Sometimes readers write in with insights that just stun an editor and author. Yesterday, I wrote about the promising design of the new Oakland Cathedral. But evidently, I didn't look at the plans with sufficient, ahhh, imagination. The reader, who wishes his name be withheld, writes:

As an Evangelical Protestant, I am used to churches that are more of the worship—warehouse variety, which do not train us to view church architecture as symbolism.  I've never attended, though I've visited for example, a Catholic church in the classic shape of the cross; and I'm familiar with the Vatican's rows of collonades which, in effect, embrace the visitor with outstretched arms.