A new altar for a new community
On December 22nd, local woodworker and restoration craftsman Joshua Neese-Todd delivered something special to the Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside: a new altar.
Joshua’s design emerged out of multiple conversations he and I had about how to honor the historic character of the All Saints sanctuary while also honoring that a new thing is happening here in the Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside.
The tabletop is made of London Plane, which has a special local resonance here in Sunnyside. There are dozens and dozens of London Planes dotting the streets, many of which were planted when the neighborhood was first developed in the 1920s and 30s. There are 3 London Plane trees just in the garden at All Saints!
London Planes in the All Saints Garden in August 2024.
The wood is itself local, having come from a tree cut down by the New York City Parks Department, and milled by Tri-Lox, the local design firm and millworks.
Why this low table design?
In the liturgy experiments we have been doing over the past six months, we’ve tried different ways of arranging ourselves in the open space of the sanctuary. The first time we gathered, we used the existing altar (which you can see in the background of the photo above): we carried it down onto the main floor, and arranged chairs in a circle, with the altar forming one side of the circle. That wasn’t quite right: there was a sense that we wanted the altar in the center of the circle, but the existing altar—which is a more standard height—would have kept people from seeing each other across the circle while seated. So the following month, I brought our coffee table from home, and we used that as the communion table.
For the Eucharistic prayer, I knelt down, which felt appropriately humble and reverent. (I also kneel—on a small meditation bench—for the sermon or reflection as well.) Those standing around this table were naturally inclined to bow their heads. It felt intimate, and sacred, and purposeful. It felt like the way that I wanted to embody the role of presider, the authority of the leader. A few people talked about feeling drawn toward the Eucharist in a new way, feeling so proximate to it as it was made.
When I spoke to Joshua about commissioning this work, a table of this scale spoke to his passion for hand-built furniture, and especially for the styles crafted before the standardization of measurements or the advent of industrialized building methods. The design he ultimately developed uses a “staked” design, in which the legs are fit into the tabletop with mortise and tenon (no metal hardware anywhere here). Staked legs have been used for centuries to create strong, simple, and elegant furniture.
As you can see in the photo above, Joshua also preserved one “live edge” on the table: the outer edge of the tree itself, the surface just under the bark. It not only highlights the natural beauty of the wood, but feels like a fitting place to worship the living God—the God who refuses to be cut down to a “standard” size.
