Space Matters

It is almost here. The future home of St. Patrick is almost built and ready to be occupied. I ought to know; every day I drive by and gander at the latest thing happening on the exterior and, time permitting, go inside the building. The wait is almost over and I am deeply thankful that God has provided us such a place of beauty in which to worship.Does that matter? Does space matter? Is this a spiritual concern when we talk about beauty or is it just pride or vanity that wants to inhabit a space that is beautiful? It is a legitimate question. And since we are about to be moving into a new space, which will, in a large sense, be a “hallowed” space, I think we should think about it. I still meet and talk to those utilitarian souls who act as if it is not “spiritual” to seek to build or even inhabit beauty. Or they don’t really see it as having a place in restoration, or the care and cure of souls, all of which the kingdom that Jesus came to build is all about. So does space matter?It was over twenty-five years ago when I realized just how much beauty and space matter to the human soul. Not only that, but I realized how much our view of God, man, and the world affected the kind of space you build. I was on a mission trip to Ukraine with some other folk from Mississippi and, after eight days, we drove from Ukraine across the country of what was then Czechoslovakia, a country formed by the Communistic Soviet Union after World War Two (this is very important). The Communists ruled in Czechoslovakia until the Velvet Revolution of 1989, when the country became independent of Soviet rule. I was in the country one year after the revolution and the country was split into two countries along ethnic lines with the Czech Republic to the north and Slovakia to the south. The capital of Slovakia is the ancient city of Bratislava. Bratislava has been there since medieval times and was where we spent a couple of days. It was also here that, on a particular day when I was out taking in beauty the likes of which I had never witnessed, the lines between time and eternity grew really thin and I understood glory and infamy in a new way.I was standing on the SNP Bride. It is a large and strange bridge. It has something in the middle of the bridge, at the top, that looks like a UFO. This bridge stands over the historic Danube River and, we might say, is a good observation point to consider theology and ideas, and how they manifest themselves in architectural form! As I stood on the bridge and looked to the east side of the river I saw the old city built in the middle ages. Up on a hill was the Bratislava Castle, grand and stately. Spires deck every corner and it stands watch over a village of narrow streets, green spaces, and interesting buildings of all shapes and sizes. At the bottom of the hill stands St. Martin’s Cathedral, a Gothic cathedral that was begun in 1204 and finished and reconsecrated in 1445. In this spot several Hungarians kings held their coronations. All of this was “weighty.” This was “glorious.” This was built to last. In all this space you wanted to linger; in the cathedral, you were awed by the space. This whole space was a place you were drawn to; your soul was drawn in. You wanted to inhabit this place. You felt like that if you were to walk on these streets it might heal your heart a bit. You wished that you lived in some place like this and, if you did, it might make you a better person.On the other side of the river, as my eye panned north and then to the east, what you see is almost beyond belief. I had never seen anything like it. As far as the eye can see is what the Communist-era imagination built. It is the Petržalka housing estate, the biggest Communist-era concrete block-housing complex in Central Europe. Every building was identical; the material was the same, no variety, endless repeating form. It went on forever - Andy Warhol, in concrete housing. While in the former place you longed to enter it, in this later space, the government that designed it had to build fences to keep people in!As I pondered these two images it hit me - what you think about God, man, and the world will effect what you think about space. If you believe man is unique, has a soul, will live forever, and is created by a God who made a world that is decked with beauty - then you will build beautiful buildings. If however, you believe man is just a biological accident, is a slave of the state, has no soul, and is totally expendable - then why create a beautiful setting for him to live?Beauty matters! Winston Churchill famously said, “We shape our building and our buildings shape us.” It is so true. This was uppermost in our minds as we designed the first phase of our building at St. Patrick. Space matters; it works on you at a deeper level than rationality. We inhabit space and, even if we aren’t thinking about it, it is forming us. The space we will worship in has two essential things that sacred architecture has always used to give a space a sense of transcendence - space and light. Square windows are much cheaper. Ten foot ceilings are much more efficient. A vaulted ceiling costs a lot more to heat and cool. Concrete exterior would save money. So why twelve foot Gothic windows and a ceiling that, when you walk in, your eye instinctively travels up to the thirty-two foot peak of the vault? Why?Because beauty matters. A building is not the church, but a building is sacramental. A building witnesses to our view of beauty and of what we think God is like. But more than that, all the great events of a human life will happen here. It is here that we will baptize our babies. It is here, week in and week out, that we will walk the aisle and move toward the cross to give ourselves to Jesus and hear the gospel, welcome to eat and drink his body and blood. It is here that we will give our children to God, and will give our daughters away and marry off our sons. And it is here that we will remember life is short and in death we will celebrate those whose “faithful presence” God has used to form us in Christ.This is why a building matters. And after years of meeting God in this place, and pondering all of the times God has spoken to us, we will not even need a word spoken, because the very stones will speak. We will inhabit a mystery and it will heal us just a little.