On cathedral building

When I find myself seeking the dopamine-hit of a short-term achievement or intoxicated by the sense of productivity from a tightly-scheduled life, I sometimes think of the cathedral builders of the middle ages who never saw the ultimate fruits of their labor. Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral took over seven generations—182 years—to complete. Centuries after Notre Dame was finished, Victor Hugo declared it “a symphony in stone.” But for so many, and for so long, it was no symphony; it was just an unfinished construction site.

I think I would have struggled to be a dutiful cathedral builder. I’m too enchanted with the flavor of impact and results that is quickly observable and attributable. But there’s value in finding our modern day cathedrals: the projects that are so ambitious and long that they have the power to change us. To apprentice in the art of cathedral building is to decenter the self, to fall in love with the process, and to loosen our fixation on the narrow band of results that is instantly observable. It is to have faith in something we may never see.