The Bookwright: Day 6 -- National Cathedral and Spy Museum

The National Cathedral

Its Mission --

to serve as a house of prayer for all people

and a spiritual home for the nation.

Sunday, the sixth day of our History Vacation, we went to church. The only day we went by car. Our Lyft driver to the National Cathedral was a long-time Washington resident. Before he started driving for Lyft he drove a taxi, so he was very knowledgeable both about how to get where we wanted to go and about what we saw on our way.

(An aside regarding Lyft -- my daughter reminded me that when she was growing up I taught her not to arrange to meet strangers on the internet and not to get into cars with people she didn't know. Now we make arrangements with strangers on the internet to get into cars with them.)

Having grown up in Oklahoma where there are no natural lakes and now living in Colorado which is High Plains Desert, the concept of water travel is very exotic to me. The Potomac River which empties into the Chesapeake Bay which in turn opens out to the Atlantic Ocean is an important feature of the City of Washington and an endless source of fascination for me. On the way to church we passed through country that was a combination of city buildings and sail boat masts.

Like the Washington Monument, the National Cathedral was damaged in 2011 by the strongest earthquake east of the Mississippi since 1944.

The magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck about 90 miles southwest of Washington D.C. and was felt by more people than any other quake in U.S. history. It was felt in 12 states and several Canadian provinces.

The Cathedral still has scaffolding in place and is trying to gather enough money to repair the damage.

Each of the doors across the front of the church is covered by beautiful ornamental metal gates.

The left entry gate Two details from the left entry gate

On Saturday, the day before we went to church, Washington had its big Pride Parade to celebrate its LGBTQ community. We were unaware that the parade was taking place so we missed it.

The entrance procession for mass typically includes all who will serve during mass -- the ministers who will serve at the altar, including acolytes or servers, the deacons or priests who will serve as assisting clergy, and the celebrant.

To acknowledge Pride Week, the procession also included a woman carrying the cross festooned with rainbow-colored streamers.

The Reverend Canon Jan Naylor Cope's sermon emphasized diversity and unity. She stressed that all are welcome in our nation and to this church. And that we should strive to overcome the deep divisions within our country and work together for the good of all.

A fitting service to bless our History Vacation.

Among the many striking features of the National Cathedral is one that is not there. The entrances have no metal detectors to walk through and no one examines the contents of your purse. Although, I felt perfectly safe everywhere we went in D.C., I must say, I felt safer there even without the righteous, post 9/11 security practices at all the museums.

From church, we took another Lyft to the Spy Museum. Well, actually, he let us out at the Spy Museum, but there was a Shake Shack right next door. Ah, yes. Burgers all around.

The Spy Museum is not one of the Smithsonian museums and is not free. It also ain't cheap. You get $2 off if you get tickets on line, but for an adult they're still $20.95.

For that, you get all things spy. Both real spies and fictional ones. The information and artifacts about real spies are real, not a bit cheesy. But, if they were, they might be less disturbing.

The kids, including my adult son, enjoyed the Spy Museum immensely. My personal favorite was James Bond's car. (Photo by the museum.)

Think I'll stick with the fictional spies.

On the walk from there to the nearest Metro Station, we were treated to some unique and beautiful Washington architecture.