A downtown Buffalo experience

Today was a cold, windy, and sometimes snowy day. It was winter trying to assert itself. It was the early flowers of spring popping out, despite the snowflakes and bitingly cold air. Here are some of the images of my downtown Buffalo experience.

At the Home and Garden show in the Buffalo Convention Center, I discovered a house (or at least part of a house). This is the outside of the house.

The theme of this house is Disney. Everything is Disney, especially Mickey Mouse. There are fun surprises everywhere. Look, even the carpet has a Mickey Mouse-shaped pattern.

Places for coats, shoes, umbrellas. All with that very bold color scheme.

Comfy and soft place to relax with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Bedroom decor.

Black and white bathroom.

This is another view of the bedroom.

Baby's crib, very Disney-esque.

This is me in a mirror taking a picture of me and the mirror. Note the picture of Mickey's feet, entirely in black and white.

I saw my friends here and I posed for this photograph, next to this Mickey Mouse portrait. Photograph is Portrait of Alice Contemplating Mickey.

Isn't this a cute place setting?

What a cute chair!

After leaving the Mickey Mouse house, I went inside a tiny house that was designed and built by high school students at Erie 1 BOCES. This house is very tiny, the size of a small room. It sits on a new 2016 trailer.

This wood burning stove is the heating system for the house.

This is the kitchen sink. It is super tiny. You couldn't wash pots and pans in this itty bitty sink. There is a little refrigerator next to the sink and some cabinet space. Cooking is done outside on a grill. This is definitely a minimalist house. There is no room for stuff. The bed is a pull down bed. It's enough of a bed for one person but for a couple... well, let's just say that you'd have to get along very well or there could be problems.

It could be a very nice guest house for friends or family. 

My next activity was to test out a bunch of beds. These guys gave me a tour of sleeping opportunities. The beds range from very firm to very soft. I tried most of them. I found that I did not like the firm beds. It was like attempting to sleep on a rock. The very soft bed was too soft and mushy. I could feel myself sinking into the bed more than I wanted to. I was happy with a bed that was more soft than firm. I liked the sensation of the bed accommodating my body.

One bed was too hard.
One bed was too soft.
And one bed was just right!
Just call me Goldilocks (but don't call me late to supper).

I wandered around the convention center and found some cool stuff...  here are options for your garden... rocks? stones? or what color mulch do you prefer?

Oooh, the hot tub looks inviting.

I explored this lovely bathroom. I was attracted by the interesting-looking bathtub.

built in storage for bathroom stuff.

One display was a wide variety of bathtubs and showers.

Shower time!!!

There were tasty things to sample, as well. I got to taste balsalmic vinegar, made by D'Avolio. The two flavors that I tasted were peach and cranberry-pear. They were scrumptious! Later on, I tasted a delicious sparkling wine. 

Living decoration for the wall.

Antiques appraisal.

I left the Home and Garden show and went to a water is life march and rally. It was a cold, windy, and raw day. I joined a group that had formed on South Elmwood in downtown Buffalo. We marched in circles for a while and then we marched to the Bank of America. The Bank of America is one of seventeen banks that is funding the Dakota Access Pipeline, the pipeline that the folks at Standing Rock, North Dakota, have so strongly opposed. Below are the images from the march and the rally. The pictures below are images from the rally.

Stand with Standing Rock.

Lenten Luncheon Series: Gifts of the Spirit, week one

Every year, the Grand Island Ministerium puts together a Lenten Luncheon series. There are five churches that are members of the ministerium: Saint Stephen Roman Catholic Church, Trinity United Methodist Church, Saint Martin in the Fields Episcopal Church, Saint Timothy Lutheran Church, and Island Presbyterian Church. All clergy from these churches attend meetings of the ministerium, where they plan events, such as the Lenten Luncheon series. The clergy chooses a different theme for the Lenten luncheons each year. This year, the theme is the gifts of the spirit.

The first Lenten luncheon was held on Wednesday, March 8th, and the speaker was the Rev. Paul Nogaro, pastor of Saint Stephen Roman Catholic Church.

All of the Lenten luncheons are held at Trinity United Methodist Church. In addition to a delicious meal and an inspiring message, there is a little boutique, with jewelry and other hand crafted items from artisans around the world. 

The products are colorful and well designed.

They look as if they are made with love.

And speaking of love, that was the topic of Father Paul's reflection. Love is one of the gifts of the spirit. He pointed out that the word "love" is used hundreds of times in the Bible. There are three kinds of love that are defined in the Bible:

• filia is the love that friends have for one another.
• eros is sexual love. This does not appear in the New Testament.
• agape is the type of love expressed by God. It is unconditional and it serves others. 

Love, however, can become negative and self serving. We can fall in love with ourselves or with the flattery offered by others. It becomes negative because we are imperfect human beings. We can be easily swayed by flattery because of our insecurities.

Love, when it is right, is "the most beautiful expression of our human nature," Father Paul said. "It is kind and patient. Jesus commands us to love. We have to have love for all people." 

