A visit to Grace Cathedral, San Francisco

As you may recall from some of my other posts, when we travel to major cities, Lisa and I try to "bag a Cathedral." So far we've visited sister cathedrals in Portland OR, Minneapolis MN, and Washington DC. We always introduce ourselves, and bring back a bulletin for Chris Harris (the bulletin sits on our piano for a few months before we remember to give it to him!)

Last Thanksgiving, we were in the Bay Area, visiting family in the Berkeley Hills. My mother encouraged us to go across to the City and go to church at Grace Cathedral (usually, we go to All Soul's parish in Berkeley). So we took BART over to San Francisco, got off at the Embarcardero, and took the California LIne cable car up to Nob Hill, looking back down the steep hill into the Financial District and the Bay Bridge. (Note to Cable Car aficionados: the California Line is the least popular with tourists so you are more likely to get on without a long wait!)

Nob Hill is so named because the "nobs" (the City's elite) long had their residences there. After the Great Earthquake and Fire destroyed a previous church and the buildings in 1906, the Crocker family contributed their property to build an Episcopal Cathedral in a neo-Gothic style. Building began in 1928 and was finished in 1964. These days, the great residences are clubs, and Nob Hill is known for a number of pricey hotels.

Doors of Paradise

Cathedral Facade

We got there a little early and walked around the building first, admiring the facade and the immense replica Ghiberti "Doors of Paradise" from Renaissance Florence. An usher standing in front of the church offered us the service booklet and bulletin and asked if we were visitors. We told him we were from the Cathedral in San Diego and he looked at us doubtfully. "That's not actually a Diocese, is it?" he said. Needless to say, we corrected him.

The Nave

AIDS chapel

As you enter Grace Cathedral, the space is immense, and seems even bigger than the size of the building from the outside. It looms before you into the distance, and above you to the dim ceiling. To your right is a modern style interfaith chapel in memory of those with HIV/AIDs. Along the nave, the side walls have murals of different stages of California and church history. Just past the big central font there is a labyrinth on the floor of the nave; a few people were walking it before the service started. The pews only begin half way along the nave and it's a long walk to get there. The building is still incomplete; if you look up, you can see the unfinished ceiling in the gaps of the groins.

The Labyrinth

Ceiling

The space is so huge that the 200-ish people there were just about swallowed up (I am not at all sure of the count because of the size of the place). I watched a woman in jeans, spike heels, and a very expensive looking mink jacket walk up the aisle to the front and thought that the days of the nobs are still with us!

What struck us most is that every one was so self-contained. At St Paul's before the service begins, there are smiles, greetings, touches on the shoulder--you get the feeling that people know each other. At Grace, there didn't seem to be that warmth, maybe because there were more tourists in the holiday season? Or because there was so much room, you could sit at some distance from one another? In any case, the vast space felt cold. (Although, in common with other Cathedrals we've visited, there are cushions on the pews. Just a suggestion…. ;-)

After the service (the new Dean presiding), we went down to the coffee in a room beneath the church. Here people were chatting with each other, but no one spoke to us. This was quite different from the other churches we've visited, where people have immediately struck up a conversation with the strangers. There clearly is a community there, but a surprisingly insular one for a great Cathedral in a great City.

This puzzled me, because at the top of their bulletin, they have the words "Belonging before believing" which is a buzz term of the Emergent Church movement that prominently advocates community. Grace is clearly an active and involved place, with a progressive Dean and progressive Bishop. We're glad to have visited. But I think next time we visit Mom and Dad, we'll spare ourselves the trek across the Bay and head back down to the friendly folks at All Soul's. Even though we don't get there often, they already recognize our faces.



-Susan Forsburg