A GOTHIC CATHEDRAL BUILT ON OPINION

(Post by: Madie Hobbs)

Last week, I was watching a conference regarding classical education, and the theme of this year was A Contemplation of Building. Each of the speakers interpreted this theme in their own unique ways, some speaking specifically about architecture and its impact on our lives and classrooms, some approached it from a spiritual aspect and talked about building up the spiritual lives of their students or children.

Throughout the entire event, one point remained the same in every talk. Building is an action we all partake in, but what we build is entirely up to us.

For some, this might seem like a lighthearted point. It might seem like a simple task. If we’re innately wired to build something, it should be easy, right?

For others, this point is daunting. Those who view this point as an almost terrifying reality are, I think, the ones who get it right. For they understand that what we build is not only for ourselves, but for our Creator and those closest to us.

As some of the speakers discussed actual architectural building, an important truth came to light that I had actually been recently contemplating on my own.

They pointed out that as time has worn on, architecture has become only a career path, used for functionality, storing as many people as possible in one space, and increasing wealth. 200 years ago, architecture was a means of divine expression. Builders used their hands to create what they could not explain through words or drawings or music, but which later inspired all those things in others. It was a representation of everything beautiful within themselves which could no longer be contained.

One of the chief losses, aside from human loss, which was experienced in WWII was the destruction of many of these beautiful buildings in large bombings, and they were replaced afterwards with buildings entirely unlike what had been destroyed. In fact, many of these totalitarian and modern buildings were built by the very people who were involved in destroying the beautiful and bewitching ones now being replaced.

As one of the speakers discussed this tragedy, she also stated that statistics show that once an area introduces modern buildings with the sole purpose of practicality, which are often stark and ugly, crime rates in that area increase exponentially.

Is this perhaps the case because we replace the soul with the machine, and people no longer must look up from their self-absorption and toward something bigger than any one person?

That same speaker also included a quote from a visiting foreigner who walked into a gothic cathedral and spent a good long while staring up at the beauty and detail of the structure, details which served no purpose other than to introduce beauty to the onlookers. When he emerged from the building he said something many of us need to consider.

He said, “Buildings used to be made when people had conviction. Now all anyone wants to have is an opinion. But Gothic cathedrals cannot be built on opinions.”

How many of us believe we have built a gothic cathedral of our opinions and personal preferences, only for it to be revealed when we look with humility that what we have built is nothing but a steel vault, closed off to anything which may bring light to our souls? When will we notice that what we have built is devoid of beauty and is increasing evil in our own minds?

I hope you now realize I’m not really talking about physical buildings at all.

What is it you have built inside of you? Where is the beauty in it? Do people see a gothic cathedral, full of winding staircases of thought, a multitude of pews with flowers etched into the ends where your soul mutters prayers of the most eloquent or rudimentary kind, and a pulpit that tells a long, divine story?

Or do they see nothing but a convenience store? Full of shelves stocked with the latest and greatest invention, whose only purpose is to make life easier, so we are robbed of the actual magic of living. Is it big and shoved full of opinions on what is most popular, and yet completely empty of anything that draws our eyes upward?

Find a conviction. Draw your eyes up to something bigger than yourself today. Let your soul out of the empty box it is housed in, and step into your role as a creator.

We were created in the image of the greatest Creator in history, you know. Anything which flows from this identity can only increase our likeness to that Divine Glory.