The church I go to in Colorado Springs is designated as a State Historical Building.\u00a0 It was built in 1893 as a Unitarian church, which means it has had the same liberal denomination for its entire (nearly) 118 year history.\u00a0 (The doors opened in January of that year.)\u00a0 I mention these things because it’s something I like to tell people who are new to the church.\u00a0 Without fail, they find this to be interesting information.\u00a0 Even more, they find it interesting that ours is the oldest continuous congregation in town.\u00a0 There are older churches, but their services have suffered interruptions when they did not have a minister.\u00a0 Unitarians have been lay-led when the need arose, so our services have not had an interruption since they started in 1891, two years before the building was built.<\/p>\n
History has always been interesting to me, and it’s an interest I find most people have in varying degrees.\u00a0 The success of films like Titanic<\/em> is in part due to the coverage of a major historical event and people’s interest in that event.\u00a0 Yes, there are other elements of interest, but it’s definitely interesting to see a portrayal how people lived in times past.<\/p>\n This, I think, is the key.\u00a0 We are quite familiar with present times, but anybody more than a few years old has seen the times change.\u00a0 I grew up without email, the internet, cable TV and microwaves.\u00a0 Microwaves had been around, but didn’t really become popular until somewhere in the 70’s, when I was in my second decade of life.\u00a0 Mom didn’t get a microwave oven until a few years ago, in fact, and I don’t think Dad has one yet.\u00a0 Cable TV came around in the 80’s–I remember watching HBO and MTV in college and loving it.\u00a0 All of these things are personal observations of changing times, and it’s interesting to look back at how people lived decades or even centuries before these conveniences came around.<\/p>\n Attitudes have changed, too.\u00a0 Think of the class separation depicted in Titanic<\/em>.\u00a0 Sure, there’s still a bit of that, but it’s changed from then.\u00a0 Look at the view of teenage pregnancy today, something common enough before the twentieth century and often expected.\u00a0 Women who reached their twentieth birthday without getting married and having a couple of kids were considered to be “old maids.”\u00a0 Hell, that label could easily be applied to women who reached their sixteenth<\/em> birthday without a marriage in the offering.\u00a0 Today, though, we gasp at the rise of nurseries in high schools.<\/p>\n So we look back at historical events and wonder what we might have done in such times.\u00a0 If we were on<\/em> the Titanic<\/em>, would we have been among its few survivors?\u00a0 If we lived in the U.S. in the mid-1800’s, would we have sided with the Union or the Confederacy?\u00a0 Would we have owned slaves?\u00a0 If we lived in the colonies in the late 1700’s, would we have fought for independence?\u00a0 If we lived in ancient Rome, what would our daily life be like?<\/p>\n I read a book awhile back about the Lewis and Clark expedition, Undaunted Courage<\/em>.\u00a0 This book focused on Merriweather Lewis, discussing his life before and after the historic journey he went on.\u00a0 The journey itself was fascinating, but again it was the people on it and what they did which was more interesting.\u00a0 For example, there’s a passage in the book which describes Lewis’ first view of the Rocky Mountains.\u00a0 He and his companions knew, thanks to their Indian friends, they would have to traverse mountains on their journey, but their only mountain experience was the Appalachians in the eastern part of the U.S.\u00a0 They figured these mountains would be similar; nothing major to cross.\u00a0 But Lewis crested a rise and saw the Rockies and had what I would call an “Oh, shit!” moment.\u00a0 In kinder terms, he realized these<\/em> mountains were not so friendly and would take more than a couple of days to cross.\u00a0 He said as much in his journal, and it is his description of this moment that gives light to how he and the others felt at the time, that connects we in the present time to Lewis and his companions then and there.<\/p>\n