Is This Forever?

I love churches, though I fear the feeling isn’t reciprocated. When you’re not a Christian, entering a church to admire it purely for its looks can feel disrespectful or sacrilegious. It also means taking on the risk of being approached by a kindly priest who mistakes you for one of the faithful or, worse, realizes you’re not and tries to tell you about Jesus. But, nonetheless, I love churches, and I can’t resist creeping into every pretty one I find, while keeping a weather eye out for the priest. I can’t say exactly what it is I love about them: certainly the airy design, especially of Catholic churches and cathedrals; and the use of figurative art, which my own religion (Judaism) lacks. There’s a sort of all-encompassing wholeness to a well-designed church, a unity of form and function and spirit, draped in the heavy mantle of eternity. When I visited Notre Dame in Paris I arrived accidentally in time for Saturday evening mass, and the combination of artistic elements—the vaulted ceiling, the painted stars, the incense, the singing—gave me something close to an ae…