By Ben Gunter
Pause for a moment, Wayfarer, on life’s journey. Let the beauty of holiness restore your soul. May the harmony of sky and water, leaf and rock, nourish the creation and growth of your inner being as you fare through this life and on into the life beyond.
These are the words appearing on a plaque that greeted millions of visitors to Wayfarers Chapel throughout its seventy-three years of service. These words spoke intimately to me about the spiritual experience evoked by a visit to share sacred space at Wayfarers Chapel. The words must have spoken to Rev. Erni Martin too, given that he borrowed four of them for the title of his coffee table compendium, “The Beauty of Holiness.”
During a Center for Swedenborgian Studies (CSS) Winter Intensive, when I first visited the Swedenborg Chapel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I felt striking echoes of the same sense of wonder and tranquility in a structure that could scarcely be more different. So I located the Chapel guest book and wrote out that inscription.
I wouldn’t know until Christmas Eve 2025 how apropos these words were.
This year, the Cambridge Society invited Rev. Kevin Baxter and me to lead their candlelight service on Christmas Eve. It would be a service intended primarily for those longstanding members who were missing the tradition at their home congregation. With little fanfare consisting of a simple hand-drawn poster on the exterior and an announcement on the Chapel website, all the members of the small congregation who were able to, made the pilgrimage. Yet when we ran out of bulletins fifteen minutes before the service start time, we began to understand the gravity of the Christmas Miracle that was taking place in that timeless Sanctuary.
As organist Angie Papierski began to lead the congregation through the first carol of the night, “O Come All Ye Faithful,” my heart briefly sank as I heard nobody singing along. I worried that we weren’t actually providing the engaging and meaningful experience we intended to. By the end of the second verse, I realized the voices were drowned out by the majestic organ pipes located a few inches behind my head on the chancel. I breathed a sigh of relief, chuckled to myself, and watched as the service played out beautifully, complete with a baby crying in the rear of the Sanctuary during the lesson on the birth of Christ.
Cambridge board members Mark Careaga and Andrew Sciarretta served as our ushers for the night and seamlessly dimmed the lights and distributed candles at the right time while also managing the deluge of unexpected visitors. That night, Christ was born anew in sixty-eight attendees, many of whom were simply members of the community curious about the Chapel and desiring a welcoming and inclusive service in a beautiful setting. In California, we call those people wayfarers.
In the coming year and beyond, it is my hope that we might continue to transform hearts from within, carrying with us the lesson of Christmas Eve at Cambridge, and emboldened by the notion that now is as good a time as there ever has been for the beauty of holiness to restore our souls. May we all renew our appreciation for the power of inviting people to share our truly special places, people, and practices.
Read the full issue of the January/February Messenger.
Meet Ben Gunter
Ben Gunter is a student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He is currently working as the inaugural Chauncey Giles Ministerial Fellow at the Boston Society of the New Jerusalem while pursuing ordination with the Swedenborgian Church of North America.
