1137-1144 Church Aspirations (Reprint)

"I seem to find myself, as it were, in some of the earth nor wholly of the serenity of heaven, but by the Grace of God I seemed lifted in a mystic manner from the lower ends to the upper sphere." Suger the Abbot of St. Denite (guiding the rebuilding between 1137 to 1144)

Lifting up higher in arched finger as if picking grapes from the outstretched branches.
500 churches went up. White-washed steeples promised renewal.
Reaching out like the tender waves collecting sand off of the rocky beaches.
High standing alters went up.
Aspiring like a great cedar, or was it an oak. The high middle ages attempted to build a golden stairway to heaven.