Felonious Arson, Revenge, and an Impending Swansong for the Flock

We will fight for 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more. If the generation of fathers is not successful, the generation of the sons will continue.  Ho Chi Minh

A few years ago, a kid I used to play baseball with burned down a church, tried to burn down the high school football coach's house, and then got nailed in a sting operation trying to sell a murder contract on the coach while in the county lockup. While I didn't agree with his actions, despite my personal sentiments on organized religion, and more specifically, Christianity, I think my ire for this misguided punk stems more from his foolishness rather than any particular distate for his actions. After all, I lived in the city with more churches per square mile than any other in the United States. The savage, evangelical hum of this place is enough to send even the most stable person off the cusp into a frothing and bottomless insanity.

I was reminded of this incident while driving home from the public library at which point I happened to pass by the construction area for the new church being erected not two blocks from downtown. For a city this small (pop. 50,000), the church is an architectural mammoth spanning about eighty yards of what used to be the related Catholic school's parking lot/playground. The church has three main wings, a bell tower [probably inactive], and a framed cutout that will soon be inhabited by a needlessly ornate, expensive stained glass window. I'm almost certain that if I'd had the time to properly survey the new building, I probably would have seen flying buttresses as well, but as of now, I can not confirm that suspicion.