It was only a vacation trip, but daddy wanted to make it a cultural journey.

Therefore, countries and places to be visited were carefully chosen.

He took his wife and children to museums, art galleries, libraries and universities so they could see by themselves mankind's history in pictures, books and architecture.

Old castles were visited, some well kept, others in ruins. And the father made his best to point out details that marked man's efforts to defend his home,  his land, from others.

Over there, the feudal castle was erected in a strategic spot, allowing the eventual enemies, wishing to arrive by fluvial ways, to be seen at a great distance from its watchtowers.

In other instance, the imposing stone building was raised just next to an enormous quarry, allowing an easy access to raw materials.

Among the ruins of what once was an enormous castle, built high atop the landscape, dominating the panorama, the highlight for a  small wooden door, almost hidden among the greenery: the traitor's door.

It had been left open so enemies could invade and conquer a place formerly considered inaccessible.

And this way they carried on travelling, among colors, liveliness, history and notes.

But after visiting old churches with their peculiar architecture and unparalleled opulence, one of the boys asks the father:

Daddy, why do churches have such tall towers?

The father stopped for a moment. He had read a lot to be their cultural guide during those holydays. He strived to learn about painting, architecture, history.

But he could not remember reading anything about that. He quickly remembered visiting Saint Michel's church, in the similarly named hill in Normandy.

There, the statue of the archangel Saint Michel  sits atop the 105 feet tower.

He soon recalled other churches previously visited, some raised on high, privileged spots, with their towers reaching for the sky.

And he was about to open his mouth and start lecturing about architecture and the influence of style when his younger boy said:

That's easy, churches have pointed towers to carry faster people's prayers to God. They are like radio towers.

*   *   *

A simple answer from someone who remembered that the temples visited, even before the architectural richness, the filigrees, the styles of this or that time, are places of prayer.

Temples built by men, throughout time, in all epochs, reaching to have somewhere to talk to God.

A shelter, a refuge for holding a dialogue with the Divine.

And even if Jesus has taught that, for the dialogue with the Father of us all,  the temple should be that one at each one's heart and the altar that one at each one's conscience, it is fair to realize that man has always sought this contact with the Creator.

Therefore, let us use our mind and our heart to raise towers that pierce the sky through the poems of prayer.

These towers will surely be of unmatched height, since the verses will travel through the antennae of though towards the kind and loving Father of all Mankind.

Spiritist Moment Team.
September 27.2010.