Catholic Mass
I went inside of a Catholic church recently to observe mass and find a way to cash in time. Walking to the doors I was greeted by a smiling old woman. I've seen her before a million times in a million different places.
Inside there was a long hall, like a University, spanning as far as I could see with edifices of glass and stone. Marble coating the floors with pictures and icons dotted around in a seemingly random order. I am not at home.
Down the hall and to the right was the cathedral proper. Magnificent to behold, a wonder, a modern marvel. Though I marveled not, for it's like I've seen a million times before in a million different places. The beams of steel reaching into the sky-- high high above all of the heads of the laity and attendants and ushers and choir and choir directors and alter servers and deacons and priests. The roof towering into the sky and the marble diamondesque that stretched above-- laid flat and straight across the walls, across the ceiling, across the floor between the pews-- gave the eye a pinnacle to see towards: that of an orb. A golden circle painted across the top of the front facing wall, just behind the altar, and just below the edge of the ceiling. Is God impressed? Does He marvel to see the beauty of this temple? Or does He know, instead, that just as cookie-cut houses dot across the landscape of the nurich-- those so respectable mounds of humanity with households identical to their neighbors, who are strangers to them-- that these temples are laid out the same everywhere in the world. A booklet likely, something guiding their construction with a few splotches of paint here and there to make them appear unique to the flock.
But it is true that construction has halted. None new are built, none new are wanted. In a century what will this building be? Shall it remain steadfast despite the signs of the times, or in spite of them? Or will its roof one day grow too heavy and, in a sharp and loud instant and with a twang will the beams slip between themselves and let loose the dangling lights and stone as the roof collapses onto the heads of the faithful to make them that faithful departed that is so often remembered? Or will it simply be abandoned? Let alone for the elements-- rust, cobweb, rot and splinter-- to consume, until one day it is an attraction only for those angsty youthful explorers who wish to find graffiti and ghouls in the comfort of an abandoned building. A building that is as much a stranger to them as to those who try to keep them out of it.