Kapelletje Rising or Scary Mary

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 12:28

Let me tell you about the Kapelletje van de Zeehondstraatje for you relentless Anglophones a Kapelletje is a small architecture alcove set in the side of a building with a saints statue placed therein. Kapelletjes can be modest made from wood and as simple in structure as a birdhouse or a carved stone large alcove with rod iron and glass. The one around the corner and there are many in this quartier, is dated 1749 and is a large stone carved thing with glass door enclosing some saint to the plague which lingered here abouts. My neighbor Jean puts a five-day candle in this Kapelletje weekly (and lights it). I can see from the window in the traphuis (stairwell) here and from my bedroom window the red wax candle and flame. I'm telling you this for the next time you are out and about after dark in this quartier that you be sure to pass through the rue de "Chein Marin"/Zeehondstraatje and ketch some old la Villette style charm. Jean says that men don't piss as frequently under the Kapelletje when they see the flame flicker. It sure does give a sign of life on a shadowy after dark alley - though not really as the dark is bathed in the bright orange sodium glow of the street lights - so you have to really look to see the flame.

When we moved to this house we referred to the statuette in the Kapelletje as "Scary Mary" because we didn't yet know that the sculpture represented an ailing sick saint of sorts. The sculpture looked more anorexic replete with typical hair loss associated with that disease. We still refer to it though as Scary Mary's Kapelletje.

My current bout with depression seems to have lessened leaving me aware of the ache in my hollow brittle soul. Winter is a tough time - personally I think I could endure Winters dark if it weren't for the omnipresent orange street lights that Belgium is so famous for. I crave real darkness, not darkness in the theological sense but darkness from the rotation of the earth caught in it's own shadow. Ask yourself how can the Light that is each of our lives shine in all this synthetique electric light. When I light a candle in the nearby Kerk/church for my mother I regret that the candle votive holder is red plastic and not red glass. Like the Kapelletje window panes are sturdy plastic instead of glass, blame neighborhood badboys throwing stones to break the panes of glass. I suppose you know this but there was a saint for window glazers once upon a time... Maybe that is why I prefer here at home our drafty old wooden and imperfect glass windows with their handsome hardware fittings.

I am and am not an Atheist but I am not an Agnostic. I do not much pray but when I do it is for the end of the tyranny of the automotive beast of the apocalypse we live in. Not that I wish horses to be brought back to suffering for our locomotive convenience. I do not believe in God but I do hope to see the end of the automobile and the wars it brings. Think of that every time you fill up the gas tank God knows I do. I make this point because if you stand in this narrow alley observing this Kapelletje you might get run down by a senseless driver navigating a car down this narrow straatje - a street that dates from the 15th century long before cars necessitated suburban sprawling widths.

...Two things bringing relief to my tormented brain: Hildegard von Bingen music on CD and the Tallis Scholars singing acapella medieval Palestrina Masses also on CD. And of course writing my heart out like this. Maybe one day I can observe a pre-Vatican II Mass in a European cathedral. Or I'll just wait for those few moments I stop into the Begijnhofkerk and no one is there, just solitude, old Vlaams/Flemish named gravestones with old Dutch words underfoot alongside a few also well worn with words in French; the smell of paraffin, cold, and quiet. That quiet solitary moment amid the present day church clutter and bric-a-brac that is to me sickening stale and banal. Ignoring that I am aware and thankful for thirty seconds of quiet caught between electronic recordings of church music and me caught inside old stones in a all too quick moment where it feels the world stopped outside and paused between the small space of cars passing by outside, planes flying overhead, an person recycling their wine bottles just outside the church window (whose idea was that for a location to put a glasbak container anyways - must be a heathen commie idea fersure dude).

I admire the drive modern day Muslims in Belgium have. I have great respect for them now after making a point to learn something about their ways. I am not afraid of their independent and handsome men in their non western clothes which I am envious of to wear with such confidence nor am I put off by their women under scarves. I admire the admirable ritual and compulsion for God. I admire the Arts and Architecture of Islamic realms which like a mirrors reflection of Christendom - or rather each a reflection reflecting the sacred and the profane of the other. Good old Belgium for not banning religious expression like the scarf (or large crucifix's) like recently in France's state schools. As I feel a peaceful reminder of my being away from home whenever I hear church bells - a sound not heard much back home in the Midwest and if you do its an electronic recording in a shopping mall - I long to hear the Muzzein's call to prayer from a Minaret awaken me at dawn and throughout the day - though preferably not from an electronically enhanced broadcast. There is something compelling in the idea of Mosque full of devout men following tradition. I trust you with my electronic confession if you will, lost and aimless in the Misinformation Age as I am in the modern day Byzantium of Brussels.

Still I find a certain happiness in that dancing flame in that red candle my neighbor places in the nearby Kapelletje. It is arbitrary "soul" manifesting itself from the antiquity of that old street. There is a certain comfort in that. That candle costs a euro and half and lasts five days. I am thankful to live here in Belgium as I do it is such a priviledge after the emptiness of the Midwest.