Searching for God

Brandon Ferguson, OP Contributor

he sky, hung with dark clouds,

| pushed down on the city. Wind

whipped the trees, and puddles
polka-dotted the pavement

The sun occasionally poked its head
through the heavens calling critters out
from under the soggy boxes and forgot-
ten hubcaps that litter the empty lots
along Southeast Marine Drive. While it
was an ideal Tuesday afternoon for office
workers, it was an ominous day to be
looking for God.

Just west of the Queensborough
Bridge there stands three churches: the
Iglesia Ni Cristo, the Evangelical Chinese
Bible Church (ECBC), and the Hare
Krishna temple. Iglesia, a Filipino-based
church, and the ECBC, with over 1,200
devotees, are within spitting distance of
each other. Four hundred yards of empty
lot and uprooted trees separates them
from the Hare Krishna temple. Tucked
into a corner lot, pushing against subur-
ban firs and hedges, the Krishnas are less
conspicuous than the other two.

Sort of.

The overgrown foliage and a sharp
curve along Marine conspire to conceal a
12-metre high statue of Lord Krishna.

18 | www.theotherpress.ca

Although they are visible from the
road, they are difficult to find. It’s no walk
through the desert, but it’s no stroll to the
store either.

After many U-turns and some less-
than-divine directions, I make it to the
first church. The parking lot is empty but
the gates are open. Pulling up to the door,
the first word I see is “Evangelical.”

The first and second doors are locked.
The third has a doorbell. The fourth, an
indoor basketball court—used for squash
on this day, its fatigued gentlemen eye me
with a mixture of wariness and sweat.
Inside, a small, balding man wearing
Adidas three-stripe shorts and a collared
t-shirt gathers and counts toonies. He
looks up with a snort, and says the
entrance is on the side “door with
buzzer.” He does not say how squash
went.

I ring the doorbell for God, but
nobody is home.

Though it would be quicker to hop the
fence, it seems safer and more respectful
to drive around to the second church.
Plus, the Iglesia Ni Cristo is a magnificent
structure. While the ECBC is boxy with
stained-glass windows as pale, sickly, and

out of place as Kate Moss at Scruffy
Macguire’s on karaoke Thursday, Iglesia
Ni Christo is dynamic, and its Old World
architecture takes to stained glass the way
a gentleman takes to his sherry at the end
of a long day. It looks like a modern-day
interpretation of what King Solomon’s
Safeway might have looked like.

Unlike a Safeway, though, the doors
are locked.

Burnaby is not alone in creating such
an epicentre of eternal salvation;
Richmond is home to another so-called
“church mall,’ where Mennonite, Greek
Orthodox, Islamic, and Chinese churches
are clustered together. Here, the empty
lots separating Christians from Krishnas
are for sale—congregations welcome.

The Hare Krishna temple is found by
an old sign that reads “ISKCON”—the
International Society for Krishna
Consciousness. A steep driveway, pocked
by potholes, leads down to a modest park-
ing lot cracking with smiles. An old
camper trailer is being turned inside out at
one end; cushions are tossed lovingly in a
pile of pastel oranges and overcooked-
asparagus greens. Men in pink robes
shuffle and linger. Weeds sprout around

 

 

me; the clouds separate above.

Once inside the modest temple, a feel-
ing of smallness and space dizzies the
mind and makes the heart race. Incense
singes the senses, knees go weak, and the
head swoons. Light-blue walls are dotted
with wispy clouds, gold vines climb up
and around large wooden columns, intri-
cate brass carvings cover the walls and
frame the paintings of Krishna kin of
yore. A life-sized statue of AC
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who
brought Krishna to New York in 1965,
along with a box of books and $7 in
change, sits alone in quiet prayer.

Upon leaving the temple, I see the
clouds have disappeared; steam rises from
the moist grass and flows down the
rooftops like a ghost. A young man, yel-
low paint crusting the bridge of his nose,
asks how I feel and offers me lunch.

Inside the small diner that serves a
daily lunch and weekly feast for any who
wish to attend, I am clearly an outsider.
The walls are the colour of an electric tan-
gerine, subdued by royal blue sills and
doorframes. Two aging Indian men sit
across from a salt-and-pepper haired
woman; strange steel drums hold white

June 8/2005

 

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