Morning Scene - Christian Science Church

Actually, the name of the denomination is the "Church of Christ, Scientist." And since Christian Scientists don't believe that matter has any reality, they don't name their churches after "things" but give them numbers instead. So, this is the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist.

It really is an interesting piece of 1960s architecture. The church part, above, has no windows (why would you need to look at "things" in church, right?) and the lower part is all glass and extends one story below street level -- a really unique concept.

Some Chicagoans refer to this as the "UFO Church."

My friend, Iwanski, said it best. He said that whenever he sees the name "Church of Christ, Scientist", he always envisions Jesus wearing a white lab coat.

Big Red Ball

This morning on the way to work, I noticed something very strange.

There was this big red inflatable ball wedged up under the canopy of the Christian Science church. It looked like one of those exercise balls, only this one was huge.

I’m glad I keep my camera in my back pack, because you never know when you’re going to come across big red balls wedged up under Christian Science churches.

I began to wonder how it got there. Was it some errant ball that got away and jammed itself there? After all, a Christian Science church would seem to be a very strange place to deliberately place a big red ball. It even goes against their doctrine of “spirit having true reality and physical matter being ‘error’”.

It really perplexed me. So, I did some highly investigative research on the subject - - I googled “Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist Chicago” and clicked on “news”.

Lo and behold, the big red ball was placed there on purpose.

It’s a public art project called the Red Ball Project and it’s supposed to cause pedestrians to stop and think. (Pretty effective, I’d say. I rarely do that.) It will be traveling from city to city and will be in about ten different locations in Chicago.

Target is the corporate sponsor of the Red Ball Project in Chicago.

Still, I don’t think the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, would be pleased that Target sponsored a big red ball being wedged up under one of her churches.

They'll burn for it, mark my words.