It's not always easy to have love for all people. "Only God can live perfect love. Can we love other people for their own sake and not for what we get out of it? Can we love other people with their imperfections?"

If we loved unconditionally, would we gossip about other people? Would we post disparaging things on the internet and call people names that we don't want to be called? Would we harbor anger and express slanderous thoughts? Could we love other people because they are sons and daughters of God?

We are human and we fail to express unconditional love because it seems to be too hard for us. Father Paul suggested letting Christ lead us into greater depths of love. We are human and we can grow and we can change for the better.

Next week: The Rev. Canon Earle King of Saint Martin in the Fields Episcopal Church shares a reflection on joy and peace.

The Erie Canal story

At the most recent meeting of the Grand Island Historical Society, held on March 2nd, the guest speaker was Ray Wigle, development director of the Niagara County Historical Society and director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center. He told us about how the Erie Canal came to be and he really put the STORY into hiSTORY. 

As I mentioned in yesterday's post about Saint Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, the Erie Canal brought an influx of people to Buffalo. It truly gave life to Buffalo. Here are some of the highlights of Ray Wigle's presentation:

• Ever since the United States became a nation, there was a need for a canal so that goods could be shipped from the coast to the interior of the nation.
• The Appalachian Mountains served as an effective barrier to transporting goods.
• It was determined that the best place to create a water shipping route was New York State. However...
• The Hudson River was navigable
• but the Mohawk River Valley provided a barrier. It was steep, shallow, and rocky, and, most definitely, not navigable.
• Solution: build a canal to get past the Appalachian Mountains. The canal would connect the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Erie. From there, shipping via water routes could continue through the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River.
• The concept of the Erie Canal did not win unanimous support. One of the biggest proponents was DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828). He was the sixth governor of New York and he was largely responsible for building the canal. He felt that the country could be transformed by infrastructure improvements. Opponents, were not impressed by the canal project, referred to it as "Clinton's ditch."
• Construction of the canal began in 1817 in Rome, New York. All construction was done by hand. This project occurred before the industrial revolution.
• Once construction began, people were able to use the completed portions of the canal immediately, and opposition fell away. In fact, Clinton was actually pushed off of the canal commission because he didn't move fast enough to get the canal completed.
• The Niagara Escarpment proved to be a huge barrier to the completion of the canal. It was the edge of a huge plateau/shelf and, in most places, was 300 feet high.
• Lockport was discovered to be where boats could be lifted, unlike the Niagara Escarpment, where the project of lifting boats would have proven impossible to carry off. In Lockport, the top of the cliff dips down and, at this point, boats would only have to be lifted 60 feet, instead of 300 feet.
• To lift the boats, huge locks were designed. A standard size lock lifted a boat eight to eight and a half feet. The huge locks that were specially designed could lift boats twelve feet.
• Five locks in a row were built, called the "flight of five." The boats were  lifted 60 feet.  
• The locks were built to accommodate two-way traffic and to eliminate any waiting time.
• It took two and a half years for the locks to be built. It was a very difficult project.
• Between Lockport and Pendleton, there were several miles of extremely hard rock.
• A deep cut had to be made into the hard rock. This was known as the "deep cutting."
• The deep cutting was hard work. This small stretch of the canal took three years to build.

, 

• This image, provided by the speaker to the Grand Island Historical Society, is of one of the locks in Lockport. The below image was also taken in Lockport.
• The heavy work done for the deep cutting was done with horse-powered cranes. Those cranes were invented by Orringh ("Orange") Dibble, an engineer. 
• Nathan Roberts worked as the engineer on the eastern side of New York State.
• Prior to Dibble's invention, workers used wheelbarrows to cart away rocks, but that was a slow and laborious process. The deep cutting was considered to be an engineering marvel.
• The grand opening of the canal was held in 1825. It featured speeches, brass bands, and cannons.
• Governor Clinton was very excited. He took water from Lake Erie and poured it into the Atlantic Ocean. It was called the "wedding of the waters."

• The Erie Canal put Buffalo on the map. It became the terminus for the Great Lakes.
• New York City became a major seaport, as a result of the Erie Canal.
• The canal was a source of national pride.
• The canal network was still going strong after the railroads were built. People used it as passenger transport.
• The flight of five was modernized in 1835.
• The canal was animal powered. A towpatch was built alongside the canal, and the animals pulled the boats.
• The original canal was only four feet deep.
• The canal was later widened and deepened to its modern state. It is now called the barge canal.
• There are still two working locks in Lockport.
• The canal has been designated as a National Historic Corridor.
• Parks and Trails New York has been working on restoring the towpath. Approximately 85 percent of it has been restored and is usable by hikers and cyclists.
• Every July, there is a huge bicycle trip. Last year, more than 600 cyclists participated.

Buffalo story: Celebrating St. Paul's Cathedral's bicentennial

Today, I went with a group from Saint Martin in the Fields of Grand Island to visit Saint Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Buffalo. This year is the cathedral's bicentennial. It was established as a church in February of 1817. The original wooden structure was built at a cost of $5,000, which nearly bankrupted the congregation. When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, there was an influx of people. The Erie Canal brought people and economic boom to Buffalo. The church became too small for its greatly expanded membership. The process of raising money to build a new church took years and resulted in the split of the membership. Many people went to the new Trinity Episcopal Church, which is now located on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo.

