It is not the architecture or the icons that are holy.
It is the builders.
It is the artists.
It is the human breath and discipline.
It is the human refusal to let go of beauty,
even when the gods have gone.
Religion did not begin with gods—it began with meaning.
The supernatural was not a lie—it was a symbol.
A framework, a scaffolding, a mythic vocabulary
through which early humans reached toward coherence.
But over time, the scaffolding hardened.
The bag became confused with the popcorn.
The symbols ossified into authorities,
and the longing for clarity turned into a hunger for control.
Now we live in the wreckage of exhausted temples,
taught to either cling to the gods of the past
or mock the sacred entirely.
But there is another way.
We gather in the ruins.
We place our hands in the dust.
And we remember what made the place holy to begin with:
Because humans gathered here to make meaning.
Because we are still gathering.
Because we still try.
Not to summon old gods,
but to name what is true.
To reclaim beauty, coherence, and the vow to live awake.
This is what makes a cathedral sacred.
Not the stone.
But the breath within it.
And the longing that designed and built it.