Make-Over

We live way out yonder in the boonies, a good half-hour from the nearest serious retail store offering more than milk and Twinkies.  (Dollar General, our rescue station for desperately needed emergency things like toilet paper – and milk and Twinkies - is only 10 minutes away.)  Being simple folk, we like the relative remoteness and lack of sophistication.  But some days, when we have a hankering to leave the cattails behind and go civilized, The Big City and The Other Big City are only 45 and 90 minutes away, respectively.

Today we escaped.  The hubby and I hightailed it out of here and spent the day in The Other Big City to celebrate Valentines Day and experience a touch of culture. And, we found it.  When walking down the street after lunch at the oldest restaurant in town, we happened onto local color oozing with culture – or rather, culture shock.

We were tip-toeing along on ice facing a bitter-cold wind when we stopped before massive wooden doors you might expect behind the drawbridge of a castle, with a single word, CHAPEL, inscribed overhead.  As I peeked through a thick glass window the door creaked open, almost as if someone had been waiting for us.  A gentleman invited us inside without question.

Lo and behold, this was not a chapel, but a business. The doorman, actually the general manager, had noticed my curious eyes and decided to be cordial even though he was closed.  We were actually standing in (get ready) an in-house brewery functioning in the cathedral-like chapel of an old funeral home.  Vaulted ceilings lined with heavy woodwork and an ornate stained glass window provided unmistakable church-like features.

Heavy, long wooden tables and benches, reminiscent of European pubs, stretched where pews had once been.  The choir loft railing was blanketed in flags to honor the Belgian brews featured there. Long chalkboards on either side of an abandoned altar area displayed the names of specialty beers, strong ales, and draft ciders.  And yet historical architecture whispered sacred ground, sacred ground, sacred ground.

Subdued winter sunlight shone through the arched, stained-glass window.  As the men chatted amicably, I squinted my eyes and wondered about people who had come here - some to grieve their losses and pray for consolation when the chapel was still a chapel, and others to imbibe and share revelry after its make-over into a brewery.

It was strange to stand there in the hushed room, transported from the simplicity of our humble lakeside home into something so much more complicated. The chapel-to-brewery make-over has a unique aspect - and after all, a building is just a building, I told myself. There’s probably no other place on earth quite like this. We’re witnessing the ultimate in creative business entrepreneurship.  

But I couldn’t shake my gut feeling that bordered on dismay.  I felt awkward, sad, and mostly overwhelmed with a sense of imposition and a desire to reclaim the sanctity that originally defined this place.