Even packed with 800 people, the cathedral was like an icebox. The non-melodic hymns are not for the faint of heart, though they may afford some refuge for the tone deaf. Check out the Memorial AIDS Chapel near the cathedral entrance. And don't leave without trying the labyrinth, a walking meditation that takes you from the outside to the inside of a circle in the most indirect way possible. There's a version inside on carpet and a second outside, set in stone, that overlooks Huntington Park and the Fairmont Hotel.
Grace teaches workshops on the history and mystical powers of the labyrinth.
It'll bring down your heart rate, no matter how fast you try to corner. The last thing you might expect at Shabbat services is a lecture on Martin Luther King Jr. and the struggle for civil rights in America. The lecture, by Clayborne Carson, editor of The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., falls within the Jewish mandate of tikkum olam, or the obligation to be involved in the healing and transformation of the world. And the difference is apparent in the surroundings. More than half the congregation arrived late.