Yesterday evening at about 8:15 I was out walking the dog — sometimes it’s an after-dark activity now that there’s more darkness — and I spotted a pale yellow slender crescent moon hanging just over the western horizon. Low enough to appear luminously large. Quite a sight.

Just after the new moon signifying Rosh Hashanah, I realized. I couldn’t remember the year’s number, so I looked that up: 5779.

While downtown last week, on the way back to Union Station to return home, I ducked briefly into two churches. I’d been in them before, but they’re always good for a look.
One was St. Peter’s in the Loop, a Catholic church on W. Madison St.
The enormous crucifix is by Latvian artist Arvid Strauss. The building dates from 1953. According to Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago by Denis McNamara, “the stepped-back roof profile of the exterior recalls the Art Deco skyscapers [architects Vitzthum and Burns] had designed and gave the church a modern sensibility, but the facade retained the sign value of churchliness with Gothic decorative elements, pink Georgia marble, and [the] monumental exterior cruxifix…”

The interior. Sacred deco, you might call it.
The building is more just the sanctuary. Tucked away in the structure, hidden from casual visitors like me, are an auditorium, library, offices, meeting rooms and friary completed with living quarters, kitchen and a chapel for the Franciscans who run the place.

Not far away is the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, an unusual arrangement for a church. It’s at the base and top floors of a 568-foot skyscraper on W. Washington St. I didn’t take any exteriors, but this is what it looks like. A Holabird & Roche design from the 1920s.

It features another handsome interior.
With fine stained glass.

I had no time to tour the Sky Chapel again — I visited ca. 2002 — which is at top of the building and open every day at 2 p.m. It’s a sacred space unlike any other I know.