The Salt Lake City Greek Festival - Trinity Orthodox Church - Salt Lake City, UT - September 7th, 2014

    

 Since moving to Utah I have not attended any festivals until today, and it was worth it. I'm doing this for the religious blog both because of what my friend I discussed while here and the fact that it has been the Trinity Orthodox Cathedral Community that has been hosting these events for over 30 years. Suffice to say much like religion, the experience was mixed. 

     I arrived at the event earlier than my friend and grabbed food, while here I had the chance to observe what was going on during the event. There tons of dance troupes that were on a stage in the large tent that hosted most of the folks there and many of them were named after Greek Gods (Dionysus Dance troupe for example). This is where I saw for a lot of the Church community history and legends are just as important as the faith from the Middle East (Christianity) that most of Greece is now. 

   I also saw how many different vendors had taken hold which after hearing a conversation between two old men has been at least somewhat of a controversy between some members of the group. Which is understandable, community is created and the event brings in lots of money for the local Greek Families and the Church but it also brings a corporate sell out feel when you have Bud Light stands and commercials right next to a Church and are selling jewelry in items when that was what pissed Jesus off in the New Testament with the money changers in the Church. So I get both sides on this debate. 

     Next I ran into the monument that was made in honor of sixteen Greek migrants who had died in their helping build the railroad through Utah, which was part of what brought many of the first immigrants here to Salt Lake City. I'd see more of this history in the Church's Hellenistic Museum after going through Trinity Cathedral.

     Trinity Orthodox Cathedral is a beautiful place, and there a lot of members there to answer questions, which I didn't really have since there were so many papers around that gave the perspective of the Church. For one I saw the "One True Church"^tm that pervades most religious communities as there was a flyer that showed how the One True Holy Apostolic Church has a straight line that doesn't branch through the Orthodox Church, but that things branched and kept on branching with the Roman Catholic Church into the reformation showing that they didn't have the right idea. I always find this a bit disturbing and intriguing since the events of the Bible are so sketchy historically that I don't see how the tradition can justify itself except through making and believing the claim, regardless of the questionable circumstances and events of the life Jesus and the early Church.  I talked about this with my friend when she arrived at the event and we grabbed coffee in the cafe that had been created next to the Church and Church Museum. 

     It was here we discussed religious fanaticism, our agnosticism on the supernatural and are questioning of organized religion. This quote by Carlin pretty accurately discussed our problems of people in groups which (looking at news and the communities we interact with) show how religion tends to make this problem worse. 

“The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it, because you've lost your identity, because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that's bigger than you are and that controls you.”

― George Carlin, Last Words

   After the festival we went to Temple Square and the locations there (and the Mormon Church History Museum) which will be a post for another day...since that one has much more to cover than this one and goes into more detail on why I left the Mormon Church and would find it pretty impossible to rejoin.  

Xuanmiao Guan - Suzhou, China - April 1st, 2012

This entry was hard to write. I've never been at a place where I've felt such a mixture of emotions (except perhaps when I visited the Vatican). I think the best way to tackle it is how I first met the Temple.

At the gate there is a building that was part of the Temple complex but now serves as a high end place for people to buy gold (blessed by Taoist monks, yep). Outside the Temple gates (and within I would soon learn) are shops and more shops. Clothes, high end tea, figurines and even things with naked women on them that look like they came out of a trailer park. These shops and more surround the Temple and are spread throughout the Temple grounds.

Once we passed through the gate we were greeted by a swarm of shoppers who were visiting the different craftsmen and sellers that covered the grounds of the sides of the Temple. Wanting to get out of the noise and feeling of emptiness I made for the main building of the Temple which was separated by a small gate.

Once inside I was greeted by a throng of people who sat watching a Taoist service taking place. The music was peaceful, the chanting was order to the chaos outside. Inside the Temple three Golden Immortals rose up where offerings were placed. The monks were dressed in colorful robes and around was a guardian for each birth year on the Chinese Zodiac.

The people were mid-age (a few 20ish) but mostly older married couples. You could see that they were experiencing something in the ritual and peace that the main hall brought. Even as a tourist site, it hadn't completely gone to the dogs. It was still an active temple and for all the people there it meant something.

Of the things that stood out in the main hall, there was a one horned bull that was rubbed on the head and snout for luck, an immortal who was most likely Guan Yin of Buddhist lore who was in three corners of the Temple. There also was a bridge placed in the middle of the hall painted black and gold.

After we crossed through to the back we found a hall with tacky lights around a God or Immortal of War, the room was nearly empty, and then in the main hall the three Gods of Long life. We crossed through the hall and ended up back with the shops. The shops were impossible to get away from, except in the Temple rooms.

The last thing we saw were the God of Literature. The fact that one exists made me smile a bit inside. It's nice to know that something like that has been admired for thousands of years. It was outside this temple where in the shop that was selling Gods, porn on plates and stuff was also being sold.

This place made me feel peace and want to wretch. Peace because of the people there worshiping and the times I myself prayed and other wretch because of how close money as God was present...it was hard to tell where the good of religion and worship of money began as they overlapped in a messed up ball of humanity...