An altar in the house of a Protestant

This is an altar,

an altar in the home of a Protestant.

Go figure.

It started with a book about home altars in New Mexico and the wonderful pictures of personal manifestations of faith. I looked with envy at what my Roman brethren were allowed to have in their homes. They got images of saints and candles. But all I got was the knowledge that my iconoclastic Puritan forefathers were so smug in their empty walls. Well, I like candles, to my Baptist’s great chagrin, and I love the great souls who have shaped my faith. So, why can’t I have an altar? I don’t pray to these images. I don’t beg them for intercession with a Savior who is too far beyond my heart’s reach. No, Christ has made his home in my soul and I can make a Protestant altar if I want to. So what is it that I want?

Always looking backward, hoping to understand clearly, I want a history of my faith. The first image of my shrine is El Tepeyac, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

El Tepeyac is the nexus of the Roman Church and Mexico. The mother of God combined with a mountain goddess and became the Mother of the Americas. I fell in love with her early in my faith and searched for an image. I wanted a copy of the tilma of Juan Diego, which hangs in Her shrine in Mexico City and bears Her image with dusky skin, pink dress and standing on a crescent moon. In a church equipment shop in Los Angeles that had Methodist hymnals and thuribles and choir robes and all sorts of stuff, there were also images of saints and martyrs, from novena cards to big banners. There I found Her picture, mounted on wood. She has traveled with me for at least 30 years and Hers was the only religious image in my home for most of that time, Viva Mexico. Then, we came to Oakland and bought our house.

Down in the cellar of our new house, I found an unused shelf: a 3½-foot piece of heavy pine with plain, Puritan supports. With a thick coat of dark blue paint, gold stars and polyurethane, my altar was ready to put up. (The color and stars come from the ceiling of the Siena duomo, from whence came the great Catherine. But more about her later.) Now, I won’t have you think that my Baptist just accepted the idea of a shrine in the house. He most emphatically did not. And, if my grandmother Dorothy were still alive, besides being 111 years old, she would make some caustic comments about popery. But she is in the arms of her Savior and the Baptist has to love me anyway. With grumbles and grouses, the Baptist mounted the altar, perfectly balanced under the high windows in the kitchen. The Lady fills the space between the windows and for a little while she was the only one up there. My sister gave me a lovely wrought iron hanging candle holder and I keep it filled with tall, 5 day votives. (There is usually a Lady light burning, to guide you through the kitchen if you need the loo in the middle of the night.) But who else would be on the altar? A mess of hard-headed Protestants, that’s who.

So, who are these people? In the central places of honor are my two lodestones of the Protestant Reformation. That thick-necked, bull jawed person on the right is Martin Luther. Painted by his friend, Lucas Cranach the younger, this is the founder of the Protestant Church, warts and all. To his right is his greatest student and theological heartbreak, Philip Melanchthon. This talented lutenist broke with his great teacher over music in church. He also helped to write the Augsburg Confession. Next to Philip is Catherine of Siena. A Roman saint who showed me the road of mysticism and action, I do love her so. On final right is Ulrich Zwingli, primary author of the Augsburg Confession who died at war with other Christians. (Our history is not pretty.)

To Luther’s left, we find Thomas Cranmer, founder of the Anglican Confession, liturgist extraordinaire, true Protestant and martyr. Next to Cranmer is his great contemporary William Tyndale, translator of the Holy Bible and martyr, bless his memory. The sweet image next to him is Teresa of Avila. Like Catherine, she is a lamp to this girl’s feet; if you haven’t read The Interior Castle, you might give it a try. On the ultimate left is John Wesley, who brought the Gospel of Christ to the satanic mills. He was a missionary and true servant of his Lord.

At the lower elevation we find the earlier founders of the faith.

On the left is William Wycliffe, the first translator of the Bible into English. (There are no contemporary portraits of Wycliffe, so we have this Titianesque idealization.) In the center is a prayer of the Venerable Bede (673-735 ce). His direct, existential prayers keep me grounded. On the right is Johannes Hus, the great anabaptist reformer who was martyred at the Council of Constance.

You might notice various crosses scattered around. One came from my father’s last time in Florence, one I inherited from my deeply wonderful mother-in-law and others have come from thither and yon. My friends bring me crosses from their travels. D and K went to the fair Isle of Iona, in the Hebrides, and brought me back a token of that ancient holy place, a small white rock incised with a simple cross. Of such small things great altars are built.

Two altars taught me about the ephemeral nature of shrines. Shrines come out of nowhere, on roadsides or in front of palace gates. And they are in constant flux—a static altar is a dead altar. In the monastery church of S. Florian, in upper Austria, there is a big cork board on a easel, just inside the front door, on the right. This board is covered with photographs of all of the new babies in the congregation. In the sanctuary of Mission San Juan Bautista, just left of the altar rail, there is another cork board, this one filled with pictures of service members. Beautiful young faces in the uniforms of the US Army, Navy and lots of Marines. Both of those cork boards are shrines and always changing

With gifts and acquisitions, the altar in my house is fluid, in my kitchen, the center of the house. The Lady candle is usually lit and the other votives burn bright when friends grace our home. As with all other home shrines, this altar is a statement of faith. It celebrates the great souls who give me strength for the journey. Anyone who comes to our house sees this thing and, to date, it has not offended. In this house there is a whole lot of Mahler, the History of Western Philosophy by Copleston and the Blue Cliff Record. In the house my husband gives me, there is an altar, an altar in the home of an anabaptist Protestant. Go figure.