Kroger clears major hurdle - Canton Public Library

SUE MASON, EDITOR
313-963-2131
THURSDAY, MAY 2 , 1 9 9 6
FAMILY ROOM
KAREN MEIER
Look who's
turning 100
The 100th installment of the "Family Room"
will appear right here in two weeks. This fact
came to my attention the other day and I
couldn't believe it! One hundred!
That much time has gone by? One hundred
weeks? One hundred Thursdays? No way!
The time has absolutely flown by. I mean it.
The clock has sprouted wings, the calendar, too,
and off they went. And I've tried catching them,
but they keep flapping away.
It's a scary thing. And whenever I mention it, I
get a nod of the head and a melancholy reply, "It
only gets worse as more time passes." The more
time passes the more it passes quickly. And
"fiat's that.
And then I think of the gas gauge in our van.
That's right, the gas gauge. The one that take's
forever to move from FULL down to the next
marking, and then after that'it takes a little less
time to move to the next marking and then after
that it seems as if a big hole gets punched in the
tank and all the gas leaks out all at once and
there I am - out of gas. That's the way time is.
I don't know how this time thing happens nor
do I know the reason for it. I just know it happens.
Now, here's another thing about time that's so
curious - the future. Indeed, the speedy present,
the gas gauge effect of time, is definitely beyond
me, but the future is even more "beyonder" me.
For instance, 100 weeks ago-1 would never have
SET. H A
! I . ' • • • •
She 0bgeruer jfrteuigpapers
Inside:
• . -j
Bridal Registry j
Page ISA |
Religious News |
Page 16A
!
Page A13 5
Bit of history - bit of sharin
• The Rev. Steve Rottgers
who has the task of starting
a new church in the
Canton community sees a
bit of early Christian history
in their temporary
worship site, the formal
chapel at the L.J. Griffin
Home.
BYCHRISTLNAFUOCO
STAKFWRITER
Air Saints Epis:
copal Church and
the L.J. Griffin
Funeral Home,
both of Canton,
have struck up a
temporary partnership
that reflects religious history.
For the past several months, the
Rev. Steve Rottgers and his congregation
have met in the funeral
home's formal chapel. Rdttgers compares
this arrangement to the early
Christians meeting at the catacombs.
"This is historically and traditionally
one of the best places to meet,"
he explained.
The early Christians met in catacombs
to avoid persecution from
Romans who were "pagan people not
of the Christian faith and had a fear
and a desire to move the issue of
death out of their lives," Rottgers
said. "The catacombs were an easyand
safe haven because of the
Romans' belief in wanting to avoid
those places."
Most of the modern burial practices,
including headstones come
from early Christian traditions
which "shows how the church in
many ways is wedded to the funeral
history.
"That's how you get that tie-in of
funeral home and church together,"
Rottgers said.
Rottgers got the idea of meeting at
a funeral home while on sabbatical
JUIM24
t
Ski *C«#]fcap-l
mrmkqum Mh • K
Arbor • Last Laatlnf • Crand I
W v F i i l C
Bavarian Village
Thurs., July 18
Thurs., August 15
Nf
t
» * • m. m
* > ^ . \ \ i
A - H t * "
between this job and his last. ^ .
"I had just left the church in Virginia
and I was on a six-week sabbatical,"
he said. "The first week I
was given a trip t% Israel and Rome.
When I got-off the plane in Rome, a
member of (this area's) diocese
asked me what I did and I told him I
just completed starting up a church.
He told me, "We have one wt? want to
start up in Canton.'
"I was with him when we were
exploring the catacombs. While I
was walking through the catacombs
I was thinking about if I did want to
continue to start another church. So
when they asked me, they said 'Do
you have any ideas where you would
start?" The vision of the catacombs
came back into my head."
Besides the catacomb tradition,
Rottgers incorporates more history
into his services.
"I'm using water from the River
Jordan for communion. There's a lot
of stuff from the holy land that
we've been incorporating into the
new churcjt^—-
Rottgers and his family - wife
Mary, and children Alex, 15, Peter,
10, and Molly ,6 - moved here July
1, 1994, from Virginia. Rottgers
i Wk, ,
— *l21J * A ^
Trail4*
• i'S %' j
I iv'i
Friend In *'