The Vertical Dimension

"Gothic cathedrals are astounding monuments to the aspirations of the human spirit reaching out to the divine. . . ."

--Hugh Dickinson, Dean Emeritus of Salisbury Cathedral

"He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
    like the earth, which he has founded forever."

--Psalm 78: 69

Since time immemorial, the vertical dimension has been associated with the sacred, or what traditionally has been known as God. It is no aberration that Moses climbs to the top of a mountain for his encounter with God in the burning bush. Patterns of pilgrimage throughout the world, as at Mt. Fuji in Japan and innumerable lesser sites, demonstrate the divine power that is thought to dwell in earth's high places. In Greek mythology, we remember, the gods are believed to reside on the lofty heights of Mount Olympus, from whence they look down upon the little triumphs and tragedies of us mortals, strangely with as much envy as disdain.

Although it was not the only time he preached that particular sermon--he used it on several important occasions during his brief lifetime--it is interesting that King chose "Three Dimensions of a Complete Life" to be the one he delivered at St. Paul's Cathedral in London in 1964, on his way to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. King's speech is considered to be one of the high points--pun intended--in the long and illustrious history of St. Paul's. Anyone who has visited the cathedral, and climbed to the top of its tremendous, landmark dome, as I did on my recent visit there, cannot help but be inspired by its immensity and verticality. The view from the top is definitely worth the arduous climb.

The power of the vertical dimension was brought home to me once again during my recent visit to England and to several cathedrals and abbey churches. Though I admit to being impressed by the sheer size and height and volume of St. Paul's, I must confess that I prefer the gothic architecture of Canterbury and Salisbury to the classical architecture of Christopher Wren's masterpiece. What is perhaps most surprising to me is that despite living in a world where buildings have been built to a hundred stories and more, and where flight is commonplace, medieval gothic cathedrals still manage to awe and inspire us. The miracle of their light, the wonder of their stone work, the beauty of their works of art, but especially their sheer verticality--their immense interior height--never fail to amaze.

We wonder how, given the technology of their day, they could possibly have been constructed. We cannot help but be curious about the power of the theological, political, economic, and aesthetic ideas and forces which built them.

Standing in the soaring nave of Canterbury, looking toward the magnificent east end of the cathedral; entering for the first time the beautiful close of Salisbury Cathedral with its fantastic 404 foot spire, tallest in England; sitting in a lovely beer garden atop Freiburg, Germany with a nearly level view of the Freiburg Minster's exquisite, 350 foot tall stone-traceried spire, one cannot help but be inspired and humbled by the visionary spirit they represent. They draw our vision upward. One feels him or herself to be in the presence of something extraordinary. In an age before flight, they must have made the viewer feel unbound from all the cares of her earthly existence, at least for an instant in time.

Perhaps it was a brief stint as a steeplejack--in younger, and more nimble days--which gave me my love for great heights and for philosophical speculation about them. I even preached about the subject once, in the sermon I gave as a requirement for fellowship as a Unitarian Universalist minister. Whatever faults that early sermonic effort may have had--and I am certain it had many--it was unusual enough that some folks serving on the fellowshipping committee at the time have never forgotten it.

In "The Gentle Art of Steeplejacking," as I titled it, I spoke of the lessons learned for my future ministry from my work painting and repairing church steeples. Among them was my cousin Roy Bowden's admonition, during my first stint in a bosun's chair, "Don't let go of that rope, or you're a goner." It's good advice, whatever the line that is binding us to what is most important and life-sustaining, to keep tight hold in precarious places! (I have had reason to consider that advice on many occasions since.)

But I also spoke of the builders of those idealistic structures, of what their hopes, dreams, and motivations might have been. I wondered about the risks and rewards of building in such a precarious and unforgiving environment. Perhaps, I said, the risk was worth it in order to obtain a grander view. Perhaps, I said, those steeples were truly constructed in tribute to--and out of trust in--the Almighty God; though I granted that this might be wishful thinking. Now, however, I am not so sure, though the language I would use to describe their tribute might be a little different.

