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What the Chapel Means to Me
Some thoughts from Carl Schroeder
The Cambridge Swedenborg Chapel holds a unique and valuable place in spiritual time and space, and I know that, and my friends know that. Friends both in spirit and in the body.
I first noticed the Chapel in the 1980's while a student at MIT. It's such a beautful place and charming with its New England protestant gothic stone appearance. But more, something felt very special here. I asked my religion professor, and he said (ever the dramatic) "oh those Swedenborgians! They believe in devils and angels!" Well I wasn't quite ready for that at the time, but I made a mental footnote, feeling that one day I would be.
In the fall of 1997 I was undergoing another spiritual transformation in my personal life. I am very growth oriented, I task risks of belief. I followed intuition and went into the Chapel, not knowing what to expect. I met Sarah Buteux and that was meant to be, because we went immediately into some very esoteric discussion. I attended some of her reading groups and met another friend Jed, who is knowledgeable of Rudolph Steiner. I became enamoured of the intellectual nexus that this place holds for so many brilliant good people on so many levels. I enjoyed unfolding friendships in the coming years with the ministers Bob and Gladys, the president Lars and his creatively talented wife Betty, the next student in residence Rebecca Kline, and many others. The philosophical discussions we have had, centering around the light that is Swedenborg, have been a godsend truly to me.
I also became involved with the local Tibetan community quite separately, and then found my path led again back to the Chapel, for that is where the Tibetan refugees have been given a loving home for their ceremonies, thanks largely to the foresight of Dr. Eugene Taylor. I was given keys to the Chapel so I could help stage with the Tibetans a day-long arts festival in May 1999, that was a great success. I have seen Tibetans dance and meditate and chant and worship in this home to the Buddha of the North, as DT Suzuki called him, Swedenborg.
I dreamt of giving a reverential lecture or two in a church setting, and the Chapel congregation obliged happily, allowing me to lead some services there. I felt spiritually called to help with the Save the Chapel efforts, and was honored to collect signatures, attend city council, and witness the granting of City Landmarking status. The Chapel needed a new website and I saw a great opportunity for me to be of assistance, because I wanted to see such an important place grow and thrive. Seeing the relationship of Swedenborg to modern spiritual exploration, I like to put advertisements for chapel events in the New England holistic magazines Spirit of Change and Earth Star. I've been welcomed by the chapel to attend meetings and focus groups as an associate member. We keep Swedenborg Reading hours twice a month available, and I started a bimonthly Mystical Experiences Discussion Group for seekers of all disciplines. These offer sanctuary for sincere thinking aloud, and dozens of people have come semi-regularly. I make friends through the Chapel and bring friends to the Chapel, and in October 2000 I took my fiancee here to get married. What a great place for a wedding! Our families loved it, as did the photographers.
The Chapel is clearly a very special and important place to me and for all the people to whom I introduce it. I continue to make grateful usages of the facility with all the respect I feel for Swedenborg and his own inventive heartfelt legacy. In April 2001 I am launching with the help of many new friends the first Mystic Arts festival, an evening of spiritual performance in poetry, song, story, dance, and visual art. The creative community is very excited, including some rather important people locally, and more than one mystically inclined artist is knowledgeably admiring of Swedenborg and delighted for the venue.
Swedenborgianism is a fine institution built to preserve the legacy of a great spiritual visionary, but in the abstract it is not a place of worship where one can live, breathe, and grow with fellows in community. Truly it is the great homes of living uses such as the Cambridge Chapel which can make Swedenborg proudest to this day.
Carl Johann Schroeder - February 26, 2001
Carl's Confirmation Statement - December 2, 2001
In you, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be ashamed. For You are my rock and my fortress; therefore, for your name's sake lead me and guide me.
Psalm 31: 1,3
(And Nicodemus said to Jesus) Rabbi, we know that thou are a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
John 3: 2,3
The nature of correspondence is unknown nowadays; this for several reasons. The foremost reason is that people have moved themselves away from heaven through love of self and love of the world. .... The ancient people behaved differently. As far as they were concerned, a knowledge of correspondences was the finest of all knowledges. They drew wisdom and discernment through it; through it, church people were in touch with heaven. For this knowledge of correspondences is no ancient knowledge. Using correspondence itself, the most ancient people (who were celestial people) thought like angels and actually talked with angels as a result. For the same reason, the Lord often appeared to them and talked to them. Nowadays though, this knowledge has so vanished that even the nature of correspondence is unknown.
Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell, 87
I thank you all for this opportunity to confirm my faith, commitment, and gratitude to the Swedenborgian church. This chapel has become a vital home and refuge for me; it is where I have important friends, where I married my dear wife Kimberly, and where I am continually given a place to practice and share my spiritual values.
I read quotes from the Bible and Swedenborg to share some sense for how I got to be here. I am a very spiritual person who has always sought God as my closest friend and mentor. But throughout my life, everytime I developed my greatest sense for God, that would be the time when I would reach a brink of a madness and desperation. The madness and desperation that comes from having one's eyes opened to the world as a place where everything, and I mean everything, is symbolic, a metaphor for something eternal and divine, and no one else in the surrounding society seems to share this view. This experience is what I believe Jesus referred to when he told Nicodemus, ah, so you think I'm the one who is making the miracles, well, you just need to be born again, because there are miracles happening everywhere you look.
The Swedenborg church is a place where I can share the company of people who study the works of Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg is someone who understands fully that the entire world is completely symbolic for God. What's more, Swedenborg maintained his sanity and dignity in the face of tremendous ridicule and opposition, so that he could explore and write about the phenomena of heaven with unsurpassed richness and completeness. This fact alone makes the Swedenborg church a great place where I belong. Thank you for being my friends in my spiritual journey.
Carl Johann Schroeder - December 2, 2001
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