“A spiritual home for everyone”
ASPEN» For the past half century, the chapel at the edge of Aspen has stood as a welcoming sight as visitors and locals have rolled into town. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, those with the institution want it to be Aspen’s chapel, not just the chapel in Aspen.
Based around the idea of inclusivity and not worrying about someone’s past religious beliefs or where they stand now, Aspen Chapel continues to develop and find ways to be more inclusive, whether it’s working more with local nonprofits to support what they are doing or giving someone a place to just sit, think and be.
For the past few months, the chapel has been celebrating its golden anniversary with a number of speakers, programs and events that bring together those of different beliefs and faiths — from Christians to Buddhists, Judaism to Islam.
The celebration culminates this weekend with three days of festivities and rededication at the chapel, with world-renowned theologian Matthew Fox speaking Saturday to “Deeper Forms of Living,” a rededication event Sunday morning and a gala Monday celebrating the idea of immersing one’s self in the elements of earth, air, fire, water and spirit.
The idea of inclusivity is what the chapel was formed around, but new of late is reaching out to the community in ways beyond a Sunday service, a wedding ceremony, baptism, funeral or other traditional religious events.
“We want to continue to be there for people who didn’t have a home to go to. We want to be a spiritual home for everyone,” the Rev. Nicholas Vesey, the chapel’s minister since 2014, said recently. “We try and say, ‘Whoever you are, you don’t have to believe in anything. It’s not about belief. It’s about a place you can go and be received and your spirit will be respected.’
“Some people come here because they don’t have any place to go, but they needed to be somewhere where they were contained. We want to be that opportunity. We don’t demand anything. It’s the humanity at the center of it that’s the most important thing.”
The chapel opened in 1969, but after a few years of just being there, it was Gregg Anderson, now retired but the chaplain emeritus, who helped try to let the community know the chapel was open and welcoming, no strings or religion attached.
Anderson started visiting Aspen as a child in the 1950s when his family came to ski. His father suffered from polio and could not do a lot of activities but wanted his children to have those opportunities and brought them to ski and enjoy the outdoors.
Anderson said he returned to Aspen in 1972 with no intention of being a minister but rather on a break before applying to law school, which his father insisted on. That didn’t happen, and Anderson started helping the community church.
The first few years the chapel didn’t have much activity and wasn’t proactive. Anderson was hired in the spring of 1978 and focused on the interfaith idea.
“They were kind of sitting back and anyone who wanted to use it, they were open to that. They wanted to be a very open facility to the community,” Anderson said. “They were never going after programs, and I started doing that and I guess that made a difference.
“I started a devotional service on Sunday mornings. I understood the purpose and goals of the chapel, which was to be interfaith.”
To be inclusive and welcoming meant not having a membership, Anderson said, because that can close off some people.
“I coined the phrase ‘Because there’s no insiders, there’s no outsiders.’ Always being open to all people,” he said, “and we are still in that way.”
Anderson spent his first 20 years making it his mission to get a body of people to connect with the chapel so they could begin outreach into the community. It took time, but it came together.
More constituencies formed with the music and choir, the gallery and the seminars.
Community outreach is what the chapel has been heavily involved in the past four years as Vesey and others continue in Anderson and the chapel’s vision. They see helping other area nonprofits as one of the critical roles for the chapel in the coming decades.
Anderson retired in 2015 after nearly 37 years (and about 1,400 weddings), and he remains “quite invested” in the future of the chapel. He appreciates where things are headed.
“They are doing more of community outreach today, which is terrific that they are reaching out and coordinating with a lot of other nonprofits,” he said. “We have a lot of different circles of people, which in one sense is not easy to do but in another sense in a broad form is being a chapel for Aspen.”
Vesey said partnering with other nonprofits across the valley is not about duplicating the work others are doing but supporting what they are already doing.
A little over three years ago he threw open the doors to the nonprofits to come speak at a Sunday service to let people know what their group does. It was a way for both sides to learn about the other.
“Occasionally you do frighten the horses and you’ll get somebody who will say this is a step too far for me,” Vesey said of the open approach. “But basically, we’ve got people here who’ve done every course under the sun, and they just know there is a broad understanding of inclusivity that is at the center of who we are. And we want to promote that.”
Since then, the chapel has made partnerships and done events with English in Action, Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers, the Buddy Program, Shining Stars, Habitat for Humanity, Lift Up and Senior Center, said the chapel’s managing director, Heather Macdonald.
“Our goal is to become very community-centric, very community focused, and giving people opportunity to serve,” Macdonald said. “It’s one thing to go to a Sunday service or do a lecture. It’s another thing to serve the community. That’s part of linking in with other nonprofits. It’s the service part of what we’re doing.”