We are a Cathedral?

Warning: for those of you not looking to read my spiritual ramblings, then you might want to skip this post....

We saw St. Stephen's Cathedral today in Vienna.  This was built in the 1300s.  It is ancient.  It is a master piece.  It is probably the best example of gothic architecture on the planet (or perhaps the Cologne Cathedral in Germany - never saw it; just from reading online).  The building is being cleaned right now and is showing the signs of centuries of soot and dust and grime from the air that make a dark film on the outside of the stone.   With painstaking care from a safe laser process on the limestone the cleaning is complete in a majority of the church and you can see the fruit of the labor that was a process I can only estimate has taken 8 to 10 years.  Obviously a cathedral of this size and magnitude needs ongoing and continual renovation.  I learned that the church has 8 full time master masons that are continually dedicated to renovating the church.  They also have a completed digital represented 3D model/map (down to the last micron) of the entire church inside and out (including it's stone relief work.  The idea here is that the model can be used to completely recreate anything that might get damaged or destroyed by man, war, weather or time.

I see and analogy forming here.  God made us (our lives) to be a holy temple; he talks about this in the Bible  God says that we are made to focus and reflect his glory.  Each of us (with His guiding and help) get to decide how we reflect Him in our lives and in what manner.  Many choose not to at all in anyway. It is a humbling thing for sure.  But in our lives as we look back over the years the actions and the words we pay out should shine back the love that he so graciously places into us.  But the world of decays and is filled with pain and hurt the world fights back against this process of us reflecting ..every day and every hour and every moment.  We rust, we decay, we fade, we fall apart.  

We are reminded in the analogy that the renovation we do to our lives and bodies isn't just physical, but spiritual when we act our in obedience and love "to love others as we would love ourselves."  Then we renovate or restore the spiritual part of us that reflects him.  This is simple; it is the act of kindness, generosity, gentleness, tenderness, and self-control when we serve others.  Simple, but so hard to do well.  There is no doubt about the fact that we will get old and we will die and after hundreds of year be forgotten completely by this place.  We will be like the nameless stone mason that repairs the cathedral.  Even the cathedral will be gone some day.  And if that were the end of the story it would seem dull and meaningless.  But oh, it is not the end.  We are recreated and we will rise up and be made new; we will live with this everlasting new body and reflect the glory we were made for...it is great news for sure.