This past weekend when I was in Montreal, my friends and I all paid the admission to enter the Notre Dame Basilica. I remember seeing the cathedral when I was younger and visited the city with my family. But of course we didn't pay to go inside of it; we just took pictures from the exterior and went on our way. I guess we all wanted to get out of the cold badly enough this time though.
Going inside old cathedrals always stirs up a lot of memories. (Now the Notre Dame Basilica will be added to that store.) It makes me think of grade eleven art class, when we learned about Gothic architecture. We learned about the front facade of all (I think) cathedrals have three doors, with the central one being larger than the others. There's a stained glass window, called the rose window, above it. We learned terms like vaults and flying buttresses, which I no longer know how to employ. The interior of the cathedral is cross-shaped, and the long aisle is called the nave. The top of the cross is called the ambulatory, and I think that's where the choir would sit.
I've taken all that knowledge with me (the best that I can), whenever I am inside a cathedral. I was in the
Toronto Children's Chorus for several years, and we often performed in churches because the acoustics are amazing. Having said that, cathedrals also remind me of choir - red dresses, black patent shoes, blue music bags and all. Our pianist, an elderly lady named Mrs. Henderson, was incredibly skilled. Sometimes I'd be mesmerized just watching her aged fingers rippled effortlessly over the keys. (I was short, so I was always in the first or second row, close enough to the piano.) She also played the organ, so for the more majestic pieces, she would disappear up to the organ loft and accompany us with the appropriate grandeur.
My next post-choir memory of cathedrals is my trip to France in July 2003. I spent four weeks surrounded by gorgeous European architecture, learning about the French language and culture. While I was there, I naturally visited the famous Notre Dame Cathedral and the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. I even attended a mass service at the Notre Dame, because I hadn't been to church at all during my trip. It was definitely an interesting experience... my first time at a mass, combined with my inability to understand anything the bishop was saying.
This past summer, while working at
Evergreen, a new dimension was added to my perspective on Gothic churches though. During the street walk that my friends and I did, we went into a church where they were running a dinner program. We sat in the pews, all greasy and tired and cranky, and listened to a guy sing and talk before we were led to another room to be fed. That time, the grandeur of the church felt more hollow, as if the high ceilings and wide nave were meant to give God more space so He could stay far enough so that He didn't have to touch me.
A few weeks later I went on outreach with a coworker, which means that we walk around the city near our campus to see if we run into any of the regular youth, and sort of say hi and check in with them. He took me to a church in the downtown core, I forget the intersection.. but it had been abandoned/converted into a place for homeless people to hang out. If you can imagine Toronto summers, take that thought and cram it into one building, along with people who haven't showered or changed their clothes in God knows how long. It was an uncomfortable sight, but in a way, it was really beautiful. The church was being used for the purpose that I believe Jesus intended for it. The outcasts of society could have some place to be without being harassed or judged. They could sit and play cards, or chat, or sleep, and just be. Never mind what they were wearing, or whether they'd bathed or shaved, or if they were rested; people were welcome to come as they are.
So back to the Notre Dame Basilica... admiring it and taking pictures was a very academic exercise for me. Ambulatory, nave, rose window. Check. The place was filled with other like-minded tourists, all trying to capture the beauty of the architecture and embellishments, and save it for later. For me, the beautiful Gothic churches would always only be pretty buildings in a photograph or on a postcard - landmarks, museums, artwork. I would head down to the stuffy, noisy places with cranky homeless people in them if I wanted to see God.
Welch-Allyn They did the first presentation, and impressed us all with the plastic-resin handles that come with a sleeve to plug directly into a socket. The feel of the o-scope is good, maybe because I'm the most used to it and got to try it out in anatomy lab. The ret seemed hard to turn though, I'm not sure if it was just that particular one that was on display. Welch-Allyn also offers the patented PanOptic, which is a fun novelty for getting a larger view of the retina but not really necessary. And after seeing the other two companies, this one just looks a little bit cheaper than the others. It's the leader in medical diagnostic equipment but I'm not sure if they specialize in optical/ophthalmic instruments.
Heine (pronounched high-nah, not heiney) This is a German company, and offers also the most expensive set. You have the option of purchasing skinny or fat handles (or one of each), but the skinny handle uses a nickel-metal-hydride battery and has only 45-min of on-time, and the fat lithium handles seem a little bit too fat. However Heine (and Keeler) have the option of being powered by batteries (AA or C) in case you run out of battery or want to do missions where you might not be able to charge [easily].