One thing that comes through in visiting these wonderful religious buildings--and I would include our own spectacular meeting house in this assessment--is the insignificance of belief before the fact of sacred space. What do I mean? I mean that in a world of competing theologies, of contradictory systems of religious belief and ideology, and most dangerously of mind- and spirit-killing religious fundamentalisms, over which people have fought and died and, alas, continue to fight and die, the fact of sacred space is incontestable. It is universal and it is real. We know it by its presence.

Height, light, and space trump belief every time, for me at least. It really doesn't matter what we believe, in terms of systems and doctrines, as long as we practice loving kindness. Those cathedral builders knew that the sheer audacity of their constructions pointed to something in the human spirit which has been shared in every place and every time and by every religious tradition. It is not bound by any name we might choose to give it, in fact, it cannot be named. Or, we might conclude, its only name is mystery.

When I despair about religious institutions, when I despair about religion itself--and believe me, I despair about them often, being a minister and all--I admit that I am less surprised by the regular failure of our human efforts to communicate the sacred than I am by our occasional, wildly unlikely and totally miraculous success. Of course, we fail far more often than we succeed. Anyone who attends church on a regular basis knows that. But for me, sacred space, and especially the vertical dimension of sacred space, is one of the successes. It doesn't matter what religion you profess, or whether you profess none at all, you can still share the experience of sacred space. It is real, and it is accessible. You simply have to enter it. Where the sacred is concerned, belief can disappoint: experience never. Most people who visit cathedrals do not do so for traditionally religious reasons. But I daresay most come away having had an experience of the sacred in the midst of their mundane and earthly existences. We say they have been uplifted. Perhaps a few have even been transformed.

These moments of inspiration--and usually they are only moments, as Emerson and the Transcendentalists lamented--can rescue the hours and days spent in the desert. They can renew us and refresh us and help us to continue on our way along the perilous journey that is our lives.

Hugh Dickinson, Dean Emeritus of Salisbury Cathedral, has written that "Gothic cathedrals are astounding monuments to the aspirations of the human spirit reaching out to the divine. . . ." I love that idea, and perhaps no cathedral still standing represents his view better than Salisbury.

A few years after it was mostly completed in 1265, it was decided to add a tower and spire for which the original design had not accounted. It was not to be just any tower and spire, but at 404 feet the tallest and most awe-inspiring in all of England. Unfortunately, the weight of an additional 6,500 tons--just imagine--on the four piers at the central crossing of the cathedral caused them to bend so much that the bend is easily visible to the naked eye. It was feared that the tower would collapse, as many others had, and so special measures were taken to reinforce the building in order to support the tremendous weight of the new tower.

Thankfully for us, the work was successful. Though the spire has a slight lean to the southwest of almost 30 inches, it has not moved since Christopher Wren first measured its declension at the beginning of the 18th century. May it stand so for centuries to come, an outward and visible sign, as we like to say of epiphanies large and small, of inward spiritual grace, a fitting symbol of "the human spirit reaching out to the divine."

My only New Year's resolution, at least, the only one I am willing to tell you about, is to find a spiritual practice. You may be surprised that I don't have one, at least not one that I follow on a daily basis. Like many of you, I say that I am too busy. Certainly, my attendance at weekly worship is a spiritual practice. And certainly, my pilgrimages to cathedrals and other sacred places are a kind of practice, but I want something more regular than this, something which calls me back to the sacred more frequently than my occasional travels. In my case, it may be something quite traditional, because I find comfort in words well-woven and actions time-tested and true. It will certainly contain those three dimensions about which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke as necessary to a "complete" life. It will include length: the continuing pursuit to discover what it is that I am meant to do, a pursuit which, you know, never ends. (I don't know about you, but I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.) It will include breadth: how I relate to and try to help other people, because no life is complete without service to others, and because none of us can afford to sit back and rest on his laurels, and there is still so much to be done. And it will include height: the vertical dimension, my relationship to what has traditionally been called God, but which I am content simply to call the sacred, or even the mystery of all.

May each of us make progress in those three dimensions of life in the year to come, gaining in self-knowledge, in service, and in our relationship to the ground of our being. I look forward to walking the path with you, seeking for inspiration, and climbing the spiritual heights, as we search together to find "the grand horizon's wider view." May it be so. Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock