The Old Timers – How did they do it?

A mystery was solved, a rather intriguing one if you ask me.  These type of mysteries always make me wonder.  How did the people of that time accomplish some of the things they were able to do?

The Country:  Canada.

The Place: Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

The Building: St. John’s Anglican Church

The church was built in 1754.  As you can imagine, the architecture of the church was absolutely beautiful. With the type of wood working that is usually found in very old buildings.  The church is the oldest Anglican church in Canada.  A lot of love went into this building.  Unfortunately, an arson decided to burn down the church on halloween 2001.  No one has been caught.  A lot of history was destroyed.

But the members of St. John’s decided to do something pretty remarkable.  They decided to rebuild the church.  Not just rebuild a new church.  No, they decided to rebuild the church, as it was before the fire, using what was left of the building after the fire, and existing wood that was salvageable. A costly task, estimated at 7 million Canadian dollars.  They managed it of course.

Using photographs, and excellent carpenters, they managed it.  But one task, given to a woman, brought out a mystery.

It had to do with stars that were painted on the ceiling over the alter.  The problem was that there were not a complete set of photographs for the woman to recreate the pattern of stars.  As she debated the problem, she followed a hunch.  She had a feeling that the star groupings were not something just randomly painted.  So, she contacted an astronomer.  He examined the photos that were available and found the constellation Perseus.  The problem was, the location of the constellation was wrong for the night sky in Lunenburg.

Acting on his own hunch, he used a computer program to show what the sky would have looked like on Christmas Eve, year 0, the celebrated birth of Jesus.  You guessed it, the stars matched.  The painted stars recreated the night sky of December 24th, year 0, in Lunenburg.

So how did someone in the 1800’s, when the stars were painted on the ceiling, recreate the night sky from that date?  What a feat!  I find it amazing.

Here are pictures of the church before the fire:

Here is a picture of the church after it burned, which gives you an idea of what they had to work with to reconstruct the church:

Here is a video of the star mystery:

Some of the information in the video is incorrect.  Such as the fact that the bible does not indicate that Jesus was born on December 25th, but it’s still interesting.

If you want more interesting facts on this historical landmark, go here.

Enjoy!

~ Kev

Kicked out of Church and…. Words of Wisdom

I received a call from a friend last this afternoon.  It was someone who I have not talked to in a while.  While we were catching up, he told me about a situation at a church he had been attending that disturbed me.  No doubt, I don’t have the full story, but if it stands as he told me, then I really should be a lot more disturbed than what I am.

It seems that a member of the church he was attending for a while got kicked out the church and told she was no longer even allowed to set foot on the property.  According to the story, the reason for being kicked out was asking a question of the Pastor concerning a friend of hers who had an issue with one of the elders.

Now, you might be thinking that first of all, this woman shouldn’t have been involved in the first place.  However, considering the rest of the story, I can understand why this woman got involved.  The woman who was kicked out was trying to ensure that a friend of hers, also a member, was being taken care of.  Apparently this other woman had an issue with an Elder, and the Pastor said it would be taken care of.  From what I understand, the situation was quite bad and there was talk of the man being told he could no longer serve as an elder.  Then, he was promoted to head elder and the woman was told that he was receiving counseling for a problem.  The whole story seems odd I know, but the fact that a person was kicked out of the congregation is disturbing on a level I care not to expand on.

I know that under certain circumstances, it might be necessary to ask a person never to come back.  I’m not naive after all, but we are supposed to be Christians, following Christ, who preached loved and forgiveness.  To my mind, the situation would have to be very extreme in order to justify “kicking someone out of your church”.

It always amazes me that sometimes Christians tend to get themselves in trouble with words and actions with other Christians.  Despite the fact we are supposed to be loving and able to forgive, we often display actions that aren’t anything but.  I think, no, I believe, that this stems from a spirit of avoidance.  When faced with controversy and uncomfortable situations, we avoid it instead of having open and honest communication.  Instead of avoiding the problem, we need to take special care in facing problems head on.  If you don’t, it tends to cause resentment and hurt feelings.  A church is a place of learning and healing and there is no room for these things.

If you have a problem with someone, be open and honest and get it taken care of.  Likewise, if someone has a problem with you, let them speak their mind and have a open discussion with them.  Keep and open mind and try to set things right.  If nothing else, sometimes people will get upset and only need to vent their frustration, and once done, can move on.  Just because we are Christians does not mean we can’t be frustrated, annoyed or even angry with each other.  It can even mean that we make sure to keep a distance from certain Christians if there comes a point where you just can’t see eye to eye.  But to turn your back on them?  That is just plain wrong.

On a separate note, yesterday I was doing a lot of driving and was able to catch some radio preaching.  I always enjoy listening to sermons on the radio when time permits.  But yesterday, a preacher said something that took me by surprise.  So I decided to offer my words of wisdom on the matter.

According to this preacher, if you find that you don’t have enough time in the day to get everything you need to get done, done, then you are doing something wrong and need to have a talk with God so that he can straighten you out.

That’s the gist of it.  His sermon was about time, and not about the above in particular, but this is one of things that was said during the course of the sermon.  I just can’t find it in myself to agree.  We all have different lives and our time varies from person to person.  Take me for example.  There are days that I don’t have enough time to get everything done.  Yesterday, I worked for 14 hours.  When I got home, I have to put in some more time to get some paperwork completed.  There was more things on the agenda, but at this point, I was the walking dead and needed sleep.  I am a very busy person, especially with the type of job I have.  There are times when things come up at one customer’s that will delay me and I find I can’t get everything done that day.  But I also know that with my job, because I see so many people day in and day out, I can be a blessing to them in some way.  This doesn’t mean I have to talk about God.  It may mean that I simply get something done for them that makes their life easier.

So, I think you need to be careful when you make statements like this preacher did.  To me, it borders on a spirit of judgment.  We can’t know every situation in someone’s life so we need to make sure that the things we say are encouraging.  Just something to think about.

~ Kev