Il Group Spiritual Odyssey

on location: midwest ❖

randy mink

nyone planning a trip in Chicagoland or to the opposite end of the state can easily infuse an itinerary with a dash of spiritual enlightenment. There are places to pray, reflect, learn and rejoice in fellowship. Some religious sites will take you back in time; others will impress you with art or architecture. All will give your group a chance to unwind. Here is a sampling of sacred places in Illinois: Billy Graham Center Museum, Wheaton College: Film clips and push-button displays explore the history of Christian evangelism in

Billy Graham Center Museum

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America as well as the life and ministry of the Rev. Billy Graham, who graduated from this Chicago-area Christian college in 1943. With its soaring white pillars and stately cupola, the red-brick Graham Center, in the western suburb of Wheaton, is one of the nation’s largest colonial-style buildings.

Exhibits trace the beginnings of evangelism in the New World, from Spanish missionaries to the Pilgrims and Puritans from England.

Developments on the western frontier included camp meetings and circuit riders who made

Illinois A Spiritual Odyssey Shrines, museums, historical attractions and houses of worship mirror America’s multi-cultural fabric

A fall equinox sunrise observance takes place in September at Woodhenge, a reconstructed post-circle sun calendar at Cahokia Mounds.

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Billy Graham Center Museum

their rounds on horseback.

As America entered the Industrial Age in the late 1800s, evangelistic efforts shifted to problem-plagued urban centers and spawned such organizations as the Salvation Army and Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Vintage black-and-white footage shows fiery speaker Billy Sunday, a former major league baseball player who drew crowds to large wooden tabernacles built for his events. Asking attendees to commit to Jesus Christ, repent and give up alcohol, Sunday proclaimed, “We don’t need more grog, we need more God.” In the Billy Graham galleries, visitors can watch black-and-white newsreels of landmark crusades and witness a contemporary, three-screen crusade experience from behind Graham’s traveling pulpit. Other exhibits focus on his family life, how the mass meetings are organized and media coverage of Graham, the confidant of U.S. presidents and a guest on TV talk shows. A video corner offers a choice of interviews and sermon clips to select.

The moving finale of a museum visit is Walk Through the Gospel, a re-creation of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. The walk ends in the Cloud LeisureGroupTravel.com

Room, where guests bask in the glory of Heaven to the strains of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. (630752-5909, billygrahamcenter.com) BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Bartlett. For motorists cruising down busy Route 59 in the western suburbs of Chicago, this Hindu temple is so magnificent that it can be a roadside distraction. Serenity reigns inside its ornate gates.

Cameras are a must for visitors touring the grounds, where stunning architecture provides a fitting backdrop to the telegenic gardens and fountains.

BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

Visitors can step up to the pulpit Billy Graham used on his crusades.

With its luminescent white pinnacles and exotic domes, the largest Hindu temple in North America, built in 2004 with more than 7,000 tons of Turkish limestone and Italian Carrara marble hand-carved in India, is a sight to behold. Carved teak, shipped in whole pieces from India, also decorate the temple (mandir) and adjacent Cultural Center, starting point of tours and location of a small gift shop stocked with books, incense and herbal products. Visitors must remove their shoes and place them in men’s and women’s shoe racks.

An underground tunnel connecting the Cultural Center and temple abounds with informational panels about Hinduism and India’s contributions to world culture (in such fields as math, botany, medicine and yoga). One learns that nearly one in every seven of the world’s people (13.5 percent) are Hindu. Inside the marble-and-granite place of worship, visitors admire images of deities and intricately carved screens, pillars, ceilings and arches. Signs request “Silence.”

(630-213-2277, chicago.baps.org) Baha’i House of Worship, Wilmette: Better known as the Baha’i Temple, this North Shore landmark is a familiar sight on Sheridan Road, a sce-

Hindus worship at the exquisite BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Bartlett.

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nic thoroughfare that follows Lake Michigan and wows travelers with its lakefront mansions. A lacey, white, 135foot-high dome enchants visitors to the first Baha’i place of worship in the Western Hemisphere (completed in 1953) and one of only seven in the world. Like all Baha’i houses of worship, the temple is circular, has nine sides and is surrounded by gardens and fountains.

The Baha’i faith, founded in the 1800s by a Persian man, is a monotheistic religion that teaches tolerance, acceptance and peace, focusing on the oneness of God, oneness of humanity and oneness of religion. Devotions (held daily at 12:30 p.m.) are brief programs of prayers and holy texts from the Baha’i faith and other religions.

