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In 2002, Genesis past president (1993-1995) Peter Dodge, who had joined St. Clares' in 1978 shortly after Genesis was formed, was asked by the Genesis Board to share his reflections of Genesis history and how our congregations wound up with our new sanctuary in 1994. As we approach the 31st anniversary of the ground breaking, the 30th anniversary of the first services in our new sanctuary, and in the context of the 50th Anniversary of Genesis, we revisit building our sanctuary from big dreams.
…to kneel where prayer has been valid.
— T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
As the Genesis 'Tree-Of-Life" confirms, we are now well-rooted in our new Sanctuary. As one of many St. Clarians 'present at [this] creation,' I am confounded by my own inability to recollect much of the chronology of the hard and protracted labor from which our liturgical and social space emerged. Perhaps the experience is, in fact and not merely in metaphor, akin to the amnesia which follows human childbirth. Surely, like birth, this undertaking was and will remain an event of generational dimension: to be recollected not in its myriad details but in the broader aspects of its conception and realization.
I was not a member of St. Clare's when the congregation raised up its first building in the 1950's, nor was I on board when the white, glass-curtained sanctuary was erected circa 1970.
When I first wandered (almost literally) into a St. Clare's service in the summer of 1978, paint was drying in the then recently constructed classroom building. Though I knew nothing then of the fiscal and organizational complexity associated with new construction (ignorance is bliss), I may have recognized subliminally that this was a fortuitous moment to arrive, i.e., just after a new building had been dedicated and the requisite funds raised from persons other than myself.
While I was on the Vestry in 1982, St. Clare's rehabilitated the Wisdom House and asphalted over the rear (and only) parking lot at a cost, if memory serves, of about $80,000.00, an amount then larger than St. Clare's annual operating budget. This was truly scary—a large sum of money was being committed and we were even losing the quasi-rural simplicity and understatement of our gravelled and puddled parking ground.
Parish membership at St. Clare's grew gradually—perhaps we 'evolved' to a larger size even as the congregation of Temple Beth Emeth, our Genesis partner of a decade and more, expanded geometrically. In 1988, the Vestry organized and convened the first meeting of an ad hoc body functionally named the "Space Needs Committee." It was only after I had served on this council for several months that I was able to acknowledge to myself that newcomers or latecomers to our sanctuary were often at a loss as to where they might sit, and that they might feel vaguely unneeded or unwelcome.
Genesis commissioned a preliminary architectural study circa 1990 which suggested that we retain the 1970 sanctuary and construct a virtually identical building immediately to the north to serve as the social hall much needed by the Temple congregation. A number of St. Clarians were truly distressed by the implications which such development might have for the unique spiritual intimacy and ambiance of our parish and for our collective will and capacity to promote outreach. Even construction enthusiasts were chastened by the projected cost, exceeding $3,000,000.00. As we pondered these things in our hearts, the Temple commissioned its own internal study in order to confirm the long-term objectives of its congregation and the resources which would be made available to that end.
Ultimately, both congregations were inspired to move forward. John Hilberry and his firm were retained as architects because their body of work reflected aesthetic grace and spirituality. It was John Hilberry who conceived the new sanctuary, as distinguished from the doubtful prospect of a merely reconfigured 1970 sanctuary. The design was approved by the Church and Temple and coordinated capital campaigns were launched. Significantly, notwithstanding the Temple's larger membership and greater pledge capacity, the final resolutions adopted by each congregation specified that St. Clare's would continue to share operating expenses equally with the Temple, even as it was agreed that the Temple would contribute a larger fraction of the capital cost. Ground was broken on October 18, 1993, and the Temple convened its high holy day services in the new sanctuary the following September. Bishop Wood presided at our dedicatory service, celebrating the spirit and grace once again made manifest here.
– Peter J. Dodge, 2002
Our Sanctuary in 3 configurations (2024)
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