On the Holy Box | Saint Mark's, Seattle

[@arthurlee9344]

It's a profound space of worship.

[@KennnnnnyTucky]

Thanks. Great video. Without knowing much about the place I imagined it was designed in a modernist/brutalist-style, and intended to look boxey/stripped back rather like some buildings in London such as the National Theatre. How fascinating then to discover it was actually supposed to look more like Lincoln Cathedral in the UK! But in a way I'm glad it wasn't completed because there is an honesty and uniqueness to the place which is well worth preserving.

[@saintmarksseattle]

We couldn't agree more! Members of the cathedral community, and indeed many, many members of the broader Seattle community love this quirky building so much today, that it's easy to forget the intensity of the pain and disappointment it caused. The first Dean of the Cathedral, John D. McLauchlan, went to his grave believing that the entire decades-long project had been a folly and failure, and the stress of the failure to complete the building, followed by the loss of the building to foreclosure and repossession during the Depression, surely contributed to his too-early death. I always wished for a time machine to go back and tell that generation: "Even though it looks like a failure now, and even though it will never look like you dreamed it would, know that in 90 years this giant concrete box will become something unique and beloved!" As Dean Thomason says in the video, there is a profound spiritual lesson here...