Name of the Gods

"And why ye take thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and to morrow cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" Matthew 6: 28-30

"My client is not in a hurry." - Gaudi

There are as many ways to delineate the experience of visiting La Sagrada Familia as there are spires on the famed Barcelona basilica. As my mind was making itself up in advance, I was ready to dissect the incongruent nature of this edifice with the teachings of Christ, and it's hard to overlook. 

The church booms from the humble, bone colored horizon in a way only an egg shaped monolith my Catalonian friend Xavi calls, "the suppository," manages. Given its own metro stop, when you emerge from the underground, La Sagrada pounces on you with it's skyward helixes of stone and glass as well as the scaffolding, netting, and cranes propping up this troubled, heart rending beauty. 

Blockades of tourists surround the structure. Cameras of every variety shutter and click like swarms of crickets. Vendors edge the perimeter like sinners turned away from the effulgence of God's light. Tour guides holding antennas with numbered paddles on top shepherd the herds around the square. There is an entrance for groups. There is an entrance for individuals. Above all else, the price board listing tickets ranging from €13.50 for only the basilica to €18.00 for the basilica and Tower of Passion. It's a little more for the audio guide.

Immediately I jotted down, "...growing up in a deeply religious household, this brings my total monies spent going into churches to €13.50." There is a gift shop taking over an entire wing, and no matter the realizations waiting to reveal themselves, it's disgusting. 

All the money poured into this building. The untold sums--as La Sagrada is built entirely on private donations--spent to have a family name on a dinner plate sized piece of stained glass. The same money, if devoted to the acts of Christ--feeding the hungry, healing the sick, clothing the poor--how many would be brought unto to The Lord? Would the Catholic Church be suffering the same crisis of confidence? Construction began in 1882 and is scheduled to be finished in 2026. How many incalculable hundreds of millions could have gone to doing instead of showing? 

It makes for very predictable criticism. The simplistic "money changers in the temple" phenomenon you could truncheon over the head of any major religion, regardless of deity. Even the church I grew up in, members were required to give 10% of their earnings in order to be worthy of the most sacred honors. With this glaring 10%, there were as many stories about families who paid their tithes even when the money was gone, and God would provide. 

It's the act of devotion. It's the capacity to make our gods and miracles real. This is where the much quieter power of tithing or penance or a tower looming 172.5 meters over Barcelona is held. The faithful give their God a name. The devoted give gods a name because--if they exist--without a creation to cry toward the heavens, how do they know they're godly at all? If the believers aren't down here, well, salvation goes both ways.

La Sagrada Familia is a piece of art. Art in the sense where an attempt to describe it is only a nearsighted effort to contain it, to try and make it like us. The color and movement. The light and the shapes. The solemnity contained within, a feeling which might be the only true adjective to describe the basilica. The outside is impressive, but at the behest of my friends--and a lady in the sandwich shop--I waited in line and went inside. As I entered the building, like an absence of gravity, my neck involuntarily craned upward, I levitated out of my shoes, and--in as close as I might get to a Hail Mary--"Holy shit," fell out of my slack jaw. Emphasis on the, "holy," of course.

Built around the concepts of nature, the columns open at the top like the branches of trees. A canopy, so many stone limbs intertwined, fans out across the ceiling. Stained glass windows saturated with color, primary and secondary colors blended in gentle gradient, pour the vivid pigments of flora and fauna into the building. Christ, on the cross, hangs under a broad shade lined with delicate bulbs above the altar. Above him, a narrowing ventricle reaches toward heaven. Sunlight fills the porthole between building and firmament. If you look closely, you can see a crane stretching across the skylight.

As I settled into one of the pews, I was trying to manufacture a moment where I said a prayer and felt something, or felt nothing, but this is not my God to name. Every stern column down to each precious, carved edge, radiated with the faith of so many. Visitors, laborers, architects, devoted--this God already has a name. It's a beautiful and powerful name, enough to at least be heard by this heathen. A two way mirror of earnest dedication to the belief, the burning spirit as tangible as a creator sitting on high, and the majesty of His creation. A creation who, with their vision and force of will, have named their God with opulence along side whispered prayers. Being right, being wrong, real, not real, these matters will carry  on, but as a testament to man's capacity to aspire beyond his mortal limitations, it is the greatest God of them all.