Guests can learn about the religion (with five million followers in 190 countries) in the lower-level visitor center/bookstore. The Dawning Place, a 15minute film, covers the faith’s history and teachings and construction of the building, which spanned more than 30 years.

One exhibit examines the persecution of this religious minority in Iran. A new welcome center is scheduled to open in fall of 2011.

Group tours are available. (847-853-2300, bahaitemple.org) Mormon History in Nauvoo: Joseph Smith, the prophet and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his Mormon followers settled the Mississippi River town of Nauvoo in

1839. The town became the largest in Illinois (pop. 15,000) and flourished until 1846, when Brigham Young led many church members to Utah, leaving behind violent anti-Mormonism. Some of the members remained in the Midwest and reorganized years later.

Historic Nauvoo contains more than 25 original brick homes and shops furnished with 1840s-era artifacts. Tourists can take a walking tour and see a 20minute film on the town’s Mormon roots at the Historic Nauvoo Visitors’ Center. There are hands-on demonstrations of weaving, bread making, blacksmithing and other pioneer crafts, plus rides on oxen- and horse-drawn wagons. A highlight is the Monument to Women Garden. The Joseph Smith Historic Site, adjacent to Historic Nauvoo, preserves the cabin, mansion and gravesite of Smith, who was shot and killed while in jail in nearby Carthage.

The Nauvoo Temple, a huge limestone building dedicated in 2002 on the site of the original Mormon temple (burned in 1848), does not offer tours, but a video is shown in its visitor center.

For evening entertainment, groups enjoy the musical Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo (year-round) and Sunset on the Mississippi (summer). Children’s plays and annual visits of Brigham Young University performers add to the array of entertainment. The annual Nauvoo Pageant ( July 6-31, 2010) is a tribute to Joseph Smith.

(888-453-6434, historicnauvoo.net) Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, East Moline: Motorcoach groups gain insight into Greek culture on the popular “It’s Greek to Me� program offered by the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau. Following a tour of the church and a briefing on the Greek Orthodox religion, guests enjoy traditional Greek dishes prepared by church elders. Meal packages feature Greek salad, entrees like pastitsio (Greek LeisureGroupTravel.com

lasagna), souzoukakia (Greek-style meatballs in tomato sauce with rice) or a gyro bar, and a Greek pastry (like baklava) for dessert. Ouzo and wine may be added. After the meal, the church can arrange for children to perform Greek baptismal, wedding and other dances, with audience members invited to join in. (Dan Gleason, group sales manager, Quad Cities CVB: 800747-7800, ext. 100, dgleason@visitquadcities.com, visitquadcities.com) Cross at the Crossroads, Effingham: This towering white structure, built in 2001 as a beacon of hope and assurance for passing motorists, stands at the intersection of Interstates 57 and 70. Measuring 198 feet tall and 113 feet wide, the concrete landmark is surrounded by polished granite tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments.

Visitors hear push-button messages on

the commandments. The welcome center has a chapel, a short film on the Cross’s construction and religious items for sale. The Cross is a project of the local, not-for-profit Cross Foundation. (217-347-2846, crossusa.org) Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Collinsville. Enormous, handpacked earthen mounds mark the site of

the largest prehistoric settlement north of Mexico. From A.D. 700-1400, an Indian civilization occupied this sacred— and mysterious—site near the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois rivers, just eight miles east of St. Louis. Between 10,000 and 20,000 members of this Mississippian Continued on bottom of page 46

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Group planners can look forward to a number of ways to freshen up their 2010 itineraries

Midwest on our radar

Here is a glimpse at some of the new developments: INDIANA Splashin’ Safari water park at Holiday World theme park in Santa Claus unveils the world’s longest water coaster in May. The $5.5-million Wildebeest, measuring one-third of a mile (1,710 feet), will use HydroMagnetic technology to move guests seated in four-passenger rafts. Linear induction motors will propel the rafts up hills, through tunnels and around a helix for 2½ minutes. The conveyor-style lift hill replaces any slide-tower stairs, making the water coaster accessible to riders who might have difficulty walking up stairs. The second-largest ride addition in Holiday World’s 64-year history will cover more than two acres, increasing the water park’s size to 27 acres. (877-463-2645, holidayworld.com)

Illinois A Spiritual Odyssey Continued from page 45

culture may have lived there from 10501150. They worshipped sun gods and conducted various ceremonial rituals.

