Softly Glowing Night

Friday night we went to the Illumination at the Sharon Temple, in Sharon, ON, north of Toronto. The temple was built by a religious sect that broke away from the Quakers of Newmarket around 1818. Led by the charismatic David Willson, the sect, called the Children of Peace, became known for its charity, music, and astonishing belief (for the time) in the equality of all humankind.

The building itself was inspired by the biblical Temple of Solomon, but, lacking the resources to build a gilded stone monument in the Upper Canada wilderness, they settled for a skillfully-built, completely square wooden building, with some remarkable touches, like a delicately-arching, dizzyingly-steep staircase -- dubbed 'Jacob's Ladder -- climbing to a second story open to the worship space below. The building rests on a six-inch stone foundation, supported by strong fir beams connected with wooden pegs. On the outside, at the corners of all three tiers, glass lamps containing candles were lit once a year, on the first Friday of September, during the Illumination ceremony. The many windows, on all sides of the building, also glowed softly with candlelight. Members marched down the main street of town, singing and playing instruments, into the Temple for a worship celebration. The evening culminated with a communal feast and sharing the 'Illumination Cake'.

Friday night the weather was clear and soft. We arrived at dusk, the last of the sunset making the white clapboard walls of the Temple glow. Inside, it was packed for this very popular event. The Boyfriend and I slipped in a wee bit late and perched on the last empty chairs visible in the dim light. An odd, but skilled, folk music choir, made up of people from the very old to the very young (age eight? nine?) started with a hymn written by the sect's founder Willson. The crowd, squinting at copies of the music in the faint light, were invited to sing along. Not for the first time lately I've wished for reading glasses. My time is coming, mark my words...

Acoustically, with the hard wooden walls and high ceilings, the room is as live as a downed electric wire. The choir leader sang a tenor solo from the era, accompanied by piano, and in-between verses a violinist had his own solo drift down ("...as a rose from above.", the singer said) from the second story. Ethereally sigh-inducing, in a good way.

A guest speaker gave a disjointed, but nonetheless inspiring speech primarily about good, responsible, constructive citizenship, which tied nicely into the Children of Peace ethos. More music followed, clear, bright and bracing, with a slightly out-of-tune pump organ hooting in the corner. 'Illumination Cake' and tea and coffee followed the ceremony in the out-buildings, under the almost-full moon. We admired the Temple from the outside now, the candles as warm golden points on its perimeter, stars glittering coolly in the velvety, dark background. The crickets were singing madly somewhere in the bushes and I could feel dew collecting low in the air at our feet.

I took a few pictures with my digital cameras, and didn't do too badly, but they pale in comparison with the real event. The staff and volunteers at the Temple pulled off a secular, yet still thoroughly spiritual, event that will linger in my memory for a long time. Bravo to them. If there's a heaven, I'm sure the Children of Peace are smiling down from there, over Sharon, on the first Friday of September.