Two Cathedrals

Seeking the Sublime on and from Earth

Totality stared at us with a cosmic, cyclopean eye, its pupil of infinite blackness ringed by white fire amid the dusky iris of the Hill Country sky. All of the hubbub and fuss before the eclipse may have struck the uninitiated as absurd. Schools canceled classes and businesses closed, counties declared local emergencies, and Airbnb bookings clustered along the path the moonshadow would trace across the ground. But for those who had traveled, those who had taken a moment to stop—whoever was watching—they could climb sunward from the mundane and stare back, glimpsing, if only for a few minutes, the sublime. 

When totality was over, and as the sun bathed the earth once more in steadily brightening light, the lingering residue of the sublime gradually faded, and we found ourselves transported not back to normal life, but to one in which we had shared a transcendent experience. It was all that my group of friends and I could talk about.

I remarked to them that I’d been worried that the eclipse might not live up to the hype. What if all the travel plans and holidays and hullabaloo had not been worth it? But at the moment it was happening, I wasn’t thinking about any of that: all my sights and thoughts were on the celestial spectacle projected on the ceiling of the great cathedral of the Texas sky.

Afterward, reflecting on what we had witnessed, it reminded me of the last awe-inspiring experience I’d had. Last August, I decided to celebrate my fortieth birthday in Barcelona with a morning visit to Antoni Gaudí’s unfinished Sagrada Familia—technically not a cathedral, but a church on the scale of one. I had visited it some twenty years before during a somewhat moodier phase of my life, when most of the spires were stubs and the interior was obscured by scaffolding. Back then, I left with an impression of a beige pile of grotesqueries enclosing a cavern. 

In the intervening twenty years, I grew up some and so did the church. I was curious to go back, but not without some trepidation. Instead, it was like seeing with new eyes. 

Inside, the first thing I noticed was not the absence of scaffolding, not the towering columns, not the throngs of people standing with their heads tilted upwards—but the light. Gorgeous, prismatic rays streamed in through monumental stained-glass windows, saturating the interior with ethereal color that made the soaring space glow. 

I gasped upon entering.

It was then I noticed the treelike piers, the stone carvings, the translucent, molten mosaics of the windows, the people struck in awe by the sight of it all, looking up. Gaudí drew heavily on nature for his design, and the cumulative effect feels like a walk among the redwoods as sunlight filters through the leaves, all cast in stone and glass. While the exterior of the building is steeped and steepled in Catholic symbolism, the inside strips away the trappings of the Church to reveal God in the details.

(Photo Credit: the Author)

The construction of Gaudí’s masterpiece is a collective enterprise that began 142 years ago and continues on nearly a century after the architect’s death, with completion expected in 2026. If it seems strange that a country where religiosity has dramatically declined in the past forty years is still feverishly working to finish the cathedral, the experience of the place may answer why, for the many thousands who have worked to fulfill Gaudí’s vision have achieved something of the sublime—a cathedral that exalts the human spirit. I am not religious, but the experience of stepping into the Sagrada Familia and seeing what humans could build lifted my spirit and filled me with a sense of wonder and possibility.

Back in Texas, among a chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” sung by children and adults alike, it occurred to me that the need for wonder is not a childlike one—it is inherently human. Monday’s eclipse was the rare event where our entire country could participate in the awe of the heavens together, a visual reminder that we are all traveling together on this planet under the same moon and star. The Sagrada Familia filled me with a similar shared sense of awe—but of what we can build together and what we can aspire toward.

Altogether, these cathedrals of sky and stone make me think that there’s something inherent to human nature that requires us to seek out the sublime, to experience the joy and beauty of the world as endowed by nature or created by man.

It makes me think that humans need cathedrals.

I’m thinking about all this in the context of our cities. Cities are of course where the faithful have long built their most monumental churches, but it strikes me that the city itself is a sort of cathedral writ large. Certainly, one could draw an analogy between spires and skyscrapers. And it’s true that many architects have found inspiration in the Gothic architecture of European cathedrals when designing early skyscrapers—indeed, New York’s Woolworth Building was called the “Cathedral of Commerce.” 

But it’s not just what cities look like—it’s what they mean. A total eclipse gives us the rare opportunity to stare into the face of the sun, to contemplate the vastness of the cosmos and our place in it. Cities, conversely, are where we find our place. They are a physical manifestation of human potential, showing us the literal heights of our imagination, of our industry, of our spirit—and what we can do when we come together under the same moon and star. That’s what draws me to write about, celebrate, and fight for our cities.

And it’s what draws people to cities—to experience something beyond the mundane of daily life, to slip the surly bonds of the suburbs and see the face of God as reflected in the windows of man’s creation. To look up and discover, perhaps, that the sublime is within reach here on earth.