Of the more than 120 original mounds, 68 have been preserved. Most of the mounds were not for burials, but were rectangular platforms that supported buildings, temples and the residences of leaders. But one small ridgetop mound has revealed more than 280 burials, many in mass graves. Ambitious visitors walk the 154 steps to the top of 100-foot-high Monks Mound, the largest totally earthen prehistoric mound in the New World (named after 17th century French monks who lived in the area). Also noteworthy is the reconstructed sun calendar (known as Woodhenge), a circle of red cedar posts with a central observation point. The in46 February 2010

A wild new water coaster will provide a jolly good time in Santa Claus, Ind.

terpretive center offers the orientation show City of the Sun and exhibits on how the Indians lived. (618-346-5160, cahokiamounds.org) National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, Belleville. Inspired by a Catholic ministry in the Arctic and a painting of Our Lady surrounded by rays of the Northern Lights, this pilgrimage site near St. Louis attracts more than one million visitors a year. The 200 landscaped acres offer many devotional areas, plus a church, hotel, restaurant and conference center.

Sites include the Main Shrine (with outdoor altar and amphitheater seating for several thousands) and a two-thirdsscale reproduction of Lourdes Grotto in France. The Way of the Cross, a halfmile roadway through pines and evergreens, features 14 Stations of the Cross, with groupings of color statues of Christ, Mary and others who journeyed with Him to Calvary.

IOWA Adventure Island, Iowa’s newest water park, is slated to open in June at Adventureland Park in Altoona, just east of Des Moines. The new water addition will triple the size of the existing Kokomo Kove water attraction. It will offer 13 new water slides, including two 65-foot speed slides, inner tube and body slides, and a family tube raft ride. A 6,000-square-foot swimming pool, swim-up bar, cabana rentals and Iowa’s longest lazy river are also planned. Admission to Adventure Island is included in the ticket to Adventureland Park, which features more than 100 rides, shows and attractions. (adventurelandpark.com) The Architectural Interpretive Center in Mason City will open in June.

The Way of Lights is a drivethrough display that heralds the Christmas season from late November to early January. Featured are more than one million lights, plus tree and wreath displays, camel rides and indoor laser show. (618-397-6700, snows.org) Whether your group is looking for holiday cheer, historical perspective or time for reflection, Illinois abounds with places that can add a spiritual dimension to the journey. LGT ONLINE EXCLUSIVES For more ideas on Illinois group tour attractions, Leisure Group Travel has prepared an online package of feature articles. The topics: Illinois Wine Country, Western Illinois and the Mississippi River, and Historic Illinois Route 66.

Log on to http://tiny.cc/wOM9A. Also check out our Online Exclusive about the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie. Visit http://tiny.cc/qjl4k.

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The new facility will help visitors experience and understand the significance of architecture in Mason City, which boasts properties designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Burley Griffin, William Drummond and Francis Barry Byrne. The design for the $822,000 center was inspired by a Griffin design that was never built. The center will be located adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright Stockman House and just north of the Rock Crest/Rock Glen National Historic District, the largest collection of Prairie School designed homes on a unified site. (800-423-5724, visitmasoncityiowa.com) KANSAS After many years of remodeling, the 1888 McPherson Opera House in McPherson just reopened. The Opera House attracted many vaudeville and touring acts, local productions and even presidential hopeful William Jennings Bryant. Millions of dollars in private do-

nations and a voter-approved half-percent sales tax helped bring the building back to its former glory. (mcphersonoperahouse.org) Construction on the $23-million Flint Hills Discovery Center in downtown Manhattan is expected to begin this summer. The new attraction will focus on how the people and land of the Flint Hills shape one another. The center will explore the geological, ecological and ethnological history of the Flint Hills and will include an immersive theater with multimedia effects. Plans call for a tall, cylindrical tower that will serve as the entrance and lobby and will offer a 360-degree view of Manhattan and the surrounding hills. The center will include an open-air plaza and a “green” roof design on a layered structure that mimics the shape of the Flint Hills. (ci.manhattan.ks.us/discoverycenter) MICHIGAN The exhibition Michael Jackson: The

King of Pop opens this June at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Starting with his childhood years in the Jackson 5, it celebrates the life of the singer whom the Guinness Book of World Records dubbed “Most Succesful Entertainer of All Time.” (maah-detroit.org) MISSOURI St. Louis’ historic Kiel Opera House, which originally opened in 1934, will undergo a $74-million renovation and make its debut in December, just in time for the holiday show season. The new Kiel will host a variety of live music concerts and theatrical presentations in its 3,500-seat main theater. There will also be a second, smaller theater and a restaurant. New and improved sound and lighting systems will be added, and developers promise a full interior revamp and upgrade while reinstating much of the hall’s original glory. The downtown landmark has been dark for many years.