Washington Cathedral

Washington Cathedral

I stood at the back of the large tour group. The tour guide was excellent. Her voice projected to me in precise diction and grammar as she described each feature of the large organ.
“Do you want to feel it?” an unfamiliar man’s voice whispered into my right ear.
Adrenalin crashed around in my body. I reached for my guide dog’s harness preparing to bolt to the left.
Before I moved, it dawned on me. He meant the awesome pipe organ the guide was describing during our tour of the National Cathedral in Washington, D. C.
After assurances that I wouldn’t get arrested for touching things I’d grown up knowing I wasn’t supposed to touch, the second tour guide literally let down the barriers for me to experience our National Cathedral.
I stood in the display and eagerly explored the nooks and crannies of the models used to make the gargoyles and grotesques that adorn the top of the massive seven story stone building.
I found the drain pipe that distinguishes the gargoyle from the grotesque.
I stood on a chair and stretched up to feel the intricately carved wooden panels behind an altar.
I passed the fencing and stroked the Canterbury Pulpit from which so many famous speeches and sermons have been given.
I counted the coarse, nubby lumps as I felt an ancient tapestry representing the Good Shepherd and His sheep.
When I got down on all fours to feel a tapestry runner, Future thought it was finally time for her to play!
I gingerly traced the edge of Helen Keller’s sarcophagus in one of the lower levels. I carefully read the Braille plaque commemorating her life and work.
The National Cathedral was a world opened to me by a well trained guide in an enlightened institution that let down the barriers to this person with a handicap.
From the euphoria of being above the flying buttresses with the gargoyles to the claustrophobic sensation when standing between the massive pillars in the lowest catacomb; from the profound silence in the tombs to the bone marrow penetration of the huge pipe organ’s music; from the pageantry and reverence of the past to the hope of the future, it is an experience I wish on everyone.
The Washington National Cathedral (The Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul), Massachusetts and Wisconsin, Washington, D.C. Phone: 1-202-537-6200.
If you have special needs, call ahead to make specific arrangements.
I’m looking forward to your postcard.
NOTE: A version of this essay was originally published April 26, 1996, Wayne County STAR Newspaper. Copyright © 1996, 2010 by Kate Chamberlin. All Rights Reserved.