Stanford University Church

Description

The Hat Incident at Stanford Memorial Church I’d been waiting years to photograph the inside of the Stanford domed Memorial Church. Everyone talks about its mosaic ceilings, the colors, the grandeur. Me? I just wanted that perfect shot to prove to my friends that I could, in fact, take a picture of something other than a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. It was early afternoon. Sun blazing outside. The inside of the church was perfect — quiet, golden light streaming through the windows, stained glass glowing like a neon sign for heaven. I strutted in like Ansel Adams reincarnated, camera ready, visions of art dancing in my head. That’s when I made the rookie mistake: I forgot I was wearing a hat. I barely got three steps inside before I felt The Look. You know the one. A squad of devout older ladies zeroed in on me like heat-seeking missiles. Their collective gasp echoed louder than the church organ. One whispered something that sounded like “Blasphemer!” Another clutched her pearls like I had just spray-painted graffiti on the pulpit. A man in a suit appeared from nowhere — I swear he must’ve been hiding behind a pew just waiting for idiots like me. He didn’t say a word, just pointed at my head with the kind of authority that could part the Red Sea. Mortified, I yanked the hat off so fast I nearly launched it into the baptismal font. I muttered an apology to everyone, including Jesus Himself, and started snapping pictures like my life depended on it. My hands were shaking so bad I probably invented a new genre of photography: holy-motion blur. But I got the shot. And the memory. And the eternal shame of knowing the Lord’s house has better security than TSA.