It’s His House

I have been reading much about cathedrals lately. As a home schooling parent, I teach a segment of history each school year so that my children’s art, history, literature, music, writing, etc. all revolve around a specific time period. Right now, we are entrenched in the Middle Ages. Thus, the subject of cathedrals is prominent in our studies.

A fellow teacher at Excelsior Academy, where I teach literature once a week to home schoolers, recently loaned me a book called The Invisible Woman: When Only God Sees. In it, a woman who feels invisible, unappreciated, and disrespected is given a book about cathedrals from a traveler friend. What looked like just a coffee table book of beautiful pictures begins to reveal to the reader that cathedral builders “devoted their whole lives to a work they would never see finished.” The book conveys a story of a man watching a monk intricately carve a bird on a beam that would eventually be covered over. When the man watching asked why he was spending so much time on a bird that no one would see he replied, “Because God sees.”

My cathedral theme continued when I purchased a book–Pillars of the Earth–which was highly recommended to me because it is set in the Middle Ages. After I bought the book, however, I learned that the main fictional character is a cathedral builder and that the reason the author, Ken Follett, departed from his genre as thriller writer to write the novel was because he is so intrigued with cathedrals. Interestingly, though, Follett is compelled to divulge to us in the second paragraph of his preface that he does not believe in God.

Likewise, in the segment that we focused on recently in our Sunday School class–where we are studying The Truth Project, by Del Tackett, Focus on the Family–a young British woman admitted that she loved visiting cathedrals and felt such peace and awe in them, “even though I’m not a religious person.”

All this emphasis on cathedral building got me to thinking about a project I did a few years ago for Our State Books. The publishing company was putting together a large coffee table book of historic North Carolina churches and they asked me to contribute 14 essays on 14 different churches (one is a cathedral) in the foothills of North Carolina.

I spent six months visiting these churches. It was the single most important project of my career wholly for the fact that I met such Godly people and experienced, time and time again, His Holy Spirit in just about every church I visited. I marveled, most significantly, in the determination and sacrifice involved in the raising of each building.

In an essay for the book, I wrote the following:

A sign posted on the door of a church I included in “Portraits of Grace” reads: ‘Be thoughtful, be silent, be reverent – for this is the house of God.’ Whether or not you are a believer or a nonbeliever, entering through church doors is a religious experience. The church can be a small, quaint structure or a massive architectural wonder – no matter. There is a respect and awe that occurs when one opens those doors and steps inside. Our voices lower, we step lightly, we pause.

The sign on the door of All Saints Episcopal in Linville says it best:

“Enter this door as if the floor within were gold,

and every wall of jewels all of wealth untold.

As if a choir in notes of fire were singing here.

Nor shout, nor rush, but hush – God is here.”

Each time I have stepped over the threshold into another sanctuary, I am enveloped by the holiness of the space. It happened when I visited a simple chapel near Franklin with peeling paint and a wood stove for heat; it happened when I visited a beautifully decorated church in Blowing Rock with a 6-foot painting of Mary and Jesus. You expect the feeling when you enter your own church on Sunday morning – or in a great European cathedral. You don’t expect it in a church whose only adornment is a paint-by-number of the Last Supper.

But His presence is there. And it’s enough to restore faith or build faith – whatever the case may be. You wonder as you quietly tug on the massive iron door, or the wood frame door, or the stained glass door: How many have worshiped here, cried over lost loved ones, prayed for miracles? How many generations of family members have come and gone and are still coming?

When we consider that at some point during the week, thousands – hundreds of thousands – of Americans are entering through church doors. They take time out of their busy lives to learn, to renew their commitment, to serve their community, to worship and sing praises, and to gain a sense of peace that – as it is written in the scriptures – “surpasses all understanding.” They seek to know Him better while in the confines of the four walls, and they return the next week seeking to know Him even better still.

Some are strangers to these churches. The doors are unlocked not just for the members, but also for passersby to reflect and spend a quiet moment. Some who stumble upon the Church of the Little Flower – in a highly remote area of Madison County – feel compelled to leave a few dollars as a show of appreciation for what they gained during their brief time inside.

The chaos of our lives, the wars abroad, the endless worries are silenced momentarily inside of a church. These houses of worship are truly refuges, sanctuaries for the people who open their doors.

I opened a lot of church doors during the Fall of 2003 while researching and writing stories for this book, and I’m glad.

Do we take for granted the workmanship for the glory of God that went into constructing the houses of worship where we attend each Sunday? Do we fail to enter the doors with awe? Do we admire the architecture, but not the Architect?