Cathedrals: What’s the big deal?

I have a good friend whose parents are world-class AIDS researchers. When I was 13, they… I have a good friend whose parents are world-class AIDS researchers. When I was 13, they went on sabbatical to Paris, and during their stay, they invited me to tag along on a family tour of Spain’s cathedrals.

After my second day of cathedral viewing, I realized something that made me feel guilty: I didn’t care about cathedrals. I kept my boredom a secret, though, because appreciating cathedrals seemed like a gentlemanly thing to do, and it looked like somebody put a lot of time into the cathedrals. I assured myself that when I got older and more mature I would like them.

Now I am 20, and the most interesting thing about cathedrals is that when I was 13 I could imagine that when I was 20 they wouldn’t bore me. That’s to say: Deep down in my heart of hearts, I don’t care about cathedrals. I’ve also lost any faith that I will mature into an appreciation for cathedrals, or that cathedrals will turn things around and start offering laser tag or something really surreal, like a skeet range where you can shoot melted clocks.

What makes cathedrals boring? Just ask what makes them interesting. I recall one tour guide explaining, “Wherever you go in the world, people always build cathedrals with the same basic design!” He added, “If that’s not exciting, I don’t know what is,” by which he meant, “I don’t know what public television is.”

I live in Peru right now. Peru has many cathedrals, and it is my ambition to tour none of them – note that this is something larger than not having an ambition to tour any of them.

If someday I grow old and boring, to the extent that I regret not having seen a cathedral – any cathedral in the world – I plan to buy all the postcards for that cathedral, hold them very close to my face and walk around a cold room until the pulse-thumping experience is perfectly recreated.

You might argue that cathedrals only have postcards for the important parts – like the gargoyles – and I would miss 98 percent of the cathedral. But on my tour, we only see the important parts, like the gargoyles, because the other parts are unimportant. And then, we watch DVDs of the animated series “Gargoyles” for four hours.

But if you really want to live the dream of touring a cathedral, here goes – I’m thinking about picking up the banjo again. I don’t have a girlfriend right now. My throat hurts. Tour complete. Although this tour didn’t include information about cathedrals, it did include information that no one could honestly care about except my mom, exactly like a real cathedral tour.

I especially don’t care that cathedrals are old. Rocks don’t move, and a profit motive drives somebody to do the upkeep on anything old, so nothing amazes me about a cathedral that has stood for 400 years.

On the contrary, a cathedral would be special if it had not stood for 400 years because it had to stretch and once went to a prom. For example, the Cathedral of Learning is OK, but consider a “Cathedral of Churning,” which rotated and spewed butter; or a “Cathedral of Yearning,” which loved madly but didn’t know how to say it except in a desperate 2 a.m. online conversation.

You may believe you like looking at cathedrals, but you are lying to yourself. There is nothing in human nature that would justify enjoying looking at more than one or two cathedrals, except self-satisfaction. When people feel enjoyment looking at cathedrals, they don’t actually enjoy looking at the cathedral; they enjoy the idea of themselves enjoying the cathedral. In this sense, cathedrals are just like the “Kill Bill” movies. If people had thought bubbles, cathedral tourists would say, “Here I am, doing what you are supposed to do when you are on vacation.”

However, I won’t discount cathedrals totally. If the cathedral is 400 years old, it can mean two things: One, 400 years ago, people did something: cathedral-building. Two, for 400 years, people have been doing something: religious services. One of the conclusions is interesting.

If you visit a cathedral, go on Sunday morning. Come early and sit through the whole service, right in the middle of the people. There you will see the cathedral’s one enchantment: Here people consistently congregate for the most crucial events in their short lives and have done so for 400 years. Your visit is more than sightseeing, it is experience-experiencing. You don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate that, you just have to be human. I am just the latter.

One day you may plan a vacation for yourself and your friends, and the lucky ones will even count me among those friends. Take my advice: Do not put cathedral tours on the agenda nor anything else for which a webcam sufficiently evokes the experience.

E-mail Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu. He might just play the banjo for you.