Church Car Bang

The Elizabeth Church in Berlin is gutted. It looks like the previous tenants were foreclosed on. The murals, the balconies, the pews, the organ, even little Jesus himself, it’s all gone. All that’s left is a lot of brick and the vague outline of a church. What really happened is that some asshole dropped an incendiary bomb nearby and burned out the church’s insides, like a great big fireplace.

Can I stop for a second to comment, in a typical American way, about how special the German toilets are? Imagine walking into a public restroom and seeing a sign like this:

Standing inside of the church now it feels like looking at a churches shadow. It’s been rennovated, and now people use it for special events, but not prayer. I like it this way. Rather than a breathtaking stained-glass window that draws your attention up and up until your neck is craned toward the ceiling, your gaze toward the heavens, there is a massive inflatable ball suspended from the ceiling and illuminated from above. It feels like the inside of my head does: huge, empty, with some undecipherable mystery ball hanging from the ceiling. And when I talk or yell or stomp my feet, the reverberating sound fades so gradually that I miss the border between sounds in the room and sounds in my head.