Pillars of the Earth

Today I had the privilege of touring the Seville Cathedral with Velma. The rest of the family was there as well however Velma and I listened to the entire audio guide and looked at every chapel.

I absolutely love being in cathedrals, especially ancient and gothic cathedrals. The energy in them is indescribable. I'm eternally amazed by the engineering and the thought that the building I'm standing in was built hundreds of years ago, without modern technology, no cranes, or heavy equipment. Just men and ingenuity.  Also there was no electricity all of the ornate carvings that I marvel at today thanks to strategically placed lights was not seen by lay people and worshipers for hundreds of years. The artists who carved those pieces during construction added those details purely for the glorification of their god - talk about faith and service. I can't help but think about all of the lives the building has touched, not just through the obvious religious ties but also during the construction. Countless people earned their livelihood through the church, many of the ornate projects are the life work of it's artist. The main alter in the Seville Cathedral is the largest in the world and took just over 80 years to complete, this means that most men who started the project didn't live to see it's completion. We don't do that anymore, we don't have professions or even typically take on tasks that we don't think we'll live to see completed. Shoot we've become so used to instant gratification through texting, email, the internet etc that I can't really even fathom what that would look like. Like I said...I love cathedrals.

Seville Cathedral is technically the largest cathedral in the world, though it is considered to be the third largest in the world behind St. Peter's in the Vatican and National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in London (the technicality is that the other two churches aren't actually the seat of a Bishop therefore not official cathedrals). This church is so ornate, I feel as if I could spend days examining it and still not have time to appreciate all of the love and details it contains.

It was particularly special to enjoy this visit with Velma. I'm such a geek over cathedrals I typically have to get my travel companions to leave me for a day alone as no one else has the passion or attention span to stay for as long as I do. Velma however is just as much a geek as me and it was very cool to have someone to geek out with. :)

Ceiling of the main piece of the church - I love this.

The Alter - This took 80+ years to create