Chapel sanctuary in Kentucky named for Bp. Gulick

by The Rev. Dr. Georgine Buckwalter

Mark your calendars: the new St. Luke’s Chapel will be consecrated at 2 p.m. (ET) Saturday, June 20, at The Episcopal Church Home, 7504 Westport Road, Louisville. The diocesan-wide event will include special music and a reception following the liturgy.

It has often been said that you can tell a lot about a civilization by the way it treats the aging. It can be said of the Diocese of Kentucky that we would not tolerate our revered and cherished matriarchs and patriarchs seated in the drafty, dark hallway looking at a sports-bar screen for worship. It can be said that the Diocese of Kentucky would not allow wheelchair-bound residents (increasingly the majority of the Home) to be marginalized on the periphery but provided adequate space for the five-foot diameter turn-around necessary in personal emergencies. The larger space in the chapel is designed specifically for safety.

The new, tailor-made worship space for the Church Home’s aging residents has been "in the works" for eight long years. When you enter the new chapel and gasp, you’ll agree with me that it has been worth the wait and the hard work. Norman K. Berry (a St. Mark’s Church member) and Associates are the architects responsible for its new, yet old design. The design is new in that it uses many innovations to meet the requirements of our special-needs congregation, and it is old in its iconography so that congregants will be reminded of the churches of their youth and WHOSE they are. “Cue-ing,” that attention paid to the Church Home’s singular needs with approximately 70 percent of its residents with cognitive impairment, necessitates reasons for the design, the sight lines, the decorative elements, the seating, the lighting and the amazing "inclusion room."

Another significant feature of the new chapel is the cloister garden just beyond the covered drive-through entrance near the bell tower. The area for seating is roofed for protection from the hot summer sun and at the center is a restful, classical garden designed by renowned landscape artist, Mary Webb. The Chapel Design Task Force also included two well known interior designers: Sarah McNeal Few and Anne Vanderburgh (both present or former Trustees as well as residents of Dudley Square.)

Many loyal and faithful Episcopalians have contributed generously to the Building on Faith campaign, which draws to a close at the end of 2009 or when the Church Home pays off the final $500,000--whichever comes first. Memorial gifts honoring various clergy and lay leaders in the diocese have taken the form of liturgical furniture, windows and the like, and Bishop Ted Gulick’s tenure among us is being honored by naming the sanctuary after him. Gifts may be sent to Michael Bowles, director of mission advancement, 7504 Westport Road, Louisville 40222.

Bishop Ted Gulick, Llewellyn Spears (Board of Trustees president), Joanna S. Panning (chair of the Building on Faith Campaign) and Anne Veno (chief executive officer of the Episcopal Church Home) invite everyone to come and celebrate this milestone in the history of the diocese and of the ongoing ministry of the Church Home, founded in 1881 as the old Morton Infirmary.