In some ways, St. Benedict is like most newer churches built in the exurbs. It looks a bit like a medical office building. We sometimes wonder if people driving by even realize it’s a church if they don’t see the sign (not shown here).
We have a simple, mostly unadorned interior. Even on Christmas Eve, it’s got a spare and open feeling.
But there’s a little riot of color and pattern around the altar platform: a set of needlepoint kneeler cushions. People can kneel here to receive communion (although I hear it’s hard to get up again; it’s nice to have an open altar, with no barrier keeping the congregation “out”, but without an altar rail you need pretty good balance and leg muscles to stand back up). A couple people have told me they have favorite cushion they make a beeline for.
About a dozen women in the early 1980s made them by hand.
I’ve seen churches with needlepoint cushions before, but they were fancy and antique-looking – like this:
Ours are simple and contemporary, with colors and styling reminiscent of the 1980s. Many patterns had special significance, including one with an Ojibwe pattern since the deacon at that time was from that tribe.
They’re a fun part of our church identity, and push against stereotypes of suburban churches as sterile or Episcopal churches as hoity-toity. St. Benedict has always done church in a unique way – the kneeler cushions are no exception.
So, I thought I’d share the whole set here:
Looking over them, I realize that Christians symbols are a kind of language, one that not everyone may speak. Of course, some are just patterns (stripes or dots) and the pig cushion isn’t exactly from an ancient design. I’ve explained a few, but didn’t want to overdo it.
Here there are, in situ (with openings for stepping up or down).
Thanks to Nancy Moore, Carol Todd, Ruth Hammersmith, The Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen, Carol Dunlap, Ricky Bresser, Claire Stewart, Betty Anne Norton, Peggy Haack, Carol Rittle, and Irene Ingalls, whose names we have recorded as the needlepointers.