Eventually, an architect was found to design a new church for St. Paul's. His name was Richard Upjohn (1802-1878). The church that he designed was built out of Medina sandstone in a Gothic style, which was Mr. Upjohn's specialty. Mr. Upjohn had designed numerous other churches, including Trinity Church in New York City. He also designed houses and office buildings. In 1857, he helped to found the American Institute of Architects and served as its president until 1876. In 1888, the church was nearly lost after a gas explosion and fire. The exterior was intact but the interior was severely damaged. The church's reconstruction was designed by Robert W. Gibson, an architect who had designed All Saints Church in Albany. By 1890, Saint Paul's church was reopened.

In 1973, Saint Paul's Cathedral was put on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1988.

the great pipe organ of the cathedral

The presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, came to Buffalo to celebrate the cathedral's bicentennial. He is the presiding bishop and the primate of the Episcopal Church. He was elected in 2015 and is the first African-American to serve in that position. He grew up in Buffalo and attended Saint Philip's Church. "I am thankful to be at home in Buffalo."

The theme of the presiding bishop's sermon was that God is the root and we are the branches. He mesmerized the large crowd that came from both the city and the surrounding towns with his brilliant combination of storytelling and preaching. He told us that Jesus started a movement, not an organization. "I'm going to show you a way to live and to love," Jesus told his followers. Jesus is the root of the movement. The movement continued, after Jesus was arrested, tried on unjust charges, tortured, and killed in a most horrific way.

Bishop Curry told us about a pilgrimage that he took to Ghana in west Africa as part of the work that he does in racial reconciliation. He visited the sites where slavery had it origins, where "slaves were carted in ships like cargo and were taken to an unknown world." There were slave camps in Ghana, and, to get to those camps, the people who were to be sold into slavery were forced to march. It was like the Trail of Tears, when the Five Civilized Tribes were forced to march from the southeast to Oklahoma. Many people died on the trail.

"Slaves were tied up on trees in the sweltering sun."

It was a place that had seen humans at their worse, abusing and enslaving their fellow humans. Yet it is a sacred place. There is a tree that had been there for centuries. "It is huge and blossoming, with a complex root system above and below ground."

The tree was a witness to the "pain, horror, and inhumanity" of humans enslaving other humans, Bishop Curry said. "Maybe this tree is a witness that good will triumph over evil."

The tree has survived much in its many years of existence: an advancing Sahara desert and the "climate change that is not happening."

"If we loved our neighbor as ourselves, we'd have a different world."

Racism has always been a problem in the United States. In the 1940s, the United States was very segregated. One of the areas in which the United States was segregated was in baseball. There were three professional baseball leagues: the American League, the National League, and the Negro League. Branch Rickey (1881-1965) was determined to see this segregation come to an end. As a young man, he had briefly been a professional baseball player. After that came to an end and after earning a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1911, Rickey got into the management side of baseball. He was credited for creating the "farm" system, in which players were trained in the minor leagues and then brought to major league teams.

Rickey, whom Bishop Curry described as "whiskey drinkin', cussin' Christian, was looking for someone to break the color barrier, someone who combined excellence in the field with excellence in the spirit. A devout Methodist, Rickey wanted to choose another Methodist for the role. He chose Jackie Robinson because "He's a Methodist, I am a Methodist, and God is a Methodist."

He told Jackie Robinson: "All true change will be resisted. You will be cursed and threatened. You can't retaliate."

Jackie Robinson wanted to know if he was looking for a "Negro who is afraid to fight back."

"I want a ballplayer who has the courage not to fight," Rickey said.

Because of their faith, these two men changed major league baseball for the better.

"Don't be afraid to be a Christian and stand for those who don't have a voice."

"If we loved our neighbor as ourselves, we'd have a different world."

At the end of the service, various elected officials (or their representatives) were invited to make brief remarks.

Representative from Governor Cuomo's office: Saint Paul's Cathedral is the light of the world.

New York State Senator Timothy Kennedy: This amazing church has been at the center of our community. It has seen transformation in our nation and in our community.

Mayor Byron Brown of Buffalo, New York: I am honored to welcome Bishop Curry back to Buffalo, where he grew up and to hear him preach the word of God.

Future posts: There will be more posts about people and places in Buffalo by springtime. Stay tuned!

The fifty-two week photography project: still life with bear

The challenge for week nine was still life (artistic). In each picture, there is a bear, who has a story to tell or, at least, a comment to make.

I wanted tea but these sea creatures invaded my cup.

I'm making sure that the cats behave when the birds visit this bird house.

I really need to condition my hair but how do I choose among all of this?

Shopping at the rummage sale is super fun.

I drank everything up and it tasted great! 

Look at my new girlfriend? Where's the music? I want the music!

Come again and visit. Come early and often, just as if you were voting!