Once, I imagine, perhaps near the beginning of its 125 – year history, before there were big houses and tall buildings and even mature trees, my home church of Morningside – High Park must have been an imposing sight, sitting on top of an incline rising from Lake Ontario. You might even have been able to see the lake from the church then. But that was then; now, coming north on Ellis Ave., you really can’t catch a glimpse of it till a hundred metres away. It would once have been the church on the hill in the village of Swansea, miles from Toronto.
A lot of MHP’s identity is grounded in Swansea; and that faded village can be glimpsed in signage here and there. Toronto ate up many villages, most of them now forgotten to old maps; still, Swansea maintains a lingering memory. (Leaside would be another, I guess.) It is used manipulatively by real estate agents to suggest an olden – times community, but, I would think, most people would know the neighbourhood more as Bloor West Village than Swansea.
But even Swansea isn’t Swansea any longer. There is lots of infill, new houses and newer houses beside old ones; century homes fully renovated beside post – war homes begging for attention. You’ll need three quarters of a million to start looking for a house in this neighbourhood and then expect to spend a few hundred thousand to renovate. Lots of house – poor here. Also lots of wealth. (MHP’s manse could use some caring.)
In the southwest corner is another kind of Swansea with a subsidized housing complex. Real estate agents want to sell a village with a park on one side and a river on the other, with a pond in the middle. Still, there is this lower income corner. And in the middle of Swansea, beside the community hall and the public school, is a senior’s home.
These are all glimpses of the area surrounding Morningside – High Park, which was once born of Swansea but in many ways isn’t of it any longer. The congregation grows a little every year; keeping busy this year with its quasquicentennial, with hymn sings and chili dinners and a variety of events. A new solar roof was added last year, a vegetable garden begun; there’s a campaign to engage in a read – the – Bible – in – a – year project. This is all healthy busyness.
While celebrating 125 years of being, MHP no longer gains a strong sense of identity from the past, or from the neighbourhood where it sits. Like so many others it is no longer a neighbourhood church, yet not quite something else either. It is locked in its physical location in search of an identity. The mustiness of an ‘olde’ village clings to the edges of MHP; a vibrant congregation of people who come from away can be glimpsed now and then.
In a post – denominational, post – Christendom environment, local identity has become a major issue. We all need a sense of identity beyond broad strokes—Presbyterian, Christian. We seek that identity ideologically—left, right, evangelical, progressive—but we know those aren’t enough. MHP is a post – neighbourhood congregation, keeping itself busy and faithful, not quite in this century yet, not quite in the past any longer, not quite here, not quite there. It is in many ways a Canadian Presbyterian church of now.
