Welcome to the Lady Chapel

A sort of statement of faith

Hi, I’m Allie. Person writing songs about God and the Church. All are welcome. Photo by Meg Settle.

Sometime after I had my first child I decided (again) that I really did believe in the Trinity - you know, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Once I started pulling at the threads, I saw how God’s love can sustain me. Instead of making myself worthy of God, I realized that God has hidden his goodness in every living thing. I just needed to uncover it.

I wouldn’t say that believing in the Triune God has given me more clarity about the whole thing. Probably the opposite. But for someone who grew up in a tradition that equated faith with certainty, I now appreciate a religion that holds space for divine mystery. Just because I can’t fully understand it doesn’t mean it’s not true. 

I participate in the ritual of church every week so I can join others in a physical place where, despite our despair, despite our faults, the gifts of God are present. Of course, the gifts of God can be found in all kinds of places, but for me publicly receiving the gifts of God helps the value of those gifts sink in more. I don’t know - maybe this is why you should get children to open their gifts at a birthday party. 

I love going to Mass every week, though my time for personal devotion is really limited despite how much I long for it. I don’t often get to go to the “mountaintop” to find Jesus (can’t really find a sitter). So I’ve had to work on paying attention to those moments where God already is. It’s with this lens that I want to go through the liturgical year. Liturgical means 'the church’s year’ - the basic plot points that we celebrate publicly in worship. Sort of the scaffolding of our beliefs. Holding it loosely enough to ask: What does Advent mean to my sacred but ordinary life? Why does the Annunciation or the Transfiguration matter? Not necessarily in a historical way but in a personal way? 

I hope these offerings can meet you in your sacred but ordinary life and make space for you to find yourself in the beautiful story of the Christian faith.

Why ‘Lady Chapel’?

A Lady Chapel is a small worship space within a church that’s dedicated to Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus’s mother.

At my Anglo-Catholic church, Christ Church Episcopal in Chattanooga, our Lady Chapel is mostly used for intimate spoken services, private prayer, or children’s church. I spend a lot of time there on Sunday mornings while my young children get their wiggles out during their priest-dad’s sermon. I sit in the colorful shadows of the stained glass and watch my daughters transform this holy little burrow into an obstacle course or a zoo for tiny plastic animals. 

In the Lady Chapel at Christ Church, Chattanooga. Photo by Meg Settle.

This is a place where the sacred touches the ordinary for me. The theological word for this is “incarnational” where the divine is wrapped up in the earthly world. Of course, Jesus is the purest example of the incarnation. But sometimes these little glimmers breakthrough, and we catch a glimpse of the fullness of God’s love in the most mundane of places. The more I peek through these doors, the closer to Christ I feel and the more I want to be like Him. 

I love watching my kids remake this holy space into a place where they worship on their terms. Their openness and joy are, I think, probably more incarnational than most things. So, I suppose this project is my attempt to remake a space within myself for devotion, presence, and prayer. 

Welcome to the Lady Chapel. Shoes, according to my kids, are very optional.