket of live oaks growing thicker by the second. I was greeted at the
door by Kevin Roche, a tall man who didn’t look like a Buddhist monk. Still, he
was the associate minister. He gave me a fist bump and invited me inside.
A team in the kitchen prepared a simple meal of
tea sandwiches and slices of cake, set out on small plates. We sat around the
table and discussed the news of the virus. So far, no one walked up to me and
tormented me with a Zen koan. People for all walks of life arrived and took a
place at long tables set up in the meditation hall. I pitched in and the team
was delighted, surprisingly delighted.
Roche lowered a screen in front of the altar and
began a slide show in Powerpoint, proving that even bullet points can serve the
Dharma. He took us on a deep dive of Naikan journaling. Naikan comes from the
Japanese, meaning “Inside looking”. Naikan empowers introspection by asking for
minute answers to three questions. What have I received from everybody in the
world? The coffee we were drinking had been a gift from seed planters, tree
trimmers, bean pickers, roasters, truckers, brewers and coffee cup makers and
that was looking at it lightly. He made us write furiously for nine minutes
what we have received from everybody before the class.
What have I given to everybody in the world. He
made us write again for nine minutes. We wrote more slowly because it made for
a shorter list. I helped put potato chips on plates for guests but I hadn’t
brought food to share. I hadn’t given money to the person with an open hand at
the bus stop. I gave directions to a Denny’s to a woman who didn’t know
which bus stop to use. She couldn’t see out in the dark outside the bus window.
I resolved to make a longer list tomorrow by actually giving back more.
He moved onto the question on the next slide,
seeming more an Oxford don than a monk. The slide read, “What troubles or
difficulties have I caused”? Again we wrote furiously for nine minutes. I came
up with thirteen items, and I had a feeling I hadn’t noticed half of my cases.
I had a flashback to a day I parked in the lot of a Buddhist temple in
Ferndale, Michigan. A woman who walked out of services looked at my Green
Subaru and said, “You parked funny in your spot. Now I have difficulty opening
my door”. I apologized and moved my car as she stood with a smile and watched.
She obviously had taken advanced Naikan training.
As for making a list of ways people have caused
trouble or difficulties for us? Nobody wants to receive our ingratitude. Better
to focus on gratitude. Gratitude that leads to no action might not be gratitude
at all. We had plenty to keep us busy and away from blaming everybody else.
Roche and a board member addressed the group.
The two had thought long and hard about the life of the temple in the days to
come. “We want to stay open, but we’ll do everything we can to give one another
social distance. So, we’ll meditate at least two meters apart. Sorry if I don’t
hug you although I really want to hug you. Let’s just think of all kinds of ways
to wave enthusiastically”.
I gave him a bow and a namaste as I departed. I
counted my blessings as I walked through the Texas evening growing dim, the
heat of early evening now tamed and beatifically warm.
Image Credit
By Milei.vencel, Hungary - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23189231
1 comment:
Great piece!! I particularly love the pictures of the Buddha!!
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