No more churches

Looing back at the Scotland posts of the blog, it appears that the highlights of the trip for me were all the churches we visited. And, they are great--you get architecture, music, spirituality (maybe), and quiet all rolled up in a nice package. But right now European churches are more places of tourist visitation than of worship and contemplation. In this they are very dfferent from US religious buildings--as a highly religious nation, up there with various Islamic countries in terms of per capita religious observance, we use our churches for services and close them the remainder of the time. Kind of different--in UK churches with lots of visitors--St. Paul's, London, for example--they try to keep tourists out during services, or require you to attend to get gawking time. Churches are museums, monuments to ancient times, and viewed as such by the majority of the population, few of whom are observant. Welcome back to the US, where we have ugly churches and lots of religious fervor. I'm going to avoid both for a while.