Piety Hill Musings

The ramblings of the Rector of St. John's Church in the city of Detroit. Piety Hill refers to the old name for our neighborhood. The neighborhood has changed a great deal in the over 165 years we have been on this corner (but not our traditional biblical theology) and it is now known for the neighboring theatres, the professional baseball and football stadiums and new hockey/basketball arena.

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Location: Detroit, Michigan, United States

Monday, January 24, 2022

Window repair - Rector's Rambling for January 23, 2022

     Today you might notice that the windows above the altar area, to the left and right, seem a bit brighter.  That is because they are!

These two windows do receive some natural light, and a few people did notice last week that both were completely dark on Sunday.  That was because they were boarded up on the outside.

These two windows are especially interesting because they actually aren’t mounted on the outside walls of the church. These two windows, and the walls behind them, are on an angle but on the outside of the building that wall is straight from one end to another.  Behind the interior walls is a triangular space that goes from the top all the way down to the undercroft.

A door located on the east wall of the undercroft, as well as a similar door in the new kitchen pantry, are the entry points into this empty space. The doors do not reach ground level because there used to be a stage at that end of the wall. On the wall inside of  triangular space is mounted a ladder to climb all the way up to those windows.  On the outside wall at the top is clear glass, and the inside wall the stained glass. Also mounted there is a light strip for added light during the day, and lighting for night services.

It was recently discovered that the one of the outside plain glass windows was broken and the wooden frames on both badly deterioated by weather and time. 

The vestry approved the building of new aluminum frames for the outside windows, and to update the lighting to a new LED fixture.  Additionally, the center window light had collapsed and is in the process of being replaced as of the writing of this article and should be functional on Sunday. 

The windows on the left (gospel side) are the great Old Testament prophets  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.  The other window is the four gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  The center window is Jesus blessing the little children.

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Today in our teaching notes on page 4 we hear about one of the ministries being supported by our Outreach Committee.  Each month we will share with you something about the groups and people that we are helping through the outreach funds, a tithe of the funds that we receive on the lease for our parking lot property.  Additionally we support a seminarian and the Church in Malawi through budgeted income in the parish.