“God is dead,” wrote Nietzsche, famously, in 1882. Less well known is the rest of his sentence, which continues, “but considering the state the species Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which His shadow will be shown.”
In the wake of events that were, by every human measure, incomprehensible, there is no other place to bring our misery but before God. As days of prayer and remembrance stretch into weeks, many of us will pick our way through real and emotional rubble and go to church.
Believers and nonbelievers alike need these quiet caves of refuge—whether church, synagogue or mosque—to cope with our newly lost sense of ourselves as a nation blessed by God. Gathering together is comforting because it is in community that we best understand that life’s joys and sorrows are shared by all, perhaps not equally, but certainly by all.
Churches are like no other structures. Unlike supermarkets, banks, and skyscrapers, which we move in and through at a fantastic pace, churches provide the rare opportunity to pause and reflect. Their sole function is to provide human beings with a space in which to contemplate, individually and in communion with others, their immortal dimension.
In an age of overnight delivery, it’s hard to fathom, much less emulate, the patience of the Gothic cathedral builders. Medieval masons and carpenters knew that they would not live to see the final fruits of their long labor. Carefully, they put stone upon stone for future generations. Today, in the sacred fields of lower Manhattan, heroic workers are removing the World Trade Center stone by sad stone with the same diligence as their Gothic counterparts.
Whether a cathedral requiring centuries to construct or a converted storefront, churches reveal our most intimate and enduring connection to architecture. They are spaces of profound mystery. In a church, life’s three big questions—Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going?—can be asked, and one can find, if not answers, reconciliation with not knowing. We can safely explore our conflicting desires for both peace and retaliation. Sinners are welcomed.
In the embrace of a church, we participate in the sacred, whether we pray, meditate, or simply draw a peaceful breath. The building itself is a comfort. The worn pews, the sensual images of saints, the faint scent of candle wax, and the glow of stained glass—all help to dispel the incense of grief. We are strengthened by the presence of the living and the dead. Churches exalt our spirits and yet show so clearly our smallness in the greater scheme.
Only in the last century did skyscrapers, the new cathedrals of commerce, replace churches as our proudest monuments to human aspiration and technical ingenuity. When the late architect Minoru Yamasaki designed the twin towers, he conceived of them as immense steel cages. The steel ribs that formed the towers sprang up from the earth in a series of arched windows. These pointed arches, a hallmark of the Gothic style, were Yamaski’s homage to earlier cathedrals. In the aftermath of September 11, all that remained of his design was a section of the lower arched facade. Shrouded with gloom, the wall fragment looked more eerily Gothic than the architect had ever intended. The giants that exalted us have fallen, and we return to church.
In the end, one’s devotion to a church has very little to do with its architectural grandeur, the number of its stained-glass windows, the talent of its choir, or the Christmas poinsettia budget. A church, wholly intertwined with life, gains its fundamental significance as a crucible of solace and memory. In places that have witnessed the most important events in our lives—birth, marriage, and death—let us pray. There will be time enough tomorrow to earn our daily bread.