The Cathedral of St. Paul was born before the state of Oklahoma. The congregation in downtown Oklahoma City celebrated its centennial in 1991; and the state will turn 90 next year. The "beautiful, majestic building" was built in 1903, and the parish has always renewed its commitment to stay in the urban center, with its "concentration of poor and homeless," near office buildings, hospitals - and the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

The Very Rev. George Back, dean of St. Paul's, described the church and its neighborhood, and identified three distinct callings for the church. The first, he said, is "To be the cathedral; to provide worship and service to the diocese." The second is "to be where God has put us, downtown; to be present, responsive, accessible." The third calling is to be a parish with its traditional activities: church school, groups, programs.

Despite the cataclysm of April 19, 1995, much of the essential St. Paul's continued. Since 1979, the cathedral has been a part of Mobile Meals of Oklahoma City, which coordinates the delivery of hot meals to those in need throughout the city. St. Paul's day to cook and deliver each week is Wednesday. Development coordinator Marilyn Smotherman noted, "Mobile meals did not miss one day ... They delivered on time April 19" - a Wednesday.

John Koons is president of the Guild of St. George, which operates a food closet and helps people with rent or utility bills. There is greater need now, he said, and somehow there is more money to meet it. "The guild carried on," he said.

"Our downtown calling proceeded," Dean Back said. "We were open all night. People came in handfuls." Some of the rescue workers needed a few moments of quiet in the chapel more than coffee and sandwiches. "The chapel became a respite area," said Mr. Allen.

St. Paul's has had services every Sunday since 1903. On the Saturday after April 19, Mr. Allen said, "we decided we would have church [the next morning]. If we asked permission [of authorities] we wouldn't get it. So we didn't ask.

"We organized a phone tree for Sunday, and they came." An official asked, "Who authorized this?" The response was, "I guess God did."

The physical presence of the cathedral is powerful. Parishioner Susan Urbach, working on the third floor of a building across the street from the Murrah, was standing in the doorway of her office with her back to the windows at 9:00 the morning of April 19.

"Everything started falling," she remembered. "I found myself lying under rubble. You don't believe what you're seeing. The lights were dangling, still on. Black, acrid smoke was pouring in through the glassless windows." Much of that glass was in shreds embedded in her back, though she did not become aware of this 'til later. Ms. Urbach worked her way out of the building, barefoot because her shoes had been blown off, to the corner opposite St. Paul's, where she lay waiting for an ambulance.

"If I turned my head to the left, I could see my friend lying there bleeding," she said. "When I turned to the right, I saw the church, damaged but standing."

In an article presented at the diocesan convention in November, Ms. Urbach compared both herself and the cathedral to the Good Samaritan's charge, beaten and left in the road. "The cathedral, too, had been beaten up and left half dead," she said. "As I lay in the road at 6th and Robinson, I could look to the north and still see the church standing. You have no idea what an anchor that was for me. Literally all hell was breaking loose, but St. Paul's still stood."

Ms. Urbach found it difficult to be the victim, the recipient. Over time she had learned, she said, "to be so independent that I can do all things, to appear that I never hurt, never get down. It is often very hard for me to accept and ask for help, to appear vulnerable ... I have found that I needed to let people help me, both for me and for them." She has always been active in the church and always felt the importance of "the church family. The first Sunday, I needed to be there, though I probably shouldn't have been out of bed.

"I've had so much loss. I'm glad I'm at a church that's been damaged, too. People there understand."

Questions plague her and others: God decided to save you? Where is God and faith in this? She said, "I am grateful for mysteries, in the Episcopal Church, at St. Paul's."

The parish pattern since 1980, said Dean Back, has been growth in attendance and participation as well as in the budget. Facilities are in use seven days a week, and weekday programs in particular are increasing. Meeting space in the administration building is sometimes at a premium as groups having to relocate from other damaged buildings come to St. Paul's.

Funerals present problems, Dean Back said. Services are presently held in Dean Willey Hall, on the second floor. "The elevator is tiny - not big enough for a casket. So we begin in the chapel on the first floor, where the casket stays. Receptions are not possible either, since we worship in the hall."

Organist/choirmaster Scott Raab was running a few minutes late that Wednesday morning. He should have been in his office at 9:00. "I arrived shortly after," he said. "My office was a shambles - shattered glass, books and records all over. If I'd been at my desk..."

The church's 40-rank Aeolian-Skinner organ was "damaged; it's not playable. The swell division was hit by falling plaster. We were two blocks away, in the path of the sound waves."

Christmas in the parish hall was lovely, Ms. Smotherman said. Willey Hall was decorated with greens and poinsettias. Plans are underway to replace the organ and construct a choir gallery. An architect's rendering shows the chancel restored to its original open design, focusing on something noticed by 10-year-old Aimee Ann Vaneck when she and her mother came to see the church the afternoon of April 19. "You know what still stood, no damage I could see?," she asked. "Our wonderful altar."

Dean Back reported that as the engineers inspected the building, older problems came to light. He wrote in his December letter, "We are not in our home. Violence and evil have destroyed God's place in our shared life." The symbol of St. Paul's has become "the stone cross with a missing arm and a shattered body" that had stood at the highest point of the facade.

"We are pressing for reconstruction by next Christmas," Dean Back said, "though the new organ won't be finished." He anticipates everything being completed by November of 1997. As a sort of assurance, he said, "We've already invited the diocese for the reopening."

Susan Urbach described St. Paul's as a ship that had sailed through stormy waters. "It's a phenomenal place, going through exile, going beyond the surface.

"Are we still a community of faith without our beautiful building? Yes! Resoundingly, yes!" o