Carhenge

Just outside of Alliance, Nebraska is a unique, unexpected and quite delightful sight. In that part of the country where center-point irrigation makes those perfect green circles that you see from an airplane cabin window as you fly over at 30,000 feet, you don't think about how the corners of those fields or other non-cultivated areas might be used.

Prairie grass, mostly. At least that was Patty's and my guess as we drove southeast from the Black Hills in South Dakota to the Pine Ridge Reservation to see the Native American art at the Red Cloud School and visit the memorial at Wounded Knee, and then scoot into Nebraska and the vicinity of the North Platte River, Chimney Rock and Scottsbluff. Prairie grass mostly ...or memorials.

Carhenge was not on our original itinerary but, hey - when you realize you're that close to something truly quirky, you just don't pass by on the other side. We arrived later in the afternoon, on a warm mid-October "t-shirt weather" day. The one other car in the lot was just leaving so we had the entire site to ourselves...an introvert explorer's dream!

We learned that the original henge is the work of Jim Reinders and his family, and is a memorial to Jim's father who died in 1982. While gathered for the funeral the family conceived of the idea of replicating the original Stonehenge of Salisbury Plain, which Jim had studied while living in England, as a memorial. The clan agreed to gather back in Alliance in five years to copy Stonehenge right there in Nebraska, duplicating the physical size and placement of the Salisbury Plain stones. They would adjust for local latitude and longitude to keep proper solar orientation and, in place of monoliths use full-size American cars, recycled from back lots, junk yards and old sheds.

And so they did. Thirty eight automobiles duplicate the placement of the standing stones on Salisbury Plain in a circle about 96 feet in diameter. Uprights were set five feet into the ground, trunk end down. Cars forming the lintels were welded into place. Full sized cars replicate three standing trilithons within the outer circle as well as two station stones and the slaughter stone, and a 1962 Cadillac replicates the heel stone. All were painted gray (now gray-green), and the memorial was dedicated on the Summer Solstice in 1987 with champagne, poetry, songs, a play written by members of the family and, one can imagine, an abundance of good humor and satisfaction with, perhaps, even a few tears. But there's more.

Over time a full ten acre tract was set aside and donated to the community. A parking lot, small visitor's center with restrooms and souvenirs and a couple of outdoor picnic tables were added. Additional sculptures have been introduced in an adjacent Car Art Reserve. Now visitors can get up close and personal with a prize-winning spawning salmon by Canadian artist Geoff Sandhurst. There's a ten-foot high dinosaur, a "covered" station wagon, a giant sunflower, and a large "Ford Seasons" portraying Nebraska wheat growing through the year, from tender green shoots through two car-lengths-high fully mature plants to harvested grain and, finally, bent-over winter stalks. There's even an "Auto-graph" car where visitors can satisfy the need to leave their mark while at the same time preserving the original artwork.

Coming forward to today, it must be said that originally some folks in Alliance thought the project an eyesore and tried to have it fenced in as a junkyard, but in time and with good dialogue a "Friends of Carhenge" group was founded and they now care for the property and see it as a community asset (enjoying over 80,000 visitors a year!). If you want to know more you can google Carhenge (where I got my back story) or the Alliance, Nebraska, Chamber of Commerce.

Bishop Cate Waynick shares a definition of liturgy that rings true for me: Liturgy is private work for public good. Liturgy, according to this definition, is not just Sunday worship, which is how we usually understand it, but is personal effort and substance given for the benefit of all. So a Carnegie Library building is a work of liturgy, as is the bread that our parish baker prepares week-by-week for our Sunday Eucharists, as is the self-offering of Jesus on Calvary.

Private work for public good: that'd be hand-tied fleece blankets, decorated stockings and luscious snacks for Jubilee Christmas, or the skill and experience of a food-service professional volunteering in the kitchen at the Community Thanksgiving Meal (to say nothing of the musicians who make the music while others dine), or the effort of the grandmother who made the fifteen children's activity bags hanging by the door of our church, most of which are used by someone else's grandchildren every week, or the folks who hand iron our altar linens or bake and serve cookies at a funeral visitation in the parish hall.

Private work for public good: giving something at personal cost, to the benefit of others. Cate's definition invites us to stretch the traditional understanding of liturgy as Sunday worship, and in a good way. Oftentimes (and I'm as guilty of this as any) I think we too easily slip into doing what we do on Sunday mornings primarily for our own satisfaction and that of our parish friends. Cate's definition reminds us liturgy is not something we do for our own satisfaction.

Private work for public good: it's not simply the same as making a monetary contribution toward the support of the local church, or any other not-for-profit, I think. Those are good, important and necessary things, certainly. But this understanding of liturgy takes us deeper. Deeper because too often - especially in these busy times - we think the monetary gift is enough. In point of fact, money might be a fairly easy thing for many, even in these present economic times, to give, whereas time, personal effort, attention and focus are much more precious commodities - much more a measure of self. My own parish struggles for people's time, and we are not the only parish I know of with this struggle.

Private work for public good: I bet they had a blast conceiving, executing, and dedicating Carhenge. It sits on the high plains of western Nebraska as a great big grin to God and Jim's grandfather; and I believe God and grandfather are smiling back (and I bet a lot of visitors smile as well). I bet the champagne was deliciously chilled and sparkling, the play outstanding, the poetry and songs heroic, the solstice a crowning touch, and grandfather was delighted. No doubt it broke their hearts that some townsfolk said it was junk, just like when parishioners criticize the liturgy of those who arrange the Christmas or Easter flowers. Maybe that's the best test of when an offering is true liturgy - when it's rejection breaks our hearts.

Private work for public good: May it be that we always accept the liturgy of others, and that our liturgy and offering of self is always acceptable, that others are served by it, and that it brings a smile to God and all who stop by.