Cathedrals

"The deep secrecy of my own being is often hidden from me by my own estimate of what I am."
Thomas Merton

"Blessed are the hearts that bend, they shall never be broken." Albert Camus

"When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter."
Albert Camus


Where have gone the places in our souls that rise, soaring above us like edifices of praise?

Talking to a friend tonight, late, the hours passing in conversation, the only sound the rain on the window and our voices traveling across an ocean united by modern technology (the same technology I recently blamed for making life too fast). We look at one another and hear our voices in each other's ear and talk about matters of the soul. A far cry from Dostoevsky's tormented Russians sitting around the kitchen table drinking vodka or tea and talking about God, life and the burdens of the Russian Soul. Or is it? Our conversation was not too different, our sincerity was certainly as strong and our questions about life, love and what it means to live were not much different in the demands made or the questions asked. Tempus Fugit. Time flies and yet so little changes. My friend has such an admirable soul and to listen to her thoughts is to witness moments of illumination.

The rain continues though our conversation has ended. I think about so many things. I am listening to Anonymous 4, voices are peaceful, there is a string quartet, the Chilingirian, accompanying them. Somber. Quiet. Perfect for these thoughts. They belong to cathedrals, these voices, they belong to places that rise high and allow the voices and spirits to soar. My friend talked about loved ones and the desire to hold them close forever, or as long as time allowed. I thought about this and I thought about Camus' quote - (a quote by the way that I have not found the provenance for and would be grateful if anyone knows which book this is from. I have read a lot of Camus and cannot find it anywhere) - about the way in which we live in the hearts we encounter.

When you think about it we carry within our hearts the pieces, the remnants of so many encounters, good and bad that affect us. These remnants are the stones that eventually form the cathedral of our soul. David Macaulay in his magnificent children's book Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction says that "each stone was marked three times, once to show its future location in the cathedral, once to show which quarry it came from -- so that the quarry man would be paid for every stone he extracted -- and once to show which stone cutter had actually cut the stone, so that he would be paid as well." Aren't the stones of our souls marked much in the same manner. People leave their marks on us as if to tell us where this stone will be placed and who must be paid for the effort. The stone marks the encounter, the person lives in our heart.

The rain has stopped. There is a cool breeze coming in the window. The voices continue to float upwards, out, through the window and towards the clouds. I think of these marked stones that become our never finished cathedral. We collect stones daily and, each day, place these stones before us, behind us, all around us. We hammer and chisel and hoist and buttress until... one day...

So think about this: how do we live in the hearts we encounter?; what marks do we make upon another's stone? In what way are we responsible for the cathedrals we build? Our cathedrals hold our secret, "our own estimate" of who we are. It is a fragile thing, this estimate, something we are never quite sure of and often need reassurance for. Sometimes, though, we can see in the eyes of another the value we hold with them. Sometimes this value even matches our own estimate of who we are. If they love us there is in their eyes something more than we may have given ourselves credit for. Their eyes may hold such light towards us as to make us blush. In these hearts the finer qualities we possess become enhanced and we find ourselves wanting to match that person's estimation of our worth. We try to live up to their love, we let their love nourish our belief in our self, we find ourselves less selfish, more giving and more willing to bend to the needs of another. More giving in freedom, more giving in yourself. You try, as Camus writes, to awaken the light within. A light that guides us, gives us warmth and comforts us. We use this light to remember that the most important thing is our love. Yes, we live in the hearts we encounter.