cathedrals...

From NT Wright, For All God's Worth:

"When we realize once again that our God is the one who loves us into new life, then we will truly know how to celebrate. True celebration, in turn, sustains true humanness. As we glimpse the living God, we are transformed into His likeness.
So it isn't surprising that those who are grasped by this gospel have built cathedrals. People who have forgotten who God is produce concrete jungles and cradboard cities. People who remember or rediscover who God is build catherdrals to His glory, and homes where the poor are cared for; we have both in the city of Lichfield, and they belong together, in celebration and healing. People in our contemporary society are cramped and stifled, fed on a diet of ugliness and noise. They are hungry for beauty, for light, for music. In celebrating and maintaining a wonderful cathedral, we are not a sub-branch of the 'heritage industry'. We are telling real people about the real God: we are saying that there is a different way to be human, a way in which mystery and silence and light and space all play their proper part."